KATHMANDU, MAY 27
A 35-year-old female climber from Germany today scaled the world's highest mountain without using supplemental oxygen as she completed 12 of the 14 peaks above 8,000m. Blacha also became the first German woman to climb Everest without O₂.
According to Mingma G, Managing Director at Imagine Nepal Treks, German mountaineer Anja Karen Blacha stood atop the roof of the world without using bottled oxygen support at around 11:38 a.m.
"For Blacha, the most successful German high-altitude mountaineer, Everest was her twelfth eight-thousander that she has scaled without O₂," Mingma G said.
Blacha had climbed Mt Everest from the Tibetan side in 2017 and from the Nepal side in 2021, but she used supplemental oxygen. "This season, she climbed the mountain without using O₂," he said.
Blacha will have to scale Shishapangma and Lhotse without using oxygen to complete all 14 peaks, according to Mingma G.
Blacha holds a number of climbing records: in 2017, she became the youngest German woman to climb Everest and the youngest German overall to climb all Seven Summits. In 2019, she became the first German woman to climb K2. In 2020, she set a world record as the first woman to ski solo and unsupported from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole.
"This journey also makes her the youngest person ever to reach the South Pole solo and unsupported from a coastal starting point," Mingma G informed.
