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Simone Moro and the Legacy of Anatoli Boukreev
Base Camp - Friday, April 14, 2000

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Editor's Note: The following story was emailed today from Everest Base Camp by Dan Morrison, Quokka Sports/MountainZone.com correspondent.

Simone Moro would probably prefer to be known as just an accomplished Italian mountaineer, which he is. But through a harsh twist of fate for now, at least, he is known as the man who was on the rope with Anatoli Boukreev when Boukreev was swept to his death in an avalanche on Annapurna on Christmas Day, 1998.

Thirty-two-year-old Moro has now arrived at Everest Base Camp with an ambitious goal, to climb Mount Everest and traverse from its summit to the summit of Lhotse before returning to Base Camp.

Moro is no stranger to the Himalaya. "I've done fifteen expeditions in Nepal." He has not climbed Everest before, but he has climbed Lhotse twice, both times without oxygen.

Although Moro just arrived in Base Camp, he feels he is already acclimatized enough to push on to Camp I. "Yes," he explains, "because yesterday we climbed Kala Patar in 38 minutes." Moro is used to speed climbing. "In 1994 I climbed Lhotse in seventeen hours from Camp I. And yesterday I came to Gorak Shep in one hour from Lobuche, with my friend. And we said, okay, let's try to go up. And in 38 minutes. It is nothing. It only confirms that we are ready to climb tomorrow."

Moro's original plan for Everest was even more ambitious than the one he is following now. "The original plan," he says, "was to do the traverse of Lhotse from the China side, then to arrive to here [Base Camp on the south side]." Getting permission from the Chinese government proved impossible. "So I decided to do the traverse of Everest to Lhotse, starting from the Nepal side, and arriving in Nepal. And this means I want to arrive at the South Col after going to the summit of Everest, then I will go from the South Col to the summit of Lhotse."

Moro will climb Everest solo, then will rendezvous with his climbing partner, 26-year-old Denis Urubko on the South Col to climb Lhotse together. Urubko is a climber from Kazakhstan and last season he and Moro climbed all five 7000-meter peaks in Kazakhstan together.

"This project had been born in the minds of me and Anatoli Boukreev. This is the reason I want to realize this goal, together with one Kazakh climber."

— Dan Morrison, Quokka Sports/MountainZone.com Everest Correspondent

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