Kilian Jornet Instagram – Back from Khumbu, Nepal! This expedition was a failure. Or? I didn’t reach the summit I was aiming for. But everything else. I’m a big believer in the how is way bigger and more important than the what, and in that sense the climb was just perfect. Like a big puzzle with all the pieces but one, the summit one. In 1963 the late Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoled made a first ascent of this beautiful route. It was a pleasure to follow their footsteps for a little. My climb started climbing a steep couloir to reach the west shoulder, the conditions there were horrible, blue ice underneath with a top layer of deep snow, 2 steps up and one down for 1000m! When I reached the ridge it was very windy so I stayed under a cornice for 3h to calm down while enjoying watching the queues of climbers from both nepali and tibetan normal routes making their progression. After the wind calmed I continued the ridge and traversed on mixed terrain towards the feet of the Hornbein couloir. I felt great and conditions were perfect. After a few hundred meters on the couloir a wind pocket (I suppose recently created from the morning winds) broke and I got carried down in the avalanche for about 50m. I doubted whether to continue or to turn around and decided the latter. The downhill was interesting, with heavy snowfall that made me use the @corosglobal “back to start” feature following my way up, since visibility was 2-3m and my tracks were under deep snow. Well, a great day in the mountains, where everything was beyond perfect except I didn’t reach the summit. Visit NNormal’s link in bio for more details. 📸 @julien_rai @bertranddelapierre