Andrea Zambaldi and Sebastian Haag, part of the Dynafit Double 8 team missing following an avalanche near the summit of Shisha Pangma (8013m) in the Himalayas. The Double 8 team which also included Benedikt Böhm had planned to speed climb two 8 thousand meter summits in one week. The summits would be linked by mountain bike.
The team had encountered difficult conditions on Shishapangma. A week ago heavy snow and high winds had forced them to retreat from 7700 meters. On the 23rd they launche a second summit bid accompained by the Swiss speed climber Ueli Steck and German Martin Maier.
Böhm and Steck began their speed ascent from 5600m at 16:30 reaching camp 1 (6300m) at around 20:00 and Sebastian Haag joined them from there. They met Martin Maier and Andrea Zambaldi just below camp 3 at around 01:00 arriving at camp 3 (7100m) at 2:00. At 06:50 the team were just 100m below summit and were hoping to top by 08:00. The climbers had been radioing base camp about the difficult and dangerous conditions throughout the climb. Böhm had said “the deep windlown snow is killing us.... heaps of snow and high risk of avalanche”.
Böhm's worries were realized when at 7900m an avalanche swept Zambaldi, Haag and Maier 600m over steep glaciers into another section of the mountain. Steck and Boehm were unable to reach the avalanche zone. Martin Maier survived the avalanche, spending a night in the open he reached camp 3 on the morning of the 25th. Andrea Zambaldi and Sebastian Haag are missing.
Benedikt Böhm and Sebastian Haag were on Manaslu when 25 skiers and climbers were caught by an avalanche at 7300 meters as they slept in their tents. On the advice of Greg Hill they had camped out of the path of potential avalanche danger. They helped search for survivors in the initial aftermath of they slide. Haag was a key part of many of Dynafit's expeditions and with Böhm holds speed ski mountaineering at the Muztagata and the Gasherbrum II. He was testing the new Dynafit expedition binding and Double 8 ski.
http://expedition-double8.dynafit.com/