Hinkes Summit Lies?

Alan Hinkes is poised to become the first Briton to scale all 14 of the 8,000-metre peaks if he successfully climbs Kangchenjunga, but according to American web site mounteverest.net, Hinkes has only scaled 12 of the 13 peaks he claims to have climbed.

The web site, part of the Explorers Web group, says that Hinkes' climb of Cho Oyu, one of the easiest of the 8,000-ers has not been recognised and that even if he succeeds on Kangchenjunga, he will still be one short of the magic 14.

So what's going on? We contacted Explorers Web and asked them how they justify their allegations. They responded that ' it's the statistician's who have ruled this. We just report on the issue, as false summits claims are not viewed kindly by the community (they dilute true achievement.'

We are 99.9 per-cent sure...

They also forwarded an e-mail from one of the staticians who keeps 'definitive' records of successful climbs in the Himalaya, Eberhard Jurgalski.

"The late French climbers Royer and Chamoux, two other French climbers (Valet, Detry), Czech Rakoncaj and Hinkes came into bad clouds and fog at the edge of the large Cho Oyu plateau. Detry and Valet told Liz Hawley, that they were only on the edge and then returned because of the heavy weather.

"Xavier asked Hinkes some time later, why he does not agree with the others and he told him that he tried alone for one hour in the fog to find the true summit and he "has no proof to have not been to the summit" and so he count it. For Liz Hawley, Xavier and myself it is 99,99 % sure that he was NOT on the highest point, so he is deleted on all of the Cho Oyu lists."

Effectively then, the unofficial keepers of Himalayan summit records have decided not to take Alan's word that he found the true summit on Cho Oyu's summit plateau, something which will asonish those who know Alan and respect his inegrity. More prosaically, you could ask what the hell Hinkes - below - would have done for an hour up there if he didn't summit.

No doubts...

Sponsors Berghaus have no doubts. "Berghaus implicitly believes that Alan has summitted Cho Oyo." Says PR and Sponsorship manager Dave Evans. "Why would a climber who has returned numerous times to tackle peaks such as K2 and Kangchenjunga, attempt to fake a summit? Cho Oyo is also recognised as one of the easiest of the peaks, although to describe any of these mountains as easy does not do justice to the gargantuan efforts required to achieve any summit over 8000 metres.

"Anyone who knows Alan will also know that his Challenge 8000 is very personal to him. He is a very driven individual and would not be happy with himself if he had not achieved every peak he set out to climb. For this reason if he says he's summitted Cho Oyo, that's enough for us."

It would be a terrible shame if Alan were to summit Kangchenjunga only to find his achievement devalued by these claims. It's a sad comment on the state of mountaineering ethics, that this situation exists at all and, like most people who've spent time with Alan, we find it inconceivable that he would lie about his achievements.