David Lama


David Lama was an Austrian sport climber and mountaineer. He won the European Championship in bouldering in 2007 and the European Championship in lead climbing in 2006. He is known for his first free ascent of the Compressor Route on Cerro Torre. In 2018, in a solo expedition, he was the first to reach the summit of Lunag Ri in the Himalayas. In 2019, he was posthumously honoured with a Piolet d'Or for this first ascent.

Biography

David Lama was born in 1990. His father is a mountain guide from Nepal and his mother is an Austrian from Innsbruck. He was five years old when Himalaya veteran Peter Habeler first watched him climb in a climbing camp organized by him. Afterwards, Habeler immediately called his parents to tell them that their boy had an unusual talent. Lama then became part of the competition climbing team coached by Reinhold Scherer.

Competition climbing

In 2004, 14 years old, Lama won the European Youth Cup. In the same year he climbed his first route.
He repeated his win at the European Youth Cup in 2005 and moved on to Senior competitions in 2006. The International Federation for Sport Climbing changed their rules so that Lama, only 15 years old at the time, could compete in the Senior World Cup.
Lama became the youngest person to compete at the World Cup and the first to win both a lead and a bouldering World Cup final in his first season.
Lama became European Champion, both in lead climbing and bouldering. In 2008 he won the overall ranking in the World Cup. And in 2009 he placed 3rd at the World Championships in the category lead.
In 2011 he retired from competition climbing so he could focus solely on mountaineering.

Mountaineering

[Cerro Torre] free ascent

In 2009 David Lama announced his intention to free climb Cerro Torre via the Compressor Route, which means only natural rock and ice formations are used for the ascent of the mountain. Bolts and rope only serve as protection in case of a fall. Nobody had done this before, all previous ascents had used climbing aids of one kind or another. Alpinist legend Reinhold Messner even called the undertaking “crazy and impossible”.
For his first attempt in 2009 Lama brought along a film crew provided by his sponsor Red Bull. This first attempt ended in failure. Lama and his climbing partner Daniel Steuerer had to turn around due to bad weather. Back at base camp the conditions stayed bad and the team had to abandon the endeavor for the 2009/2010 season.
The aftermath of this first attempt started a scandal in the mountaineering scene. Both Lama and the Red Bull film crew were heavily criticized. The film crew had left behind at least 30 drilled bolts next to a route already laden with bolts. 700 metres of fixed rope and five haul bags were also left behind along the route. Argentinian guides were hired to remove the equipment, but they did not manage to remove all of it and none of the bolts were removed.
Lama stated that he was not aware of the large number of bolts that were drilled by the film team, but he took full responsibility for the actions and promised not to repeat the mistake. He promised to remove the remaining equipment in the following year.
They returned for a second attempt in January 2011. Peter Ortner, a more experienced climber, replaced Steuerer as Lama's climbing partner from this point onward. This initial ascent had to be aborted as well because the head wall was full of ice. On February 12, during a small good weather window, the two climbers managed to reach the summit using aided techniques. This ascent raised the morale of the team after the long series of failures and was used for scouting out the free route.
In January 2012, Lama and his team returned for a third expedition. A few days before the planned ascent they got the news that the climbers Jason Kruk and Hayden Kennedy had completed the compressor route, using as few bolts as they could manage. On their way back down they removed all the bolts they deemed unnecessary in order to restore the challenge of the mountain. More than 120 bolts in total, most of them from the historical 1970 Cesare Maestri gas-powered compressor ascent. The headwall of the compressor route and one pitch below were completely freed of bolts. This move caused a heated debate in the mountaineering community. Both climbers were briefly detained by Chilean police and the removed bolts were confiscated.
Lama's first reaction was that he did not need the bolts for his climb anyway and he moved ahead with his free climbing attempt. Since the old bolted route was not climbable anymore by regular means, the film crew had to ascend the summit via the west side of the mountain and rappel down with ropes in order to document the next attempt.
On January 19, 2012, Lama and Ortner finished the first free ascent of Cerro Torre via the south-east ridge compressor route in 24 hours in total.
According to Lama they brought 5 bolts along, but they did not have to place any of them. They ascended to the left of the crack climbed by Salvaterra and Mabboni, here Lama took one fall, but he managed to climb it on the second attempt. He later rated this crux in terms of difficulty. The two climbers slept for the night in bivouac sacks below the Ice Towers.
On the next day, after ascending most of the headwall, they went right of the compressor, following cracks and flakes in the rock, all the way to the summit. All previous routes went left of the compressor.
In 2013, National Geographic made David Lama "Adventurer of the Year" for his free ascent of Cerro Torre.
The documentary Cerro Torre: A Snowball's Chance in Hell documents the ascent.

[Lunag Ri] first ascent (solo)

In 2015 David Lama teamed up with The North Face climbing team captain Conrad Anker in order to climb the Lunag Ri, one of the highest unclimbed peaks in the Himalayas.
Their first attempt was on Nov 12, 2015. They picked a rock crevice that would allow them to climb up to the north-west pillar of the mountain. Up on the ridge they planned to follow it up to the peak using mixed climbing techniques. It was already late when they reached the top of the ridge, so for the night they set up a bivouac underneath a boulder. They continued in the early morning of the next day. Lack of ice and bad snow conditions complicated protection. They did not manage to reach the summit during the next day. They had to make the decision whether to dig in and wait out another night, at potential temperatures of -40 °C and strong wind, or turn around and descend the mountain. They decided for the latter and aborted the attempt around 300 metres below the summit.
They had to abandon the endeavor for that year, but returned for a second attempt in 2016.
In November 6, 2016, during the second attempt, Conrad Anker suffered a heart attack at a height of while climbing up the rock crevice. The two climbers quickly decided to rappel down the mountain. Lama called for an emergency helicopter rescue at base camp. 12 hours after the heart attack Anker underwent surgery in Kathmandu. A thrombotic occlusion was removed from his proximal left artery. As a result of this injury Anker quit high altitude climbing, or the "hurt locker" as he calls it.
Lama was left behind without climbing partner at the base camp. Since Anker had declared that he would not return, Lama decided to start another attempt alone.
This third attempt was started on November 8, 2016. Lama ascended the north-west ridge via a longer, but easier rock crevice and set up camp. Since he had no climbing partner he had to use roped solo techniques in order to ascent the ridge, climbing one pitch as lead, setting up an anchor and then rappeling back down to remove protections. Ascending the mountain this way together with a heavy backpack turned out to be too much of a challenge. Lama aborted this third attempt as well, not far from the location of the high point of the first expedition with Conrad Anker.
In October 23, 2018, David Lama returned for a fourth and final attempt. Again solo, he ascended the mountain in three days over the north-west ridge. He followed the same line he had taken on his first solo attempt. He had to set up bivwak two times for the nights at temperatures of -30 °C with 80 km/h storm gusts. During the entire third day he was unable to feel his toes. He decided to push on despite of this and reached the summit at 10:00 a.m. After a few minutes on the summit he immediately rappeled back down. At midnight he was back at base camp. He did not lose any of his toes.

Death

On 16 April 2019, David Lama, along with climbers Jess Roskelley and Hansjörg Auer, was caught in an avalanche on Howse Peak in the Waputik Range of the Canadian Rockies. The group had climbed a new route on the east face of Howse Peak, one of the most challenging Canadian rock-and-ice faces.
Photos from Jess Roskelley’s phone indicate that the three climbers had reached the summit on Tuesday, April 16 at 12:44 PM. Their bodies were found 21 April 2019. It can be deduced from a photograph taken from Icefields Parkway by a climber from Canmore that a large cornice broke off above their route. He reported that the resulting avalanche swept the south-east face at 1:58, 31 minutes after they had reached a steep couloir above a basin to descend their route. Their bodies were recovered from an avalanche cone below the icefall route "Life by the Drop". The shallow layer of snow covering the climbers is a further indicator of a cornice break as the cause of the accident.

Competition results

[IFSC World Championships]

UIAA and [IFSC European Championships]

Number of medals in the UIAA and [IFSC Climbing World Cup]s

Overall winner in IFSC World Cup 2008.

Lead / Combined

Bouldering

SeasonGoldSilverBronzeTotal
200611
2008224
Total3 25

[IFSC Climbing World Youth Championships]

Discipline2004
Youth B		2005
Youth B		2006
Youth A
Lead113

European Youth Cups