2021 Himalayan Climbs: Interview with Jon Gupta: Everest, K2, Manaslu Controversy, and more

I caught up with British climbing Guide, Jon Gupta of Mountain Expeditions to discuss his amazing 2021 where he guided mostly one client, fellow Brit Rebecca 'Becks' Ferry on six 8000-meter mountains. He also climbed a 7000er with a friend and is now on Ama Dablam. Overall he climbed (time the discussion starts in the video)

Everest (Summit) at 19:50
Lhotse (Summit) at 22:00
Makalu (reached 7500m)
K2 (Summit) at 25:05
Pobeda (reached 7200m)
Manaslu (Fore Summit ~8160m) at 40:00
Dhaulagiri (reached 7817m) at 36.09
Ama Dablam - TBD

We cover a range of topics from how he got into climbing, why he prefers private guiding over the large commercial team model, his experience on Everest (at 19:50), especially with COVID (at 22:48), their experience on Makalu (25:05) which Becks considers her best moment even though they didn't summit, their K2 summit (25:05) - a first for Jon and Becks, their summit experience on Manaslu (40:00) and the current discussion around the true vs. fore summit, and why they turned back on their summit push on Dhaulagiri (36:09).
I think you'll enjoy meeting this highly experienced Mountain Guide and enjoy watching some of his videos that can also be found on his Instagram and Facebook accounts.
Climb On!
Alan
Memories are Everything
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