Bulgarian Expeditions to 8000+
Bulgarian_Summit_Statistics
Climbing amid the winter K2 it’s already a mouth full.
And The recent fatal accident with Atanas Skatov polarized Bulgarian society.
On one side we have his fans who praise him for being a self-thought, vegan, solo climber with 11 successful summits of 8000+m peaks. The opponent group consists of traditional alpinists and their fellows. They reject Skatov’s achievement due to his style of climbing.
All this got me thinking.
SOLO vs PARTNER climb?
Till Feb 2021 Bulgarians have attempted an ascended 90 times to a summit with an altitude above 8000m. Successful means, a person goes to the highest point and returns to the Base Camp alive.
Bulgarian_Summit_Statistics
All 8000+ peaks are located in the Himalayas and Karakorum. 90% of all ascends are successful when executed with a partner. Furthermore, a SOLO climb has a 19% likelihood to finish with a tragedy or 13% with a drop-off.
Bulgarian Summits_8000m
As the Bulgarian record of climbers who successfully ascended an 8000+m peak, there is huge debate who is the best among them all. The criteria are changing frequently. However, the most appreciated by worldwide alpinists are “solo climbs, without external support and oxygen doping”. Such summits are extremely rare. Maybe only Messner and few others had accomplished them. The list above refers only to who has been most often on a summit.
Bulgarian_Summit_Statistics
Bulgarian climbers ascended Mt. Everest most frequently. Such adventure brought success to many.
Bulgarian_Summit_Statistics
Today, I still remember the massive tragedy with Hristo Prodanov (Everest expedition 1984). Also, K2 has costed the lives of two Bulgarian climbers.
Conclusion
From a statistical point of view, the data set of Bulgarian summits above 8000+m is rather narrow (only 90, regardless of the outcome). In an ideal case, it would have been more reliable, if we had min 150 data points per instance. This will give ~95% confidence in the conclusions above.
However, the data is what it is. Let’s hope soon to see more Bulgarian expeditions with great success.
In the meantime, if you happen to plan such an expedition you might be better off doing it with a partner due to the bigger likelihood of a positive outcome. Selecting the right partner is another massive challenge.
Successful means going to the top and descending to the safety of the Base Camp alive.
Solo = final push to the summit alone
With Partner = ascending together with somebody else
It is questionable if the tragic accidents with Hristo Prodanov (Mt. Everest 1984) & Hristo Hristov (Mt. Everest 2004) should be classified as Solo or with a Partner. In reality, both of them were part of Bulgarian national expeditions with many members. For simplicity, I set them as Solo.