Rebirth in the death zone

In 2015 Jost Kobusch narrowly escaped death on Everest. 18 people around him died from an avalanche. He describes the day as his rebirth.

Munich - At the beginning Jost Kobusch is still laughing. He will be at Base Camp on Mount Everest on April 25, 2015. At an altitude of 5360 meters. The mountain climber sits in the catering tent with friends. Suddenly the floor trembles, chairs tip over, the tent wobbles. An earthquake? Kobusch and his friends enjoy the tingling in their legs as if they were “on a small sailboat with high waves on the open sea.” When the alpinists step in front of the tent, Kobusch is struck. A shock of shock covers his entire body. Just a few seconds earlier he was talking about the supposedly harmless earthquake, now he is looking at people who are running in panic for their lives. A huge avalanche roars inexorably towards the base camp. Kobusch is looking for protection behind a tent with his friends Kuntal and Taro. The laugh has long since passed, stuck in his throat. When the avalanche thunders over the three friends, it feels like the force of nature is sucking oxygen out of Kobusch's lungs. He can barely breathe and is certain: I will die here and today.

Kobusch survived. A total of 18 people lost their lives around him. The then 21-year-old films the dramatic moments with his cell phone camera: "I thought if the thing caught me completely, I would at least want to capture it." The video that he uploaded to YouTube received a lot of attention. TV stations around the world record the sequence in their programs. To date, the recording has 24 million clicks.

Kobusch was lucky. "People died next to me. It was a near-death experience. ”He describes that day at Base Camp as his rebirth. He had expected to die. The extreme athlete sees everything that comes now that he can still experience as a bonus: "It is strange to say this because it has cost so many lives, but it was one of the best moments of my life." And indeed, it sounds strange. If you talk to people who have faced death, you are more likely to expect post-traumatic stress disorder. But Kobusch draws strength from the situation. The moment he is buried under the avalanche, the Bielefeld native feels what he absolutely wants to do in his life: mountaineering.

Flashback: Kobusch grows up in Borgholzhausen. A small town in North Rhine-Westphalia. The 27-year-old begins to challenge himself early on, to confront himself. Despite his fear of heights, he decides to go climbing in school in sixth grade: "I have always enjoyed examining my fear intensely, feeling it." At the age of 16, Kobusch climbed the rock for the first time. The need grows to climb a high mountain. Preferably an 8000, with whom he constantly deals in his youth - whether in magazines, books or films.

In his book “Me Up Alone. From the survival of a young solo mountaineer ”he describes his feeling of being able to find“ the last real adventures of our time ”in the mountains. Kobusch starts small. At the age of 17 he and his family were in Bavaria, and they took the cable car to the Zugspitze. Rieta, a sister of Jost, had taken part in a competition and won the trip through a particularly beautifully shaped gingerbread heart with icing. There it is again, the luck that the mountaineer from the Teutoburg Forest was holding even during the avalanche. Or was the Bavaria trip won more "coincidence", as it says in his book? Anyway, the gingerbread heart with the frosting of sister Rieta gives Kobusch the first trip to the mountains, which he won't let go of.

At 20, the alpinist climbed Mont Blanc, at 21 he set a world record by climbing the 6812-meter-high Ama Dablam in Nepal free-solo. He actually wants to study alpine medicine and is even completing the pre-study internship: "But I thought before you start studying, you first climb an 8000 meter." That 8000 meter was supposed to be the Lhotse in April 2015, the fourth highest mountain in the world at 8516 meters and a side summit of Mount Everest. Fortunately, the avalanche that overflows the base camp does not take his life. But the near-death experience changes the life of Jost Kobusch. The course has long been forgotten, he becomes a professional mountaineer. The ambitious athlete is always on his own on his big expeditions. "There is an emptiness. There are no stimuli that come to me from outside. I have to fill the emptiness myself. ”Kobusch meets himself on the mountain - and his fears. He always divides his expedition into danger zones: “Of course I'm also afraid in red zones. One mistake and you won't survive. But fear is nice. It creates focus. "

Kobusch does without additional oxygen and carriers. He is looking for the wilderness - "all the equipment and ropes take away the purity of the environment."

The mountain athlete is now experiencing the adventure stories he dreamed of as a child himself. He manages the first ascent of the 7296 meter high Nagpai Gosum II. For him this is true alpinism, the departure into the unknown: “You stand up there and know , there was no one here yet. "

His first 8000m peak, the Annapurna, finally proves what he can do. When he stands on top, he feels a little warmth, followed by a cold shower on his back. On the descent, he follows a mountaineer for hours until he realizes that he does not leave any traces in the snow. Kobusch hallucinates.

It is such borderline experiences that fascinate him. In February of this year he tries the - so far unmatched - winter solo on Everest. At 7350 meters it also has to stop, "otherwise I would have risked my life." Everest is even more dangerous in winter, the cold is brutal: "If I try an 8000m again in spring, it will feel like a vacation. "

Kobusch has already planned the next expedition. He does not want to reveal the goal yet. But one thing is certain: The fear that drove him to the Kletter-AG at the age of 12 will also accompany him again - and inspire him.

BY NICO-MARIUS SCHMITZ