1979 Yugoslav Mount Everest expedition

[5] None of the expeditions up to that point made a successful ascent using the West Ridge, which stretches for 6.5 km, from the Lho La pass above the base camp to the summit.

The first successful ascent of the West Ridge Direct was done by 24 Yugoslav alpinists, of which four reached the peak on the May 13th and 15th of 1979, using a route modified from the French to avoid the avalanche fall-lines.

Everyone had to learn English, everyone's psychological profile had to be ideal, everyone had to be physically healthy and fix their teeth, as well as create specific equipment that could not be bought.

[11] Five members of the expedition (Škarja, Belak, Marenče, Robas, Zaplotnik) left a year earlier in order to scout, check, agree and set up their base camp at 5,300 meters.

In the port of Rijeka, 18 tons of equipment were loaded onto the ship: over 10 km of climbing ropes, 350 m of hanging and aluminum ladders, 40 tents, 80 sleeping bags, 30 pairs of specially made "gojzerica" climbing shoes, 500 screws and wedges for rocks and ice, several hundred liters of kerosene and gas for cooking and almost four tons of food.

[11] The equipment was carried for 19 days by 750 local porters up to 6,000 meters above sea level, where a base camp was set up on the Khumbu Glacier.

Between March 29 and April 6, the expedition fixed ropes on the slope between the base camp (5,350 m) and the edge of the Lho La (6,050 m) pass, and installed a hand-operated cable transport 200 meters long.

The expedition was met with their first technical problem while climbing the Lho La at around 6,000 meters, when they pitched their tents there but strong wind blew them away.

Yugoslav expedition bypassed the obstacle, continued climbing via the West Ridge and set up their fourth camp at 7,520 meters on April 27.

He took off his gloves after climbing over a tall vertical slab of granite on the top of which he hung a rope, and when he set it up he saw that he had to go back because his hands were frozen.

The next day, Dušan Podbevšek and Roman Robas won their summit bid, but lost their way in the rock towers, and due to loss of time had to return to the base as well.

Andrej Štremfelj was initially ambitious to reach the summit with his brother, but Marko's oxygen system and backup ventilator both failed and he had to go down.

The Western Cwm suddenly rushed towards him, as his handhold broke off in his hand, and Andrej started holding him on a rope until he recovered.

Zaplotnik exited it across a boulder, but Andrej's pack frame got caught in the chimney and he tumbled, fell over, and accelerated wildly down the hill flipping.

As the two exhausted climbers approached Camp IV, night had already fell, their headlamps flickered, the temperature dropped and they lost their way.

On descent, the weather worsened quickly and the team were unable to return to Camp IV before dark and were forced to spend the night in a -40 °C temperature, without tents or sleeping bags, at an altitude of 8,400 meters.

[18][19] They managed to survive the night, but on the following day, Ang Phu slipped and fell to his death going through the Hornbein Couloir.

[8][20] The death of a friend hit the members of the expedition hard, so they stopped all activities in the mountain and left the base camp on May 21.

The Zagreb's biggest mountaineering gathering of all time was held on the 9 October 1979 — about 3,500 people came to the Lisinski Hall to hear and see the Yugoslavian Himalayans who conquered Mount Everest.

Stipe Božić became the first Croat to have climbed the Mount Everest, and the decision to film his expeditions largely determined his career as a director of numerous documentaries and shows on Croatian Radio Television.

[22][23][24] The four climbers who reached the peak and many other members of the expedition gathered together on March 14, 2019, in Karlovac, Croatia, where they recounted their memories of the historic climb.