the peak was reached by: Vanja Furlan, Tomaž Humar
	expedition members: Vanja Furlan (leader), Tomaž Humar, Zvonko Požgaj
	northwest face, they climb alpine-style the new Memorial Route for Stane Belak - Šrauf, VI 90° (70° V, A2+), they descend downthe southwest ridge
	1650 m
	to acclimatize they ascend Imjatse, 6173 m
	for the route they climbed they receive the prestigious mountaineering award - Golden Ice-Ax 1996 (Piolet d'or 1996)
	His first attempt to climb a virgin face alpine-style.
	To acclimatize he ascended the near-by Imatsje together with his co-climber Vasja Furlan.
	On April 16, 1996, they made their first attempt at the northwest face of Ama Dablam, but were forced to return to base due to bad weather conditions.
	On April 26, during their preparations for a second ascent, Tomaž's son Tomaž was born in Ljubljana.
	On April 30, Humar and Furlan tried to conquer the face for the second time. They succeeded after five days of climbing and it took them another two days to descend.
	They dedicated this route to mountaineer Stane Belak - Šrauf who had lost his life under an avalanche beneath Mala Mojstrovka six months earlier.

We knew for a fact that the face was as yet unclimbed and that two Slovene and one American-Canadian expeditions (the latter with Ed Webster and Paul Teare) had tackled it in vain. In addition to that there was no end of rumors about who had ostensibly started up this wonderful steep wall and was subsequently forced to turn back. I did not take these rumors to heart.

Before I can drive in the first ice-screw for a belay, the serac wakes up again.
"Watch out, Vanja," I yell. Adrenaline floods my body as the knowledge sinks in that a single chunk of ice can send us both plummeting down.

I do not know whether it was the morning sprinkling of rice around the chorten or something else. The serac was great, and our good luck greater.

In the early afternoon we set up our tent in the old spot. We cook, we rest, but our thoughts are already on the pitches in store for us tomorrow. We wake up at midnight. By the time we're ready to start climbing, it's three thirty.

We soon reach the highpoint of our first attempt. The going becomes too rough there, so we decide to haul the backpacks behind us. My tongue lolls about in my mouth as I gulp for air.
After twelve hours we slowly run out of vertical ice and face the crux: an overhanging rock barrier. We put away our ice-climbing equipment and get everything ready for technical climbing. We have before us a short pitch of powder snow on a slightly overhanging rock.

Those twenty-five meters of sheer despair took me two hours and a half, and I do not know to this day how I managed to cheat my way over, as I was unable to peg a single piton. My calves burned with pain, and I had long lost all feeling in my fingers and toes. When I finally drove in a piton next to a narrow ledge in the ice, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I would rather not repeat such a pitch in a long time.

I pull up both rucksacks. Slowly, Vanč comes up too, then we still have two overhanging pitches to climb. They'd be a piece of cake down in the valley, but up here...

The beauty of the sunset is interrupted by the sight of Vanja hurtling past, together with a piece of rock the size of a backpack; he swings to a stop five meters below the belay. Except for a rip in his Gore-Tex, a frayed rope and a broken carabiner, everything's okay. In the light of his helmet lamp Vanja continues to climb well into the evening, and then abseils back down to me around ten p.m. Having thus celebrated the May 1 holiday, Labor Day, hungry and thirsty, we now have to spend the night dangling at the end of our ropes.

In the morning we're awoken by the pain in our bleeding and torn fingers; we've both long lost sensation in our toes. Vanja jumars up to the stance and pulls both the rucksacks up. While I am unclipping the belay, the rope we have used to haul the rucksacks jams a few meters below. Vanja lowers me to unjam it. At that moment there's a loud noise from above and the bag with all our ice equipment - ten ice screws, the Abalakov hooker, the ice hooker, the deadman, and all the bolts - zooms past my head down into the depths below.

We both yell in terror. When our shrieks die away, we carry on as though nothing's happened.

Abstract from the book by Tomaž Humar, No Impossible Ways, 2001, Mobitel d.d., Ljubljana