원정 개요

Pioneer Adventure Dhaulagiri expedition was a combination of several independent teams (1-2 climbers each). Pioneer provided transportation, base camp facilities and various levels of high altitude support (oxygen, high-altitude porters, tents, etc) as required and contracted for by each team. The individual accounts for each team are given below:


Piyali Basak (India)

Appr: Trekked from Marpha->French Pass->BC
Camps: BC(17/09,4700m),C1(21/09,5700m),C2(23/09,6300m),C2.5(28/09,7000m),
C3(29/09,7250m),Smt(01/10)
Left: 03/10 by heli to Pokhara
Hired: 1
Term: Success at 6:30 am by Basak and Danuru Sherpa.

Basak and Danuru did not do an acclimatisation rotation because there was not enough time for the weather window. On 23/09 Basak ascended to C2 (without crampons!!) and Danuru to BC. The weather got bad when Basak was at C2, she stayed at C2. On 25/09 Danuru joined Basak at C2 and picked up her crampons from C1 on the way. On 28/09 the team started their ascent to C3, but it was very deep snow. They did not reach C3 and put up an intermediate camp at 7000m and ascended to C3 on 29/09.

They started their summit push on 29/09 at 9 pm from C3. Basak carried one bottle of oxygen in her rucksack, but did not use it. They reached about 7700m, but there was a lot of snow and a big snowstorm. They returned to C3 on 30/09 at 1 am.

On 30/09, team started their second summit push at 8 pm. Basak was more confident that she could summit without oxygen and left the oxygen at high camp. They stayed 30 mins on the summit and descended to C2 where they reached between 8 pm and 9 pm. On 02/10 to BC.

Oxygen: Taken and used from C3 to top to C3 only by Danuru Sherpa.


Pasang Lhamu Sherpa (Nepal)

Appr: Trekked from Marpha->French Pass->BC
Camps: BC(17/09,4700m),C1(21/09,5700m),C2(22/09,6350m),C2.5(28/09,6800m),
C3(29/09,7250m),Smt(01/10)
Left: 03/10 by heli to Pokhara
Hired: 1
Term: Success at 5:45 am by Pasang Lhamu together with rope-fixing team.

On rotation, the rope-fixing team fixed to C3 and returned to C2 on 22/09. Pasang Lhamu was intending to reach C3 that time, but as the weather window was going to be on 29/09 she returned to BC to rest and get ready for the summit push.

On summit rotation, Pasang Lhamu and the fixing team went to C2 direct on 27/09. On 28/09, they intended to get to C3, but the snow was too deep, so they set up a camp at 6800m.

On 29/09 at 9 pm, she left with the fixing team for the summit, but they turned back at around 7600m because the snow was too deep and it was too windy. They returned to C3. The fixing team left again on 30/09 at 10 am and stayed on the ridge which was possible during the day as it was not so windy. They took the center couloirs which end up directly on the summit. The fixing team summited at 5:45 am [note: other reports give summit time as 5:30 am for fixing team].

On 30/09 Pasang left C3 at 6 pm on her own. The weather was calm and clear. The snow was very loose and there was no fixed rope on the traverse to the couloirs. She had to wait on the bottom of the couloirs for the fixing team to finish. She was with the Chinese lady Jing who went without oxygen.

Pasang stayed for about 15 minutes on the summit and descended to BC where she arrived at 10 pm.

Left BC on 04/10 by heli.

Oxygen: Taken, used from C3 to top to C3 by Pasang Lhamu.



Luke Smithwick (USA)
Iain Kuo (USA)

Appr: Besisahar->Karte->Marpha->BC
Camps: BC(17/09,4650m),C1(20/09,5840m),C2(28/09,6426m),xxx(29/09,6750m)
Left: 02/10 to Marpha
Hired: 0
Term: High-point by Smithwick and Kuo

Tean never made a summit push as they saw no sense in going higher with no forecast and no acclimatization yet to do so. They descended to BC, and Marc De Keyser explained to them that there was no summit window in the coming 10 days.

They left no fixed ropes on the mountain and skied from 6750m to the icefall.

Conditions were deep snow, they shared in trail breaking with the team that was paid to break trail and fix ropes.

Fixed rope: 1000m

Oxygen: Not taken, not used.


From Palkesh Kalma (from www.curlytales.com):

Palkesh said that his best mountaineering experience was when he had first climbed a 7000-metre peak. Elucidating the experience, he said, “During the summit push I continuously climbed for almost 10 hours and reached the Summit early morning and saw a sunrise from there.” When asked about his toughest mountaineering experience, Palkesh said, “On my recent expedition to Dhaulagiri. I climbed continuously for more than 24 hours on the Summit day where I left for the Summit around 5:50 PM on 30th evening, reached the summit of Dhaulagiri (8167m) around 6:15 AM on 1st October and came back directly to Base Camp (4700m) around 8:50 PM on the same day.” Dhaulagiri is the 7th highest mountain peak in the world.