원정 개요

BC at 2 km down from North Face (same as in 1984)
ABC on a buttress of NE Ridge in a gully
High point at ABC.

Probably the 3 climbers got no higher than 5030m since weather again very bad on 16th Oct with heavy snowfall and occasional strong wind gusts. Urkien Sherpa met Newell, Spake and Gyalzen Sherpa on 15th below ABC site. Newell sent back with him a note to Leung saying they expected to reach ABC site in 1 or 2 days. All were well. They made bivouacs between BC and ABC as they moved up, probably reached ABC on 16th Oct and could go no higher because of snow fall.

Spake was supposed to be load and message carrier only.

Atkinson left team well before caravan reached BC; claimed his girl friend's bad knee prevented her from trekking.


Report of Mary E. Leung - 30 Oct 85

Oct 18 the three members of Langtang Lirung climbing party (Newell, Spake and Gyalzen) decided to come back to BC due to bad weather. They had been on the mountain since Oct 13. On 16 the weather again turned bad, continuing until Oct 20.

The morning they decided to come down it was also raining. The route from which they were descending was one we had not observed them climbing on before.

The members at BC including cook, kitchen boy, mailrunner, porter and sirdar Urkien Norbu saw three objects carried down by an avalanche. At the time of the avalanche they were at an altitude of approx 16,000 ft. They fell to an altitude of about 12,385 ft.

Immediately after the avalanche we went to the site. The sirdar and a few others saw a jacket sleeve, most probably of Elliot or Gyalzen, an ice axe and one mattress pad. We weren't able to approach them to offer assistance because of constant avalanching. After about 45 minutes we left the site to go back to BC. The rest of that day we were unable to go back because of constant eminent avalanching due to the falling rain and snow. The following day Oct 19, several BC members tried to go back to the site twice, but were unable to do anything because of the danger of more avalanching and a lack of digging implements. Snow and fog were quite heavy that day.

Oct 20 was a sunny clear day. We finished same digging tools out of wood and in the afternoon the BC members tried to dig where they had seen the items before but were unsuccessful. The snow was too deep after two days and nights of snowfall and avalanching.

On Oct 21 we departed BC to return to KTM. We were unable to recover any bodies or equipmment on the mountain since none of the BC members were equipped for high altitude climbing. Nor were we able to determine if they were abandoning the expedition or merely coming down to BC to wait for good weather.