원정 개요

BC at 4700m near French Expedition
C1 at 5900m NE Col
C2 at 6800m 10m from NE Ridge
C3 at 7500m on NE Ridge.

Porters refused to take loads beyond Hidden Valley, so had to shuttle gear during next days. In C1 and C2 made in snow holes because roomier, warmer and away from wind: in Caucasus always used snowholes rather than tents. Only at C3 used tent, but put it in crevasse. 1st time at C3 was 4 Oct for acclimatization and down to C2, 5 Oct to BC. But weather delayed movement up again (at BC about 1 meter of snow). Slept in C3 on 12 Oct. Decided not to make traverse above C3 because dangerous avalanching on face, so stayed on NE Ridge and made new fixed rope on ridge in places were mixed rock and snow dangerous and need to jummar; fixed total 400m (300m taken from below C3 fixed by French). 13th, 14th and 15th after sunshine on route they fixed ropes. Above C3 snow not deep but below it was so deep that used snowshoes here (snowshoes very slow but not possible to move without them). 16th climbed to false summit at 8000m; very disappointed to see true summit above, requiring descent before reaching it, thus returned to C3. 17th started up before 5:00 am climbing in dark, moved quickly since now big storm coming from Annapurna. Reached false summit and beyond to main summit at 3:00 pm and back to C3 6:00 pm in snowfall and wind and bad visability. Took all day on 18th to reach C2 because of avalanching; normally took 1 hour to go down to C2. 19th down past C1, intending to go to BC but forced to pitch tent in icefall at 5700m. 20 Oct 2:00 pm finally in BC. 23 Oct went to Marpha to bring up porters and left all gear in one tent at BC and when returned all gone ($8000 worth gear), probably taken by trekking group's porters.