원정 개요

Fregona left C2 together with Bruno Buchet at midnight. They reached C3 at 2 am. Fregona's feet were very cold and he was worried about frostbite. They went into an empty tent and Fregona was trying to warm up his feet. Buchet left him and 5:30 am and carried on to the summit. Once the sun came out Fregona was getting warmer and decided to carry on to the summit. He felt good and strong and reached the summit at 2 pm. He spent 1/2 hour there and shot a video (which I saw). He descended to C2 where he arrived at 5 pm. On 3 Oct he dismantled C2 and C1 and returned to ABC.

Christian Stangl and Tom Van den Berghe, who also summited Cho Oyu with Asian Trekking, had doubts about Fregona summiting. Van den Berghe phoned met me on 1 Oct to express his doubts. He said when he saw Fregona at C3 at 8 am he looked very weak and he does not believe that Fregona only took 5 hours from C3 to summit. However, I contacted Fregona after my conversation with Van den Berghe and Fregona showed me the video he took and he was clearly on the summit. Good views of Everest right into the Western Cwm.