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International Dhaulagiri Expedition led by Mrs Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner - 6 May 2008

The team arrived at BC at 4700m on 12 April. They pitched no fixed camps above BC, but instead had a series of bivouacs as they moved up and down the mountain with one small tent.

Their first bivouac was made at 5850m, a little above the NE Col, on 19 April. The next day they made their second bivouac at 6400m on the NE Ridge, and on the 21st their third bivouac was on the ridge at 6750m.

They descended to BC on the 22nd. Goettler had needed to acclimatize and they both went down to rest. The wind was getting a bit strong at this time.

On the 28th they started their push for the summit. They bivouacked that night at 6050m on the NE Ridge and returned to 6750m ot bivouac the next night. On the 30th they reached 7350m on the ridge for their next bivouac; this was about 2 hours below the beginning of the traverse across the North Face.

On 1 May they made their final ascent to the summit. They left the bivouac at 3:00 am, made the traverse to the small couloir, climbed the couloir to the summit ridge, where they turned left and reached the top at 12:00 noon. They had followed tracks from the traverse through the couloir which they believe had been made by the Czech climber, Martin Minarik, on 23 April. He was the first to climb the summit this spring, and tracks made last autumn could not have survived the winter weather.

They stayed on the summit about half an hour in light wind. But by the time they had descended to 7800m the wind was blowing so much snow in the air that they could not see where to start the traverse. They had to sit for about 45 minutes until they were able to see the route ahead.

They descended all the way to BC, which they reached at 3:00 am of the 2 May.