원정 개요

The expedition planned to reach the mountains by taking scheduled flights Kathmandu/Nepalgunj/Juphal airfield for Dunai, but instead had to fly Kathmandu/Pokhara by scheduled flight and Pokhara/Juphal in a chartered plane. From Juphal, they trekked to the Thuli Bheri River to its junction with the Chang Khola, northwest along the Chang Khola to Hurikot, and north from Hurikot along the Jagdula Khola.

Their intention was to continue northward and climb Kanjiroba from its western side, but when they got halfway there, they found the way ahead impassable for their porters without fixed rope. They didn't have the necessary rope, so they had to change their objective and decided to climb the 6042m-high Dudh Kundali south of it. They retreated southwards.

They chose to approach Dudh Kundali from the northwest and made BC on 8 November at 4200m southwest of the Panipatta Khola. On the 9th they bivouacked on the moraine at 4750m and on the 10th on the glacier at 5100m. On 11 November they pitched camp at 5400m on the East Face of Dudh Kundali.

On the same day, the 11th, Grobel and Cho Temba went up the mountain to make the route to the summit for the others. They left the camp at 11:00 am, climbed the East Face to 5850m, where it met the South Ridge, and followed the ridge to the top, which they reached at 4:30 pm. They rested on the summit for half an hour, then returned to camp at 7:00 pm.

The South Ridge is steep (40 degrees) and very sharp, and it had a covering of snow. "It was a technical climb."

The next day, the 12th, Grobel led others to the summit. Gobil, Lapras, Quatrini, Riverieulx, Wagner and Grobel left camp at 7:30 am, arrived at the summit at 12:30 pm, spent half an hour there and descended to BC between 4:00 and 5:00 pm.

On the 13th, Berthet, who hadn't been feeling very well on the 12th, was ready for his summit bid, so Grobel and he went up from the camp at 7:00 am and were on the top at 11:00 am. They took a different route in their descent: they traversed to the NW Ridge, descended the eastern slope of the ridge and went north to the lake called Jagdula Tal by the local people. They were in BC at 7:00 pm.

On the 14th, Grobel, Lapras, and Cho Temba bivouacked by the lake at 4650m. The next day they went southwest, crossed a pass westwards to the Ludbu Khola, climbed an 5518m unnamed peak via its easy western slope, and bivouacked at 4200m beside the Khola. On the 16th they followed the Ludbu [Bhitta] Khola southwest to Naphukana and Chotra villages and slept in a house in Chotra. On the 17th they set out for Jumla, where they arrived on the 18th.

Meanwhile the rest of the team had started trekking to Jumla on the 13th and on the 18th Grobel's party met them there. They all flew by scheduled flight from Jumla to Kathmandu on the 19th.

All members had reached their camp at 5400m on Dudh Kundali's East Face, but Berthaud, Lechien and Perrette had gone no higher. All three had slight altitude problems.

Grobel does not claim to have mae Dudh Kundali's first ascent. He gives that credit to Herbert Tichy, who made the first ascent of Cho Oyu in 1954 and in the autumn of 1953 climbed Dudh Kundali but called it Dui Tal Chuli (Two Lakes Peak)

Sherpa:
Cho Temba, 5/10/84, Makalu-9, no 8000ers