원정 개요

"In all the years I've come to climb in Nepal, I've never seen so much snowfall," said Pauner on 14 May. "This mountain is for April." Camps 2 and 3 must have disappeared by now under the fresh snowfall, he believes; he left BC by helicopter on the 13th, and BC had gotten two meters of snow. Their BC had been covered by an avalanche on 8 May. "We were very lucky" not to have been hurt by it.

The three-member team established C2 at 6400m on 20 April. The crevasses and avalanching and steepness of the route had by now frightened Sanmartin; the next day he left the expedition and went home.

Pauner, Perez and Pemba Dorje Sherpa made their bid for the summit from C3 on 28 April together with Italians led by Mario Merelli. They all started up at 2:00 am and made slow progress because there were no fixed ropes in place; it was already 9:00 am when they reached the final col, which was covered by hard green ice. Perez turned back 100m above the col because he thought it was getting too late for a summit success. He descended to C3 and waited there for Pauner.

Pauner and Pemba Dorje continued climbing towards the summit. They stopped at about 8110m in a small valley between two false summits. The wind had gotten strong and it was now 4:00 pm. They rejoined Perez in C3; there were no sleeping bags in the camp, so they kept descending late into the night and reached BC at 2:00 am of the 29th.

In BC Perez now discovered that toes on his right foot had become frostbitten. There were two doctors at BC who were experts on frostbite, and they gave him medication to minimize the damage. The toes are not black, and he hopes they will heal fully, but there is a possibility that their bones have been affected, which could lead to gangrene; they will have to watched during the coming weeks.

Pauner wanted to go back up the mountain and go to the real summit. He waited in BC hoping for better weather, and on 7 May he and Pemba Dorje climbed up to C2. But while they were in it, their tent was crushed under the weight of newly falling snow. Pauner had to call out for help to get out of the tent. Japanese climbers came to his assistance, and they spent the rest of the night with the Japanese. They went back to BC on the 8th.

Again, Pauner waited for improvement in the weather. But by the 12th, when the weather had not gotten any better, he decided to abandon the climb. They left BC for Kathmandu on the 13th in a helicopter because of Perez's frostbitten toes.

They had planned to go to Lhotse after Manaslu, but now Pauner was too tired and Perez couldn't climb with him. Plan abandoned.

Sherpa:
Pemba Dorje (aka "Pemba Junge", Junge means moustache), 1/8/70 (17/4/2027),
Kharikhola, Everest X1, Cho Oyu X1 (had been on Manaslu several times
before and knew the route very well)