원정 개요

Before tackling Cho Oyu, Ms. Lunger climbed an unnamed peak on the Tibet-Nepal border northwest of the Nangpa La; it is the first peak on the west side of the pass. Its altitude is given as 6192m on the Nepa Cho Oyu map; her altimeter showed 6118m. She climbed it easily on 25 September and skied down from its summit to about 5650m in five minutes at 11:45 am.

On Cho Oyu, she left C2 for the summit alone at 11:00 pm (NST) on 1 October. She reached 7550m in cold and windy weather and turned around. She was back in C2 at 4:00 am, slept there for three hours, and descended to ABC.

It was not until 12 October that she launched her second summit bid from ABC. On the 14th she went up from C2 with Santiago Quintero from Ecuador. At 7300m she stopped her ascent: Quintero's pace was too slow for her, but she didn't want to go on up alone. She returned to ABC that day and abandoned her climb.

There was another reason for her decision to quit: "I had a bad feeling that this mountain is not my friend...I think you have to pay aatention to these feelings."

She had been very upset about the death on Cho Oyu of a compatriot, Walter Nones, who fell to his death on 2 October while climbing on a different route from hers. (She had gone a few other climbers from ABC to help Nones' teammate bring the body down from where it lay.)

On her last day at ABC, she tripped on a stone and pulled a ligament in her right ankle. (She will seek medical attention back in Italy, but was walking on it in Kathmandu without a limp).