원정 개요

The four-man climbing team took a bus from Kathmandu to Pokhara with six trekkers on 26 April and next day flew to Jomsom. They trekked acrsos the Thorong La to Manang village and on 25 May climbed Chulu Far East (6380m), a trekking peak. They all returned to Manang village, then to Tilicho Lake to across the Mesakantho La back to Jomsom, where the climbers left the trekkers and proceeded to Marpha on the Kali Gandaki River on 3 May and then west in tho the "Hidden Valley."

Throughout this whole period the weather was bad: rain/snow and fog - fog so pervasive they couldn't see more than two meters in any direction wherever they were. They were further hindered by the fact that no other people had been in the area for week, so there was no one's trail to follow. This finally defeated the climbers' effort to reach their mountain, but they tried hard to penetrate it.

In the Hidden Valley on the 4th, they had no clear idea wehre exactly they were; on the 5th they camped at 4800m wherever they were that night. The next day, they tried to make a trail for their porter, whose progress was so slow he managed to cover only one kilometer in an hour. There was the deep fog, plus snow was now falling. The snow was covering their footprints and "we were lucky to find our way back," said Wiegand. They camped that night at the place they had spent the previous night.

On 7 May, they tried again, but again it was snowing and and they gained only one kilometer in an hour. With the same weather pattern recurring, they turned back to Marpha. It was very difficult to find their way back, and now they had no time left. So from Marpha they returned to Kathmandu via Jomsom on 8 May.