원정 개요

In mid-May, a 38-year-old Chinese man, Wang Tian-Han, who was well outfitted for an Himalayan ascent, was discovered to have climbed on the Tibetan side as high as Camp 2 at 7790m on about 18 May. He was forced to descend by four students from the Tibet Mountain School at Lhasa, who brought him down through Camp 1 with his wrists tied together. It is not known what punishment he received for this unauthorized bid.

Nor is it known why he had gone to the mountain in the first place. He had already made a successful ascent on 17 May 2002 with a Tibetan assistant, Rinchen Phuntsok, after they had set up the usual number of camps on the normal route. Perhaps this time he wanted to make an ascent without an assistant and without using any bottled oxygen. In any case, he was forcibly stopped in his tracks.