원정 개요

The six-member team arrived at the last place before BC, the village of Samagaon, on 10 April. But snow prevented any progress beyond; they were forced to stay there a week and got to BC only on the 17th. They moved up to C1 on the 19th, but again progress was halted by more snowfall and high avalanche danger. They returned to BC, moved up and down between BC and C1 three or four times and even descended to Samagaon.

During this period, three members decided to leave. Todd Holt, Keith Kerr and Philip Shearman were running out of time and they felt that the bad weather wouldn't break soon. They left on 5 May. Another member, Lajos Kosztelny, had already departed with stomach trouble on 12 April, shortly after they had arrived in Samagaon.

Finally the two remaining members, Baldry and Cotter, went back to BC from Samagaon on 6 May. On the 7th, they occupied C1 and made C2 on the 9th. On the 10th they established C3, and on the same day at 11 pm went for the top with Ang Phurba Sherpa. The three climbers were on the summit at 1:30 pm on 11 May, then returned to C3 at 9:30 pm. "It was a long day," Cotter observed. They were back in BC on the 12th.

Baldry and Cotter had to use oxygen from C3 to their summit to C3 while Ang Phurba had used it from halfway above C3 to the summit and back to C3.

The team's three Sherpas had fixed 4500m of rope all the way to the summit -- Cotter called it "the true summit." He asserted that this team was the first one ever to reach the true tummit: there were no signs of any fixed ropes to it. All previous teams had groups stopped at the rock wall of a false summit, a point which is actually only a few meters lower than the true one. Cotter said he knows of two members of another team went to true top also on 11 May.

Cotter said "it was a great climb from where everyone else's ropes ended, to the true summit."

Sherpas (True Smt):
Ang Phurba Sherpa, 25/11/85 (10/8/2042), Yaphu-9, Sankhuwasabha,
Everest X1, Manaslu X1

Sherpas (Fore-Smt):
Mingma Dukpa Sherpa
Dawa Temba Sherpa, Yaphu-9
Pemba Wangdi Sherpa, Yaphu-9
Phur Temba Sherpa, Yaphu-9, 2046/3/10
K. B. Thapa Magar, Magi, Okhaldhunga
Tshering Dorje Sherpa, Chheskam
Phurba Sherpa, Yaphu-9 [no fore-summit?]