원정 개요

BC at Everest BC
C2 in Western Cwm
Biv on North Pillar
Biv on North Pillar.

The Nuptse team's intended route was to approach the mountain from the north and to make a new route by traversing Nuptse's East Ridge from the col between Lhotse and Nuptse westward via two peaks called Nuptse East II and Nuptse East I and finally to Nuptse's main summit.

But first, they acclimatized on Lobuche East and spent the night of 16/17 April on its east shoulder with Richie Stihler, a German with whom Dujmovits planned to attempt Everest after Nuptse. They went back to Everest BC, which was their BC.

From BC, they went to the bergschrund at the bottom of Nuptse's North Face to have a look at where they planned to go. What they saw was too much rockfall. They concluded their plan to climb up onto the East Ridge to traverse it had to be abandoned.

The next day they made another acclimatization climb up Lhotse's West Face to 7100m and on 28 April descended to BC. They decided to substitute an ascent of Nuptse's North Pillar for an attempt on the East Ridge. But Dujmovits had already climbed the pillar in 1996, so he now cancelled his plan to climb Nuptse and went directly to Everest to climb it with Stihler.

The remaining two climbers for Nuptse, Kaltenbrunner and Goettler, on 3 May moved from BC up the Western Cwm May and made their ABC for Nuptse at 6400m in the area where Everest teams make their C2. On the following day they went to the base of Nuptse's North Pillar and bivouacked there at 6850m. Early in the morning of the 5th, snow began to fall; instead of starting their climb of the pillar, they picked up all their gear and retreated to ABC. As it continued to snow and there was strong wind and avalanching was a danger, they moved down to BC and stayed there until 14 May, when they were able to return to ABC.

On the 15th, they bivouacked again at 6850m. The next day they moved their "camp" which was actually a small tent, to 7250m up on the pillar. At 6:15 am on 17 May, they left their second bivouac and in fine weather climbed the rest of the pillar, which end at the main summit of Nuptse, 7855m high; they were on the top at 1:00 pm.

The pillar was mostly covered with snow, but there were some areas of blue ice and exposed rock. They changed leads several times as they went up the pillar; they fixed no rope, but used ice screws. They were back in their second bivouac at 4:30 pm and spent the night there. On the 18th they were down in BC.