원정 개요

BC 09/11 5400m
C1 12/11 5800m
Hpt 18/11 6700m (100 below the exit to the SW Ridge by Paul Bonhomme.

Trio had 1 acclimatization day at Namche Bazar on 5 Nov.

Base camp established on 9 Nov at the most western of the two lakes located at 5400m, those lying just west of Kalapattar.

On the 12 Nov, the trio established its C1 at 5800m at the footstep of Pumori West/Kangri Shar (peak 6792m on Finn Map) SSE Ridge.

On the 13 Nov, trio spotted the access to the footstep of the W Face through the complex 6000m plateau marked on the map. That same day everyone went back to the base camp for 3 consecutive days of rest.

On 17 Nov, all were back at C1 for a summit push the day after.

On 18 Nov: departure at 5:30 am (sunrise at 6 am). Trio went up together to the rimaye (about 6000/6100m) in 2 hours. Then Paul went alone in front up to 6700m, using a long right-hand traverse in the middle of the face to stop a hundred meters below the connection to SW Ridge. In 2011, Paul and his teammates couldn't even reach the face, which was mainly in ice conditions and that they guessed to be 40° steep. Now climbing the face Paul faced hard snow (poor grip for skis) with one 20m ice section at 6500m; it was a sustained average 45° steep face with some 50° sections. Were also numerous ice flutes to negotiate, their 50° NW Face being in inconsistent snow, their 40/45° SE Face being in hard snow. After reaching his high point at 10:30 am, Paul begun to downclimb without skiing. Just shortly tried it at about 6400m to test a better grip in the inconsistent snow part of an ice flute section, but it failed to be more secure, so he then continued with crampons, downclimbing. Was back to high camp at 2 pm.

Took him almost same time to go up than to go down!
5h30 => 7h30 (5800/6050) : 125m/h
7h30 => 10h30 (6050/6700) : 216m/h
5h30 => 10h30 (5800/6700) : 180m/h
10h30 => 14h (6700/5800) : 257m/h

Ben and Erin stopped at about 6100/6200m. Ben had had a very bad sleep, but started anyway. Immediately considering poor snow conditions for skiing, both quickly decided it was too risky for a ski attempt and weren't motivated to go up just for the climb. They went down to the C1 and watched Paul during 3 hours.

All went back straight to the base camp on that day. The day after Paul went back to clean the high camp.

Paul won't try again to ski that face, as he believes their strategy and conditions couldn't be much better than this time. "For that face, you need to be very lucky with the snow conditions and also be super fit". He notes the traverse in solo without skis on the rucksack is quite easily feasible trough that route. Now he will try for less steep ski projects, as he often met so far with same kind of hard snow on steep faces which is too delicate for skiing.