원정 개요

BC at Shringi Khola
ABC at moraine
C1 at glacier just before NE Face
High point at top of snow cone foot of NE Face couloir.

Approached mountain via Buri Gandaki and on 28th had gone half day up Shringi Khola (1 day short of BC); when coming down trail were file of monks with the head lama of monastery 2-3 hours walk up Khola. Lama said the team could not go up valley and must leave it because god lived on West Face of Shringi and if they didn't they would be met by violence. After 3-4 days of chasing him in various villages by LO and sirdar to change his mind and found him unmoved, team abandoned West Face as their objective.

Went around to *east side of mountain via Tunje and Sharpu Khola to climb couloir on NE Face to do a different new route. After arriving at C1, took about 6 days to ferry supplies from BC to C1 and in this period weather very warm and couloir had become chute for "incredible" amount of rock and ice. Barton and Wiggans on 18th went to top of a snow cone to get to couloir and were pelted by stones for 20 minutes and retreated. Night of 18-19 Oct Berggren and Riley went up top of snow cone and waited 2 hours finding still some stone falling and then retreated. Even before arriving at C1 when on glacier, cliffs above them sending down stones and seracs as soon as sun hit ropes after 10:00 am. Spent a day in C1 discussing possibility of climbing elsewhere on face but decided no safe place to go and decided on 20th to abandon mountain. Left C1 that day. Left mountain to a lower camp and spent remaining 10 days trekking around in that area. While teams were above ABC, local villagers stole all of ABC and ropes fixed on glacier ($5000 worth of goods stolen).

In BC, team decided never to come back to Nepal if HMG doesn't refund their peak fee. Permit should not be given for west side of Shringi, but Barton says he will probably come back to Ganesh. "I like Nepal" - "Incredibly frustrating" adventure.

* Lama had no objection to their climbing its east side because he thought that was a different mountain.

13 Dec 2000 - Tourism Ministry official said ministry had received letter from expedition asking for refund of peak fee and letter is in process of being considered, but expedition did go to different route and do some climbing on their permit, so unlikely to get refund.