원정 개요

BC at Broken Glacier north side
C1 on moraine left side of Broken Glacier
C2 on Glacier due south of peak.

The team established their BC on 29 September at 5200m on the north side of Broken Glacier, and on 2 October the leader, Tsugio Iwai, went up to 5500m to have a look at the mountain.

On the 3rd, Iwai, who was 63 yrs old, had a heart problem, used oxygen on his return to BC and left the expedition on the 3rd. With him went a very sick (high fever) Sherpa who had done no climbing.

A summit bid was made by the three remaining members and their climbing "Sherpas," Dan Kumar, Kitap Singh and Tul Bahadur. On 11 October the "Sherpas" left C1, joined the members in C2 and the six men started up from C2 at 5:30 am.

Murakami and Dan Kumar reached 6700m at 2:30 pm. They planned to bivouac at 6800m on the SW Ridge. The weather was excellent, but they were stopped by steep deep soft snow in which it wasn't possible for crampons or ice axes to take hold. So they bivouacked 100m lower.

Tsuchda stayed with Nagata, who was 66 yrs old and not strong, and had to struggle to climb over rocks. He was very slow, but obsessed with the idea of going to the top. He became confused. There was no place for all of them to bivouac in this area, and two "Sherpas," Tul Bahadur and Kitap Singh, who wanted to sleep in a camp, not a bivouac anyway, were descending and met Nagata and Tsuchda. The two "Sherpas" and two Japanese went down in a group with Kitap Singh 60m behind the others.

Nagata became almost unable to walk and was close to collapsing, but with the help of Tul Bahadur got to C2 at 10:00 pm. (The others had reached the camp at 8:45 pm). Tsuchda made juice, easily swallowed food, tea and coffee for him. He refused to take oxygen through a mask, so Tsuchda filled the tent with the entire contents of the oxygen cylinder. Nagata protested, but he stayed in C2 that night.

Meanwhile, Murakami and Dan Kumar had spent the night in a crevasse at 6700m. The next morning it was foggy, and it was not until 9:00 am that Tul Bahadur and Kitap Sing could go up from C2 and join them at their bivouac. But the soft snow defeated them all: even their feet could not take hold in it.

They tried several different lines up and managed to climb ten meters higher than the crevasse at 10:24 am. Then gave up. They descended to C2. Everyone returned to C1 on the 13th and to BC the next day.

"Sherpas":
Dan Kumar Tamang, 4/12/85 (19/8/2042), Deusa-6, Solu, no 8000ers
Kitap Singh Tamang, 30/8/76 (14/5/2033), Deusa-6, Solu, no 8000ers
Tul Bahadur Tamang, 3/10/66, Deusa vdc, Solu, Everest X2, Cho Oyu X2,
Dhaulagiri I X1, Manaslu X1