원정 개요

The British Rolwaling team of 4 arrived at BC on 22 Oct. After acclimatizing on Parchamo and summiting on 29 Oct, the team returned to BC and discovered that ravens had stolen all of their food in their tent. So the team (facing lost supplies) split up into two groups to try separate peaks.

Takargo East:
Connor Holdsworth
David Sharpe

Linku Chuli II:
Jack Morris
Nathan White


Report from Jack Morris:

Approach: Rolwaling Trail

BC 21/10 4580m (where BC porters and yaks stopped)
ABC 22/10 4860m
Biv1 31/10 6120-6150m
Biv2 01/11 6400m
Biv3 02/11 6200m
Smt 02/11 by both members at 2:30 pm.

Acclimatized on Parchamo on the 29 Oct (with summit). On descent, the team met with a slight disaster: ravens had eaten all their food in the tent! With that loss of food supply, the duet would need to rush for its attempt of its main goal. The latter consisted in attempting the NW Ridge, which splits the N and NW Faces, both of it capped with seracs.

31 Oct: from ABC, the duet reached the NW Ridge at a characteristic snowy dome feature. From there, facing loose unprotectable rock on the ridge itself, the team bypassed it by the right/NW Face (dashed line on the line drawing). In that section was the crux of the climb, consisting in a Scottish 7 (same as M6/M6+?) pitch; 2 or 3 pitches of M5; for the rest sustained M4/M4+ terrain. After 16 hrs of climbing, the duet reached his first bivy.

01 Nov: the day started with a traverse to the NW Face, at circa 6200m. Then the duet got quite high on the following snowy shoulder until 6 pm. Just as the sun was setting and the team had to consider a place for setting its next bivy, the route above them was unexpectedly blocked by a 50m compact vertical rock buttress. With no other option than avoiding it, the duet did a 100m traverse straight to the right (no up, no down). Above that they could cut a suitable place in the snow for a barely acceptable bivouac (wide enough to put the tent), getting into the tent at midnight. The duet had climbed 15 hrs on this second day.

02 Nov: Started at circa 7 am from the second bivouac.

The last difficulties on this day were ice (WI3(+)) and easy mixed (1 pitch of Scottish 4).

Stopped at the NW top at 2:30 pm. Knowing the very short weather window, the duet didn’t want to commit onto the last ice ridge section to reach the actual summit.

Soon after they started the descent via the W Ridge (1960 route), downclimbing and abseiling.

After 10:30 hrs of climbing, the third bivouac was reached at circa 6200m, after 3 hrs of descent. The evening and night would prove to be very cold, Morris even putting his mittens on the feet!

03 Nov: the duet kept descending the W Ridge, getting back to its ABC at 6:15 pm.

Next day duet reached its BC, the storm was now plenty active, with snow on the moraines. Here the duet would wait two days for porters and yacks to reach tem, then leave the place (on the 6th of November).

During the ascent, temperatures were relatively acceptable, dry cold down to minus 8 to 10°C, and it wasn’t too windy.

Just when cresting the summit ridge, the duet got a cold breeze coming from SW, then the last bivouac on the W Ridge would be very cold.

First time in the Himalaya for both members, discovering a new style of climbing, the HD recording among other things.

Left BC on 6th of November.

Oxygen: Not taken, not used

Records: 1st ascent of the NW Ridge.

Other peaks: Parchamo during acclimatization.