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BC was established on 11 January at 5200m on a glacial meadow northwest of Pt 5315m of the SE Ridge and below the ridge, which they did not climb. Instead they made a new route on the South Central Buttress in three days of climbing with two bivouacs directly to the main summit (about 6500m).

Their first day's climb ended on 14 January at a bivouac at 5700m, which they placed on a ledge on the buttress. They had climbed without taking any water with them because they had expected to find snow at the bivouac site, but there was none; they went 24 hours without water.

On the 15th they gained 400m in altitude on the buttress. Their second bivouac site at 6100m was near the top of the buttress at a line of seracs. Here they chipped ice from a serac to melt for water.

On 16 January they went to the summit. They left the bivouac at 7:30 am after waiting for sunshine and, using one ice tool in each hand, moved up an ice face to 6300m (at one place on the face they climbed through a vertical hole in the ice). The ice face led them to the summit, which they reached at 2:00 pm. The day was not very cold and there was no wind at that altitude.

They were back in their second bivouac that night and in BC on the 17th. In their descent via their ascent route, their rappel rope got caught on bare rock; they had to cut most of it off, which left them with only 20m for the last part of their steep descent on rock.

Before going to BC, they had been to Pangboche, which had a good view of Taboche's west side. A local yak herder told them that the mountain from that side was called Chaluk, just as Everest had different name for its north and south sides.