By Tom Padgham. For routes and climbing info on Kwangde, see Alan's Mountaineering Report

Alan and I are at base camp (4900m) having left the others behind at Lumding Kharka. The plan is to move up to a high camp at 5200m and make the attempt on Kwangde Lho (6187m) the following day.

It only takes us an hour and a half to reach our destination which is supposed to be a small lake at the end of the glacier coming down from the mountain. It turns out that the lake has quadrupled in size. There are regular rock falls round to the right of the lake, and to the left, a rock peak rears straight up from the edge of the lake, leaving no obvious way to the intended route up the south ridge.

The next idea is to recce round the far side of the rock peak. When we first see the other side, it looks quite promising. But on closer inspection, there are no simple routes. It may be passable with a number of days to do some technical rock climbing, but we do not have enough time. So our attention turns to Kwangde Nup (6035m) to the west.

Kwangde Lho looking threatening Photo © Tom Padgham 1998

The actual summit is less impressive than Lho, but it looks like there will be some interesting mountaineering to be done as the glacier coming down from the summit divides into two about 300m below the summit, so just above the divide (the Junction - as Alan named it) is complete chaos with huge seracs and crevasses. Again, the land has changed significantly with the glacier having receded, so now there is a small expanse of relatively flat, rock-strewn ground between two lakes at the snout of the glacier.

We figure we will be able to pitch a high camp there which is at about 5000m, leaving 1000m to the summit. We will move camp tomorrow and make the attempt the day after. The wind really started gusting today. I have a very unsettled night with the constant fear of the tent collapsing or being ripped away from the tenuous attachments to the ground.