|
By Alan Geer, Expedition Leader
This page describes the peaks climbed by the expedition, their condition and difficulty and details of the climbing routes on them.
Introduction
Yalung Ri, Ramdung and Parchamo are all popular peaks with commercial expeditions and can see quite a number of ascents in a season. We were certainly surprised at their popularity. The Kwangde peaks, on the other hand, are located in a fairly remote valley and are technically more difficult. Kwangde is a ridge of 5km in length with five separate summits and all with several possible climbing routes. As far as we could establish, they have had relatively few ascents but are probably visited every few years.
In all cases the climbing was on snow and ice, which tended to start at a bit over 5000m. In some cases we had footsteps to follow, but elsewhere the snow could be quite powdery and deep, giving difficult walking. We climbed with a basic kit of a few ice screws and snow stakes but these were rarely necessary. The main problems were not technical but simply those of the altitude and the snow conditions.
The climbs were mostly made in one day from a high camp except for Ramdung where a lightweight camp on the glacier was needed. The high camps were supplied by porters and equipped with a cooking team, so life was really not too difficult. We found this quite a contrast to the methods we normally use in the Alps, where the high camp is an uncivilised and rather cold bivouac.
Though some trekking peak expeditions seem to use fixed rope to secure any difficulties and climb unroped for the rest of the time, we preferred to climb together as roped teams, as in the Alps. The Sherpas were an integral part of the climbing team and we often envied their fitness, acclimatisation, and big feet - in soft snow this is quite an advantage!
We were climbing in the post-monsoon season of October and November which generally gives long periods of settled, clear weather. At the start of October, it was still a little cloudy and damp from the monsoon, and in general the weather became drier, but colder, throughout the trip. The best weather we experienced came in late October, and by November, the wind was often quite strong and temperatures had dropped substantially. During our time on Kwangde afternoon clouds and light snowfall were also a problem. We only experienced one major snowfall, overnight on the 18th October, but the 4-5 inches of snow made walking conditions at altitude more difficult. It was still warm enough that most of the new snow disappeared over the following week.
Altitude has a major effect on climbing ability on these mountains. We found that what would be considered a day’s climb in the Alps (down at 4000m) could take as long as two days, especially if there was untracked snow. Climbing as a team, we found it was easiest to maintain a very slow and steady pace such that no-one became too tired. Climbing like this few rests were needed. It was easy to overexert yourself in the thin atmosphere, and there was little reserve of energy. Throughout the trip, as was the plan, we were gradually becoming acclimatised so by the time we had reached Kwangde base camp at 5000m, things felt a lot better than they had three weeks before on our first trip at that altitude. That’s not to say that walking had suddenly become easy and we could no longer feel the altitude, however.
The main information on these peaks is found in O’Connor (1989) and on the Schneider maps of East Nepal at a scale of 1:50,000. In both cases the climbing information is rather out of date. We were surprised to discover a substantial new lake below Kwangde, where a glacier should have been.
 Map 1 - Yalung Ri and Ramdung |
Climbed by the E Glacier and N ridge. Graded F, first ascent 1952, climbed by Pasang, Alan, Jeremy and Julian on 18/10/98 and by Kami, Tom and Antoine on 20/10/98. This is a training peak located near Ramdung base camp and gave a good introductory climb from the camp. The first party took a line up the middle of the glacier on the E flank but this turned out to be fairly crevassed, so they took the left bank on the return, on the edge of a trough between the ice and the rock. The N ridge was relatively straightforward snow. Climbing time to the summit was about 4-5 hours from base camp. |
See Map 1 above
Climbed by the North-East face. Graded F+, first ascent 1952, climbed by Pasang, Tom and Antoine on 23/10/98.
This was intended to be an easy warm-up peak. As it was, deep snow and a complicated route to the summit made it harder than expected. The original route to the summit crosses the Yalung La before following the Ramdung glacier up to the NE face. A recce from Yalung Ri suggested that the Ramdung glacier was now very crevassed in its lower section and it looked problematic. Pasang knew of an alternative route so we followed this.
 |
| Route taken on Ramdung Photo © Alan Geer 1998 |
Camp 1 was made in a valley to the E of base camp, below a glacier coming down from pt. 5766. The route climbed over the snow shoulder of pt. 5766 before dropping down onto the upper reaches of the Ramdung glacier. The gully leading down from the shoulder was fairly unpleasant and threatened by rockfall but a better alternative climbs up to the S ridge of pt. 5766 from the shoulder. The second group followed this and found it both easier and safer.
From here, the NE ridge led, at times steeply, to the summit. Five of us tried the climb first time round on 21/10/98 but for much of the way we were ploughing through deep snow. The sherpas were out in front, breaking trail but they had such large feet that the first member behind them would sink in a fair way too! After six hours, two people had dropped out through exhaustion and were left behind and we were still only at the start of the NE ridge proper. We abandoned our attempt at Ramdung and climbed a subsidiary point at 5733m, nicknamed ‘The Pimple’.
We now knew that the route was bit long for a single day from camp 1 so the second attempt was made by Pasang, Tom, Sue and Antoine carrying tents and stoves. A camp was made at the shoulder beneath pt. 5766, and with the benefit of the footsteps of the previous party and using the ridge alternative to the nasty gully, the summit was reached.
 Map 2 - Parchamo and the Tesi Labsta |
The Tesi Lapcha is a traditional Sherpa pass from the Solu Khumbu to the Rolwaling, but the Lonely Planet guide to trekking in Nepal made it sound particularly scary. For competent climbers (and the local Sherpas) it’s really no big deal but it does involve a camp at the top at quite high altitude, and the Khumbu side of the pass has serious danger from falling rocks.
From Na (4183m), four days are needed to cross to Thame Og (3800m) in the Khumbu. The first camp was made in the middle of the stone-covered Trakarding glacier at 4800m. A second camp was made at 5100m on a rock buttress to the S of the steep icefall between the Drolambau glacier and the Trakarding glacier. This buttress gave a spectacular but basically easy way through what looked like an impressive barrier.
The Drolambau was level and dry, giving easy walking up to the last section, turning right off the glacier. The final camp was at the top of the pass at 5700m in a huge shallow cave under the flanks of Tengi Ragi Tau. It’s a bit too warm, being South facing and sheltered, whereas on snow at the very top of the pass, it can be -5°C with a stiff wind blowing. The South face of Tengi Ragi Tau is steep and rocky, so as might be imagined, stones start whizzing down the face about an hour after sunrise. It’s possible to sit in the camp and watch the stones falling not very far away.
The descent is complicated by a steep and difficult drop in the glacier on the Khumbu side which is outflanked by following a level shelf to the E underneath Tengi Ragi Tau, before descending a rock couloir. All this is particularly exposed to stonefall so it’s best done as early as possible.
Climbed by the NW ridge. Grade PD+, first ascent 1955, climbed by Pasang, Alan, Jeremy, Julian, Kami, Tom, Sue and Antoine on 28/10/98
High camp for Parchamo was the cave campsite at the top of the Tesi Lapcha Pass at 5700m. From the pass, the mountain was taken head-on through a steep section of about 45°. Above this, the crest of the ridge was followed with a few crevasses and some excellent snow and ice formations. We had the advantage of some tracks left by a previous party, without which some of the snow would have been quite deep, and there was even a fairly useless fixed rope in place on the steep section.
From the cave camp the top was reached in about four hours. The view from the top was spectacular and covered most of the Nepal Himalaya from Everest and Makalu in the East to Annapurna and Dhaulagiri a long way off to the West.
Kwangde Shar & Lho (6093m & 6187m)
 |
| Map 3 - Kwangde Nup, Lho and Shar |
Climbs used to follow South face. First ascents 1972, 1975. New grade: ID+ (inflatable dinghy sup.), recce on 7/11/98
Our route of first choice on the Kwangde peaks was the South ridge of Kwangde Lho, being the highest mountain of the group. A base camp was established at about 4850m on grassy ground about a kilometre to the E of the Tsho Og lake. A small rise near the camp gave excellent views over the rather stunning upper Lumding valley and the big peaks of Teng Kang Poche (6499m), Numbur (6959m) and Khatang (6853m).
From this base camp we moved to a higher camp at about 5100m by the side of a lake that quite definitely wasn’t on the map. When the cloud cleared for a second or two, the reason was depressing and fairly obvious: the lower section of the Kwangde Lho glacier had turned into a lake, following the pattern of glacial recession we found throughout our travels. Unfortunately, the original routes up Kwangde Shar and Kwangde Lho made use of the now-vanished glacier and there was no real way around the lake.
The easiest method of getting to the continuation of the climbs would have been by rowing boat, since the N side of the lake was formed by very steep cliffs dropping straight into the water from point 5457. The marginally more gentle E side was, among other things, threatened by rather regular serac fall, and even without this it would have given some tricky rock climbing. The original route on Kwangde Shar looked a lot harder than it had originally been, with glacial recession making any route through, or even up to, the unstable seracs of the upper Kwangde Lho glacier even harder and more suicidal than before.
Kwangde Lho looked slightly more reasonable and if any feasible route were found, it would probably have to gain and traverse the steep and rocky pt. 5457 from the East. We didn’t have enough climbing time to have a go at it and took the much easier option of an attempt on the neighbouring Kwangde Nup.
Climbed by South Face. Graded AD, first ascent (by South ridge) 1984. Climbed to within 100m vertically from the summit by Pasang and Tom on 9/11/98
 |
| Route taken on Kwangde Nup Photo © Tom Padgham 1998 |
After finding Kwangde Lho and Kwangde Shar too hard for the time remaining, we turned our attention to Kwangde Nup which looked feasible straight up its South Face. The face is a glacier that drops steeply down the topmost 500m of the mountain and slightly more gently below. The route we chose was a different line to that of the first ascent which followed the South ridge.
The Kwangde Nup glacier has receded substantially since the Schneider map was made and we were able to put a camp on moraine at 5000m below a new lake. From the camp, scree led up to the NW to gain a gentle glacier shelf leading up to the centre of the face, nicknamed the Junction.
Above the Junction, the face steepens and the route is mostly blocked by seracs (ice cliffs), but these appeared to be mostly stable. A big ramp was followed up to the right over several steps of steep ice where two axes were reassuring, giving access to the E ridge of Kwangde Nup.
The ascent was abandoned after six hours at around 5900m at a large crevasse on the gentler slopes of the E ridge, due mainly to the time of day and incoming bad weather. The summit was about 500m to the W along the ridge and 100m higher. Crevasses would have been the main difficulty of the remaining section. A high camp at around 5500m on the glacial shelf below the junction would increase the chances of success on this route, as long as it was somewhere out of range of the seracs!
Useful info: alpine grading system: F = facile (easy), PD = peu difficile (A little difficult), AD = assez difficile (quite difficult) applied to routes here.
Pages designed and maintained by Jeremy
Thomson. About this page.