The program What happened |
Himalayas - Nepal, April 1998 |
A few lines cannot demonstrate the intense moments and the feelings emerging from an expedition to the Himalayan mountains. A rough note is useful though for those that wish to perform something similar in the future. |
Our target was to summit 2 peaks, 6.000 m. each, Kusum Kanguru and Kwangde. Both mountains are in the Khumbu area, very close to Everest. They are known as trekking peaks. One needs to trek very little to arrive at the base. Just 3 days for Kusum Kanguru and 4 for Kwangde. Kusum Kanguru is considered the most difficult trekking peak in Nepal. | |
After a wanderful trekking to Gokyo Peak for acclimatisation, we started for the base camp of Kusum. As we reached our target, a question became obvious: How on earth are we going to summit this thing? We decided to part in 2 groups in order to see about the ascent paths: one would try the north-eastern edge, the other the northern edge. |
At base camp Kusum Kanguru, with the mountain in the backgroung |
The results: the first group, following a tiring 7-day ascent, made it to the top, at the northern edge.. Enough difficulties, ice to 70 and eock to level IV. The second group didn't make it. We tried to cover 1500 m. od difference in altitude in 2 days, at a site which Dong Score characterizes as "difficult". A snow-fall the second day gave us every excuse to return to base camp. A second attempt to the NE edge was interrupted due to snow-fall. Dring their stay at Katmandu, the second group learned about the tragic death of Nikos Panadreou in Dhaulagiri. Overall, the results are positive, we think. The expedition made us see that we can accomplish expeditions to high and technical Himalayan mountains, provided that the first snow-fall doesn't affect us negatively.... The mountains are there, waiting for us. |