1995 American Cho Oyo Expedition

The expedition approached Cho Oyo through China and Tibet. We spent several days in Lhasa acclimatizing and seeing the sights. Lhasa is dominated by the Portala Palace, formally the winter home of the Dali Lama. With the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Portala became largely a museum, used to attract tourists and the dollars they bring. By the time of our visit, a limited amount of religious activity had been allowed to resume. Pilgrims visit the many temples, making offerings of yak butter. Pervasive, however, are the Chinese security cameras, installed it would appear as much to intimidate as to detect behavior of which they disapprove.

The status of Tibet as an occupied country is clear. Chinese soldiers are everywhere. The Chinese control all aspects of the economy. It is, for example, quite hard to get a Tibetan meal anywhere in Tibet. All of the restaurants catering to tourists (important in order to maintain minimal standards of hygiene) serve only Chinese food, even in the small villages far from the capitol. I vividly remember on incident when I was in the Bakor -- the main square in Lhasa. I was negotiating with a Tibetan woman attempting to shave $0.20 off the price of some trinket she was trying to sell me. East-west haggling is a form of entertainment in much of the third world, and we quickly attracted a crowd. It took the Chinese police all of a minute or two to notice the gathering and for five of them to break it up.

On our second day in Lhasa, three of us went for a hike in the surrounding hills. We started at Sera, one of the four great monasteries forming the core of the Gelugpa sect of Buddhists who ruled Tibet for centuries before being ousted by the Chinese in the 1950's. High above the Sera monastery at 4110m sits lies the small hermitage of Sera Tse. Originally predating Sera itself, Sera Tse was destroyed during the cultural revolution, in a superfluity of violence that saw not only the razing of most of the temples and monasteries in Tibet, but the killing of several millions of its people.

As we approached Sera Tse, we were met by one of the monks who has been working on its reconstruction. Tibetan tea was immediately offered and could not be graciously refused. Tibetan tea is normally made with tea, salt, and rancid yak butter. The good news for us was that the hermitage must have been running low on yak butter, since our tea was salted but otherwise clear. The bad news was that the tea was served in cups that had not been cleaned since sometime prior to the birth of the fifth Dali Lama.

Though not sharing a word in common, we had a long discussion with the monk. This ranged from information about the buildings at Sera Tse to detailed comments on his part about the two Americans that had just been captured by the Iraqis after wandering across the Kuwait border. There was something a bit surreal in talking about current affairs with a monk in the middle of Tibet, kilometers from the nearest road.

We reluctantly left our new friend at Sera Tse and headed for the caves of Daadan, an important hermitage. We continued on to the Phabhongkha temple, one of the oldest in the Lhasa valley. We noticed the kitchen in full swing, with a huge pot of what could only be called gruel boiling away on an open hearth stove. The cook stirring the brew offered me a sample from a large wooden spoon. One of my great regrets from the trip is that I declined, in an unwarranted fit of bio-pathogenic phobia.

Two and a half days of truck travel from Lhasa and we were at the Cho Oyo base camp, at an elevation of 4,875m. The drive traveled through the driest and dustiest regions I could ever imagine. At base camp, the wind blew constantly and the dust was so bad that we would sleep wearing face masks or bandannas covering our nose. By way of compensation, we had an unobstructed view of Cho Oyo 20Km distant and still over 3km higher than we were.

Among other features, base camp had a truly spectacular latrine. Equipped with all the important luxuries (including a seat, but no running water) it was possible to sit comfortably doing your business while contemplating the majesty of Cho Oyo and being contemplated in turn by a herd of yaks.

The route from base camp to our advanced base camp (ABC) followed up the broad valley shown in the pictures above. Much of the way, we were on the trail to the Nangpa La, an important trading route between Tibet and Nepal that is also one of the principle routes used by refugees escaping Tibet. Near the pass, our route swung left and climbed over a series of moraines towards the base of Cho Oyo. The trail was 22km long, with an elevation gain of almost 800m. Initially, we took two days to cover the distance. Later in the expedition, we were able to make the trip in one fairly long day.

Advanced base camp, at an elevation of 5,660m, gave us our first closeup look at the mountain. We could see almost all of the remainder of the route from the camp. Camp I was reached by walking 5 km over moraine and rubble on top of active glacier, moving around behind a ridge, and then slogging up a steep, loose scree slope to a camp site on the ice cap perched on top of the ridge. Between Camps I and II was a series of ice cliffs. Due to foreshortening, the distance between these two camps was far more than it appeared from ABC. A relatively short plod over moderate slopes lead to the site of Camp III. From there, the route moved through a gap in the rock band protecting the upper slopes, diagonaled over to an area of snow high on the mountain, and from the top of this traveled about a kilometer across the summit plateau.

Camp I was situated at 6,400m (21,000'). The approach was entirely over moraine and steep scree -- we wouldn't be climbing on snow until above the camp. Until this trip, 6,400m was as high as I'd ever been. Then, it was on top of a mountain in South America. Here, we were at the same elevation but just starting to grapple with the climbing.

Above Camp I, the route followed the crest of the Northwest ridge for several hours. Not particularly steep, the going was nevertheless exhausting due to the elevation. About a third of the way between Camps I and II was a 70m section of ice cliff. Though we had a fixed rope in place, much of the route over the cliff section was off balance and awkward. During the course of the expedition, I wend up and down over the cliff twice. Both times going up, it took at least an hour to cover the 70m and we were pretty shattered at the top.

Beyond the ice cliff section was a series of gentle slopes and sections of ice angled at about 40-45 degrees. The last bit to Camp II was quite moderate, but at the end of a long day it seemed to take forever. On my first trip to Camp II, it took me half an hour to cover the last 100m. Camp II was situated on a broad bench at 7,050m. On my first trip there, it resembled a large village. We were set up with three tents, while a large German expedition had maybe three times that many. By my second trip to Camp II, the Germans were gone and we had much more sense of being alone on a big mountain.

Camp III at 7,450m was approached up the moderate slopes just right of center in the picture above. This was a wild place. Behind us was the summit pyramid, now very foreshortened and seemingly only a few hours to the top. Far, far below us was ABC, situated on the moraine at the right-center in the photograph. We had oxygen available to us, and used it in an attempt to sleep. Despite this, the altitude, cramped space, and excitement kept me from any sleep at all.

March 16, 1995. For the last week, a cloud cap had been forming around the summit starting in the early afternoon. As a result, we got an early start, leaving Camp III at 2:45am. Alpine starts are bad enough at more reasonable altitudes. In addition cold, darkness, and shortness of breath, I had to deal with other ``normal'' problems such as a burned out headlamp bulb and the need to take a crap (a real challenge in the dark and cold while wearing a one piece down suit). A half hour or so out of camp, we reached the Yellow Band, a rock band separating the snow from the moderate angle rock slabs above. The picture is of Danuru Sherpa, following me up the fixed rope through a gap in the Yellow Band. While most of the Sherpas that support climbing expeditions are strong and experienced, Danuru is one of the few with clearly superior climbing skills. He has been on the summit of Everest twice and was the only member of our group to have previously visited Cho Oyo.

Both Danuru and Ang Fingo, our other climbing Sherpa, were from the village of Phortse, just over the Nangpa La in Nepal. Due to the vagrancies of international politics, however, instead of the one day walk between Phortse and ABC, they had to travel many days in order to make an ``official'' entry into Tibet. Fingo had been on something like 30 major climbing expeditions prior to ours without ever having been included on a summit attempt. As a result, we put him on our first summit team, letting him finally get to the top of an 8,000m peak. He had an ear-to-ear grin when he got back to ABC! Now, a week later, it was our turn...

For the next several hours, we angled across the Northwest face of Cho Oyo, headed for the snowfield leading onto the summit plateau. We had watched previous summit teams moving horribly slowly through this section, taking several breaths per step and suffering from the cold. In my case, I was roped to Danuru and he seemed to want to get back to Phortse in a real hurry. We moved along at a speed I didn't think was possible but was sure would do me in in minutes. I was panting, the air rasping in the oxygen mask, and worrying about how I was going to keep from slipping on the snow covered rock, my balance hardly helped by the 17 pounds of oxygen tank on my back. Because of the oxygen, our excellent acclimatization, or the fact that I was too out of breath to know better, we kept up the pace. In fact, we had to hold up at the top of the snowfield for 10 minutes to make a scheduled radio call before disappearing from radio contact as we crested onto the summit plateau.

Once on the summit plateau, the angle eased off and we were in the sun. The view was stupendous. We could see down into the foothills, and beyond that, the great extent of the Tibetan plateau. Directly behind us was Shishapangma, another 8,000m peak and the only such mountain entirely within Tibet.

By 8:30am we were on top. As we reached the actual high point, we were able to see Mt. Everest for the first time. (Everest is visible on the right in the photograph, only 650m higher than where we were standing.) There was no wind -- the air was absolutely still. The temperature was warm, and in fact became uncomfortably hot as we descended. After reading about all of the epics with truly frightening weather that seem to accompany most climbs to this elevation, it is clear just how fortunate and lucky we were. All in all, a completely glorious summit day! Ultimately, we put a total of fifteen climbers on top in four separate summit teams over an eight day period.