By Freddie Wilkinson
We New Hampshire climbers like to think we're used to tough conditions. Brittle ice, no protection, minus ten degrees? Nooo proooblem... that's just like home. The thing is, you get so used to not having fun when you go climbing, that after a while, you sort of accept it as being just the way climbing is. You forget that you can choose other locales to go climbing, that there might be other routes that are warmer or sunnier or a tad easier, on which you might properly enjoy yourself. In New Hampshire, suffering is almost synonymous with winter climbing, and once you make that realization, it begins to seem fun again. Follow me? Anyways, I'm not sure if this curious mental state I'm speaking of influenced our decision to go try the North Face of Kantega this fall. It's freezing cold, uncompromisingly steep, and quite scary. Was our adventure just futile suffering, or a fun holiday? Read the following trip report, and you be the judge....
*****
Kantega
Ben Gilmore, Kevin Mahoney, and I flew from Kathmandu to Lukla on October 7th and began trekking over the Zetra La pass into the Hinku Valley. We established basecamp six days later, at 5,500 meters on the west side of the Hinku glacier approximately two hours above Digkarka. The monsoon was late in departing the Himalaya this season, and despite that fact that it was already mid-October, it still rained on us every afternoon.
Kevin Mahoney on the approach
The face lies another eight miles above basecamp, though the terrain is a nightmare glacier of loose scree and rumble. It took us several days of scouting and load ferrying to establish an advanced basecamp on a glacial lake below the icefall leading to the face. We managed to find an easy path through the icefall, and spent a night bivied at 5,800 meters on the rim of the basin below the North Face, looking down at the distant lights of the Khumbu below. We then descended to basecamp to rest.
Before the trip, a chief concern had been whether it would be too dry, so we were relieved to see it was in a good nick, with broad swaths coated in a thick skin of white. But was that snow, ice or some combination there-of? We wouldn't know until we climbed the first pitch. Another issue we worried over was the bivouac. Climbing as a party of three, we knew we'd need to find a good site to accommodate everyone. This more than anything led us to choose a line on the left-hand margin of the face, the joined with the N.E. Ridge at about two thirds height. Large dollops of snow crowned the ridge, and we reckoned we'd be able to dig out a reasonable ledge or cave some where in the neighborhood.
As we rested in basecamp, the rest of the plan fell together. We'd divide our kit into two second packs, carrying a light bivy tent, food for two bivies, and plenty of warm clothes. In a fit of delusion, we also managed to convince ourselves that we could fit three guys into two sleeping bags zipped together. More on that later.
