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MisterE
Social climber
Cinderella Story, Outa Nowhere
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Topic Author's Reply - May 31, 2011 - 02:10am PT
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So, probably like many who read this, I was thinking he went to Nepal to do this double summit.
Didn't realize he was a guide in the area.
I can totally understand the fun "aside" of the second summit - hell, you got money, connections, and people willing to help you make the double bid.
Why not? You look at this stuff all the time, you are on the mountain regularly - this alone has to reduce the perception of risk both for yourself and the sherpas that are also there all the time.
I am leaning more towards fun-jaunt-for-a-guide now.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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May 31, 2011 - 04:56am PT
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I can fix you up with some great Sherpas from my village.
You have to be careful, there are a lot of other ethnicities claiming to be Sherpas
these days who aren't as experienced.
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steve shea
climber
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May 31, 2011 - 10:07am PT
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Jan, I spent quite a while just one valley away from the Rowaling over the Menlung La. We did some 6000 meter peaks for aclimatizing on the long wall from Gauri Sankar to the Menlung La. Awesome! We had a permit for Menlungtse which was the highest unclimbed peak in the world at the time. I think it is around 7200M. Riley, the Rowaling region is one of the areas. Both from the Nepal side from Beding and from the Tibetan side which has more unclimbed technical looking peaks than I've ever seen on any of my travels. Just incredible. You would go to Tingri in Tibet, then travel to Cho Oyu base. From there SW to the Rongshar Gorge, Chugompa and Darzhan. Then up the Menlung Valley. About 3 weeks trek in. You could also view the same area from the Menlung La hiking out of Beding on the Nepal side. Most of the money from 8000M peaks goes to the govt.not the sherpas. The peak fees/permits are huge. The way to really support sherpas safely is with trekking. Everest is a money machine and because of its notoriety standards will go out the window. But small alpine climing teams can still support the sherpa community. There are actually many ways. I'd go back to the Rowaling in a heartbeat. MisterE the risk is never reduced, good discussion though.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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May 31, 2011 - 11:39am PT
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Steve-
Good for you! I've always wanted to explore the Menlung Valley and the Valley that goes past Menlungtse (the Sherpa and Tibetan name of which is Jobo Garu) and over to the Khumbu to the east. I've done Trashi Labtsa pass to the Khumbu three times now.
I climbed to the top of Menlung La from the Rolwaling side in 1979 and the crust on the snow was so thin, we would sink into your arm pits trying to walk on it, so we did the last thousand feet or so crawling on our bellies like crabs to spread out the weight. When we got to the top, there was an Eskimo type igloo only 100 feet down the Chinese side which we figured their patrols were using since no climbing was allowed in Tibet then. Not wishing to end up in a Chinese prison, we took a few pictures and crawled back down the Nepalese side. You know Menlung is where the first yeti tracks were seen and photographed by Shipton.
Both Menlung La pass shown here and Trashi Labtsa pass are about 19,700 feet with all the surrounding mountains rising above that.
Menlung means medicine country because of all the medicinal plants found lower down towards Rongshar.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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May 31, 2011 - 12:05pm PT
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Here's a great photo of Menlung La from the Rolwaling side which shows how heavily crevassed it is and how tricky the route finding especially going up.
http://www.mountainsoftravelphotos.com/Gauri%20Shankar%20and%20Menlungtse/
Rolwaling%202008/01%20Kathmandu%20to%20Beding/slides/
Rolwaling%2004%2005%20Menlung%20La%20Close%20Up.html
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steve shea
climber
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May 31, 2011 - 12:21pm PT
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Jan great photos. We did recon up that glacier and around to NE side of Menlungtse. Menlungtse is just barely visible in your photo on the left. It is one very steep mountain. No easy way up but we did not do the entire circumnab so we did not see the true north face. We were only the third group ever allowed in. Shipton in 53', Norwegians in 87' and our trip in 88'. We saw tibetans that had never seen westerners before, still in home spun clothing and animal skins. The only vestiges of western civilization on many were cheap chinese sneakers and alu cooking pots. Yak herder traders would trade salt for such items in Tingri or Lhasa and bring the stuff back to the villages. The sad part was to see first hand the brutality of the Han chinese to their Tibetan "hosts" and the total destruction of villages, gompas and stupas. Unforgetable monasteries and tibetan religious artifacts shelled to dust. This was all during the cultural revolution of Mao in the 60's. To read about it was one thing but to see first hand left little doubt that genocide was the goal. Yeah JOBO GARU and JOMO TSERINGMA what a valley!
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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May 31, 2011 - 12:58pm PT
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Steve-
If you were climbing to the left/ west of Menlung La as viewed from the Rolwaling side, then you were indeed on the true Menlungtse, not Jobo Garu. I believe it was Bonnington who first called Jobo Garu which is to the east of Menlung La by the name of Menlungtse which has erroneously been repeated now many times and misprinted on many maps.
Many of the shrines associated with Milarepa which you saw destroyed in the Rongshar Valley have been rebuilt now often at great cost to the Chinese. If nothing else, they realize their value for attracting tourism. There has even been talk of making Lapchi and Rongshar in the north and Rolwaling in the south, into an international park so that people could circumambulate Jomo Tseringma.
If anybody's interested, I've just published an academic paper on the sacred history of that area. Those valleys have been holy since at least the 1100's and the Jomo Tseringma for centuries before that. Also, Peter Boardman's account of climbing Jomo Tseringma/ Gauri Shankar in his book Sacred Summits gives a good feel for the area.
The photos I used to illustrate my paper were from Scottish climber Tom Weir's 1956 expedition to Rolwaling, four years after Hillary and Riddiford became the first westerners to visit there (Shipton did not descend Menlung La thinking it too crevassed).
Anyway, I hope we have convinced the readers of this thread that there are many adventures waiting for them still, in the Nepalese Himalaya far from the Mt. Everest circus.
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steve shea
climber
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May 31, 2011 - 02:26pm PT
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Jan I am interested in your paper and would love to read it. On my first trip to Tibet in 86' I visited Milarepa's cave. That sparked my interest in Sherpa and Tibetan culture. Also if you are interested I have many photos from the valley looking up. Many toward the Menlung La. As a matter of fact we took skis and skied on the lower flanks of that side of the valley. Also on down days we would rock climb and boulder on perfect menlung granite. Our base camp was on grass. Himalayan wildlife abounds, wildflowers, the trek in. We did not see a soul for three months. As I said I could go back in a heartbeat. With the changes you mentioned can you still get the bus from Kath to near the border? It would take a while to dig out the photos. Let me know by PM. BTW we photographed some interesting tracks as well.
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Ottawa Doug
Social climber
Ottawa, Canada
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May 31, 2011 - 04:43pm PT
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Jean-Christophe Lafaille (France) soloed Gasherbrum 1 & 2 in a push over a couple of days with no oxygen and no support. That's what super alpinism is about.
Cheers,
Doug
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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May 31, 2011 - 06:17pm PT
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Jan-
Thanks for all the excellent photos!! Imagine! A thread about CLIMBING!!
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Gene
climber
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May 31, 2011 - 06:33pm PT
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DMT,
Jean-Christophe Lafaille was HARD. Do a search for his epic descent from an attempt on Annapurna. He died trying to solo an 8,000m peak in winter (Makalu, Manaslu??). In that genre of climbing, he was VERY bold.
g
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Lafaille died on Makalu.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Steve-
I have sent an email. Regular bus now runs from Kathmandu to Lhasa when the road is open. The Chinese are paving the road up to their side of the border.
I have never been to Milarepa's cave but the Sherpa nun I lived with spent 3 months doing 100,000 prostrations there. You know Rolwaling is a beyul, a hidden valley sacred to Guru Rinpoche while Lapchi, Rongshar and Menlung are sacred to Milarepa and both valleys are holy to the Tseringma. The reason there is so much wildlife there is that it is considered a sin to kill anything in any of those sacred valleys.
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landcruiserbob
Trad climber
BIG ISLAND or Vail ; just following the sun.......
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EPO or the bottled stuff; it's all cheating yourself.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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I think it's TOTAL bullsh#t. Using bad tatics to set dubious records is of no account.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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I think donini's on to something here! He should have quoted R. Crumb's Mr. Natural: "It don't mean schitt."
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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donini-
Alot of no account things give people happiness and get them through the night.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Jan-
donini is a "hard core traditionalist."
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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I am aware that donini is a hard core traditionalist - about climbing matters anyway.
He's the guy who wants to take the cables off Half Dome.
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