British Kyashar Expedition 2010

Supported by Mountain Equipment, Black Diamond, Scarpa, Tendon Ropes, SIS (Science in Sport), Lorpen Socks and Adidas Eyewear.
Financial support from The BMC and the Alpine Club Climbing Fund
Expedition Members: Andy Houseman (leader) Tony Stone
Dates 12th October – 13th November 2010
Location Hinku Valley, Nepal

Summary
An attempt at the first ascent of the South Pillar of Kyashar, 6769m.

Introduction
Kyashar, 6769m, sits above the village of Tangnag in the Hinku valley, Nepal. Previously known as Peak 43 it’s first and only ascent so far was in 2003 by the west ridge and west face. The south side of Kyashar presents a number of possible lines. The southwest face already has a line climbed to the west ridge (no summit).
Base camp was situated at the village of Tangnag, 4350m, directly below the south face of Kyashar from where we had very quick access to our chosen line. We also had a permit for Mera peak which we acclimatized on.

Travel
We flew from Heathrow to Kathmandu with Bangladeshi Airlines via Dhaka. We were due to fly to Lukla with Agni Air but due to bad weather there were very few flights for 4 days and a big backlog of people waiting to fly. We ended up getting two places on a charter flight with Sita Air in order to get to Lukla as soon as possible.
Palden our Sirdar ended up going overland with most of our gear in order to avoid the flight chaos as trying to get 90kg of gear on the very few flight spaces available would have been impossible. He took a bus to Jiri then a 10 day trek to meet us in Tangnag. We all flew back to Kathmandu with Agni Air.
All internal flights were arranged by our agent.
We trekked to Tangnag in three days from Lukla with overnight stops at the villages of Chutanga and Taktha. We stayed in tea houses each night.

Environment
The Trek
Starting from Lukla at 2840m you trek up through thin forest before a steep climb up to the Zatra La pass (4600). From here you drop steeply down through Rhododendron and thin forest to eventually reach the Hinku River which is followed all the way up to Tangnag.
Base Camp
Tangnag is situated at 4300m, a collection of tea houses having grown over the years due to the popularity of Mera Peak.

Kyashar

South Face of Kyashar, 6769m

The rock we encountered on the lower part of the face was granite and ranged from compact lichen covered slabs to exceptionally loose and shattered. It was also very Eiger-esq with loose bolder covered terraces connected by short steps. The steeper bands did however look solid in places.

Climbing
Initially we had wanted to approach the upper pillar on the face via mixed ground directly below it, to the left of the large rock wall above Tangnag. This was the way a Czech team had attempted the line a couple of years ago. Unfortunately this year the ice that the Czechs had used was not present, leaving a lot of blank granite and loose rubble ledges instead. We decided to find a line up through the rock buttress.

Early on the route. No ice this year

3rd November
We left Tangnag at 06.45 scrambling up the steep grass and rock slabs to reach the first pitch of climbing at 4890m in a couple of hours. A 50m pitch of easy but very dirty slabs accessed more steep grass and rock steps to the left of a vague ridgeline. More easy climbing gave access to a leftward leading ramp line that we had being aiming for. This was followed easily to an exit gully which we eventually got the rope out for.
Three long and very loose pitches (probably about HVS, the final one been very bold) led to snowy and broken ground which led up into a big bay before a steeper 200m rightwards trending fault line was followed through a final rock band to reach the glacier and snow slopes at 5500m. We had a very comfy bivi here.

4th November

Ploughing through deep snow beneath the pillar

After a slow start in the sun we left the bivi at 08.00 and started up the small glacier to reach the snow ridge that would lead to the pillar on the upper face. Tony had been struggling to acclimatize throughout the trip and still not feeling fit we unfortunately bailed at 5700m, about 100m below the start of the pillar proper. We descended the line we had climbed with much down climbing and 5 abseils.

All photos credited to the Andy Houseman collection