Labuche Kang II, first ascent
Impressions
Sunday, April 30, 1995
Climbing the fixed ropes is painful, I am progressing slowly. However, the last days I was feeling well, acclimatized perfectly, I could walk quickly, whereas today, I drag myself along: headaches, blows short, each step is heavy, slow. Moreover at the end each ropelength, I see Christian below at the belay, who waits until I left my section in order to engage there.
Risk zero
At an age when the spirit of time consists in rejecting any risk and propagating the idea of risk zero, it is amusing to be able to join together a team accepting to go in an unknown territory in the spirit of Marcel Kurz.
Fourth first ascent
Four expeditions organized by the Section neuchâteloise of the CAS in fifteen years. Four successes in this vast chain of the Himalayas-Karakoram. The top is not an end in itself, it is also the beginning of other projects so that the dream and the friendship remain the motivation of our adventures in the mountains.
Labuche Kang II
The Labuche Kang massif is a very high area of the Himalayan chain of Tibet, located at the North-West of the Mt. Everest. The summit lately climbed is the attractive and well individualized mountain culminating to 7072 m. Not knowing a name to date, we agreed to call it Labuche Kang II.
Ascent and summit
I remember well the day of rest at camp 2; the final attack was planned for the following day. On the one hand I burned impatience to go up at the top and on the other hand I wished that this famous D-day be still well far.
Langgolo
With Simon and Thierry, we were invited by Rimpoche, the spiritual chief of the village. He made us sit in the half-light of his kitchen and offered us the traditional butter tea. One prepares it in a churn out of wooden, where are added one after the other the very black tea, a salt pinch, a good piece of butter and ebullient water, and one mixes vigorously to emulsify the whole.
Tibetan dream... and reality
If in the campaigns and the villages the Chinese presence is quasi non-existent, it is omnipresent in the large cities and along the important crossing roads: up to 70% of the population of Lhassa is Chinese. However even there, in the strongest concentration of chinoiseries of the country, the true heart of this mythical capital is still the Barkhor, last Tibetan area of the city.
Why?
Here is a question that I was often posed. Why did they go so far, and so high? Which is this force which pushed them until the top?