India - Himalaya, Satopanth, 2009
The route led from Delhi by car along the Ganga river and took three days, stopping overnight in Rishikesh (450 m), Uttarkashi (1 200 m) and Gangotri (3 040 m). The approach trek started from the holy town of Gangotri, continued to Bhojbasa (3 800 m), along the place, where the holy Ganga springs from a melting glacier in Gaumukh, then led to Nandanban (4 400 m n. m.) and finally to base camp at the Vasuki Tal lake (4 480 m).
The route on Satopanth (the name meaning „path to heaven“) led over the Satopanth Glacier to camp 1 (5 300 m), then on the southwest wall to camp 2 (5 980 m), continued along the ridge, traversed an ice wall to camp 3 (6 445 m) and from there led to the summit (7 075 m). Out of four members of an international expedition only three went from base camp up to camp 3, only two members of the team together with two high altitude porters reached the summit of Satopanth.
The approach trek took four days, two days in heavy rain and two days in heavy snowfall. We have reached base camp cold and wet. The following sixteen days were almost clear and this enabled us to make two load carries to camp 1 and then continue through the remaining high camps up to the summit. We have set up base camp on September 12th and our team summited on September 21st. When all members of the summit team returned to camp 3, we went back to camp 2 traversing the ice wall again. An extremely frightening yet absolutely unforgettable experience was an earthquake (4,8 degrees of Richter‘s scale with an epicenter only 40 km from Satopanth), which shook the rock and ice we were traversing at 6 300 m.
The whole expedition to Satopanth took one month. Together with an Indian army expedition we were the first teams on the mountain in the autumn season and we were breaking the route in a meter of freshly fallen snow. Except the four days of rain and snow on the approach trek we had mostly sunny weather, which means very pleasant day temperatures and freezing cold during the nights (we started from camp 3 before sunrise at -23 oC). There were technical and exposed sections between camp 1 and 2 (300 m of mixed rock and ice climbing) and between camp 2 and 3 (200 m over a sharp ridge and 500 m traverse on an ice wall, which falls at an angle of 75o to the Satopanth Glacier, which is 1 500 m below). The earthquake surprised us while we were traversing this wall, the most demanding section of the ascent and descent. We have survived this exceptional experience unharmed and all of us were back in base camp on September 23rd.
We took the same way to Gangotri as on our way up and then drove along the Ganga river to Rishikesh. After a few days of rest in the holy town by the holy river we drove to Delhi and flew home.