International expedition „Khumbu Peaks & Passes“ in October 2011 had five members. We had an ambitious target – to climb four peaks and cross three passes in the region below Mount Everest and Cho Oyu in three weeks. Our plan was to climb Imja Tse (6 189 m), Pokalde North (5 794 m), Lobuche East (6 119 m) and Gokyo Peak (5 483 m), and cross passes Kongma La (5 535 m), Cho La (5 368 m) and Renjo La (5 380 m).

We flew from Kathmandu to Lukla (2 800 m), continued on foot up the Imja Tse valley through Namche Bazaar (3 445 m) and Dingboche (4 425 m) to Imja Tse base camp. I was the only one with our Sherpa who climbed from high camp to Imja Tse summit (6 189 m), the other members did not acclimatize well and our expedition leader decided to descend with them. One of them had to be evacuated by hellicopter due to persisting symptoms of high altitude disease. All the remaining four of us summited Pokalde North (5 794 m). We crossed Kongma La (5 535 m), descended to the Khumbu valle and continued to Lobuche base camp. We started from the high camp together, three members reached the false summit of Lobuche East (6 090 m). It started snowing when we descended to base camp; due to heavy snowfall we had to give up crossing Cho La. We walked down the Khumbu valley to Pengboche (4 000 m) and entered Gokyo valley from the South, walked up through Thore (4 400 m) to Gokyo village (4 750 m), climbed Gokyo Peak (5 483 m) and crossed over Renjo La (5 380 m) to Thame valley. Then we descended through Lungde (4 385 m) and Thame (3 850 m) back to Namche Bazaar (3 445 m) and closed the 150 km long loop. The expedition lasted four weeks, we summited all planned four peaks and crossed the two cols, which were passable in the actual snow conditions within eleven days.

pict-2011