An attempt on Lobuje East, 1991 |
 Friday, 25 October 1991 – From our Lobuje East base camp to Dingboche: I left base camp at 9:35 am, and – together with Jon, Mike, and Ralph – headed north in order to visit Lobuje, a small village near the eastern foot of Lobuje East. We had looked down onto the village the previous day when we were at a height of about 5,600 metres on the main ridge on the mountain, and we thought it would make a pleasant small side-trip to see the village. However, before we had gone very far, two of the Scottish climbers we’d met on Lobuje came bounding down the side of the mountain “like highwaymen cutting us off at the pass.” They had something extremely serious to report: Tenzing had stolen the climbing rope and ice-screws that they’d stashed at the bottom of the 180-metre snow slope we’d so laboriously climbed up and so easily abseiled down the previous day. This picture was taken after we’d seen the Scotsmen and while we were heading along a nice, level path towards Lobuje village. The impressive peak towering directly above us is Pumori (7,161 metres). |