Kanchenjunga summit route opened after midnight push through deep snow
Rope fixing team from Imagine Nepal and Elite Exped reached the world’s third-highest peak on their second attempt after high winds and heavy snowfall delayed the season’s first ascent.
Kanchenjunga recorded the season’s first summit on Wednesday after a rope-fixing team reached the top shortly after midnight, expedition organisers said, overcoming deep snow and high winds that had already forced an earlier attempt to be abandoned.
“In an extraordinary display of resilience and mountaineering skill, the Imagine Nepal and Elite Exped team achieved the summit of Mount Kanchenjunga at 12:12 a.m. local time on May 20,” Imagine Nepal said on social media.
According to Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, owner of Imagine Nepal, the fixing team had left camp early on Tuesday intending to reach the summit by afternoon. But heavy snowfall and difficult trail-breaking slowed progress dramatically, prompting several groups to turn back. The fixing team pressed on and succeeded in laying ropes to the summit in the early hours of the following day.
The summit team included Dawa Gyalje Sherpa, the expedition leader; Chheten Tashi Sherpa of Imagine Nepal; Buddha Bahadur Gurung of Elite Exped; and Pakistani climber Sohail Shehzad.
Hours after the route was opened, the first clients began arriving on the summit between 7:45 a.m. and 8:20 a.m., according to expedition organisers.
Those reaching the top included Palden Namgya Sherpa, Estonian climber Kunnar Karu, Pasang Sherpa, Singaporean climber Zeng Xiaoyun, Pasang Namgel Sherpa, Polish climber Agnieskza Olkowicz, Phura Tenzing Sherpa and American climber Christopher John Klinke of Rolwaling Excursion, as well as Nurbu Sherpa and Slovak climber Daniela Murinova of Satori Adventures.
“Our plan was to open the summit on May 13, but the Sherpa team aborted from Camp IV because of high winds. This was the second attempt,” Sherpa told Everest Chronicle.
The climb capped a demanding spring season for Imagine Nepal, whose guides repeatedly stepped into high-risk operations when progress on major peaks appeared stalled.
Earlier in the season, its team joined the Icefall Doctors in opening a route through the unstable Khumbu Icefall, advancing as far as a threatening hanging serac to assess conditions before work could continue.
The company’s guides later joined the Expedition Operators Association Nepal rope-fixing team on Mount Everest, helping establish the summit route on May 13.
“It was because our clients were already at Camp II waiting for a summit push, while the summit-fixing team had descended to Base Camp to rest,” Sherpa said. “So, we decided to fix the route ourselves for our clients.”
Imagine Nepal’s clients were among the first paying climbers to summit Everest on May 13, ahead of the main wave of ascents that followed in the days after.
