Posted: 12.11.09
Written By: Admin

As climbers, we all dream about climbing an unclimbed line whether it's a boulder problem, trad/sport route or a giant Himalayan face. Well, Andy Houseman and his climbing partner Nick Bullock have done just that!

Chang Himal or Wedge Peak isn't the highest mountain in the world (6750m) but it's seems to have built up a bit of a reputation as a "one to do" but is technichally very hard for a Himalayan peak.  It had it's first ascent in the 70's by a Polish/Slovenian team but that was by it's south side.  The huge 1800m north face has repelled a couple of strong eastern European teams but this just spurred the Brits on!!

Below is a brief account and some pics of Andy and Nicks climb...

"We climbed the central spur in 5 days from the 29th Oct to 2nd Nov, summiting at midday on the 1st.  The face is about 1800m vertical, a felt it! The crux was getting through the rock bands at just over half height, the climbing was pretty slow on the second day, only doing 6 pitches up to M6/Scottish 7, going through this band was a lot steeper than it looked and as with most of the face the climbing was quite runout on rotten ice/snow, gear and belays taking a long time to get, and the rock is crap up there!  

 

 

On the 4th day we climbed 60 – 70 degree flutings for 200m (which had to be down climbed due to no ice) to gain the summit ridge at around 6700m, straightforward 45 degree snow lead to the summit.  We returned to the last bivi, down climbing and one rap, arriving at 15.30, decided to stay there then descended the rest of the face in 14 hours the next day.

 

Thank you very much for your ongoing support and sorting the boots out for me in my last minute panic! Really appreciated it."

We'll look forward to reading Andy's full report (when recovered) on his Scarpa blog!!