Alex Hansen & Benjamin Lieber make first ascent of Changla Khang West in Nepal

On the 3rd of November Alex Hansen and I made the first ascent of Changla Khang West, in the Changla Himal range of the Nepalese Himalayas. The mountain is in a remote corner of the country and not easy to get to. We knew basically nothing of the valley we were going to, so that made for a lot of excitement as we tried to figure out how to reach it, what mountains are there, how the conditions are, etc. The valley has seen some climbing activity before, including an impressive line on the north face of Gave Ding by Mick Fowler and Paul Ramsden, but still it was hard to gather information ahead of time to understand what is back there. We didn’t have a particular mountain in mind. Instead we planned to go and have a look around.

We left Kathmandu in early October. We lost some days during the launch from Kathmandu and then a few more here and there as the trip began. So we had less time than we wanted. The first half of the trip was spent venturing above basecamp looking at all the available mountains. And then waiting out some unfavorable weather.

We climbed the mountain during 5-day trip above basecamp. High winds and snowfall had hindered us early in the trip and came back the day after we summitted. The lower half of the route was scrambly buttresses and steep snow gullies that led to an incredible snow/ice ridge. The ridge was sharp and the mountain fell away steeply to each side. The final summit cone was guarded by a few rock bands which were bypassed via a waterice chimney. This beautiful chimney, which had a horrifying top out, put us nearly directly on the summit. From the summit we looked out at so many beautiful peaks as we had a rare position on the border of Nepal and Tibet and looking into India.

We have been on many amazing trips to the high mountains over the course of a decade but never to Asia together. The setting is a beautiful high altitude wilderness on the border of Tibet, so it was a special moment to be on the top together after all the times we have suffered in Alaska! Our dream was to go on a big adventure in a land we had not seen before. And we certainly accomplished that.

Many thanks to our basecamp guys Indra & Santa, our donkey drivers, their 10 donkeys, as well as to Mountain Hardwear & 14 Peaks Expedition for supporting us. 

- Benjamin Lieber, USA

Link: Instagram Benny Lieber

 

 

 

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