Cho Oyu | 2006 NW side

A USA expedition to Cho Oyu in 2006 via NW side, led by Tom McMillan. Summit reached on 17th April 2006. 4 members recorded.

Expedition Details

Field Value
ID 5196
Imported 2026-03-06 18:04:49.359634
Expedition ID CHOY06124
Peak ID CHOY
Year 2006
Season 1
Host Country 2
Route 1 NW side
Route 2 -
Route 3 -
Route 4 -
Nationality USA
Leaders Tom McMillan
Sponsor Friendship Beyond Borders Cho Oyu
Success 1 False
Success 2 False
Success 3 False
Success 4 False
Ascent 1 -
Ascent 2 -
Ascent 3 -
Ascent 4 -
Claimed False
Disputed False
Countries -
Approach By air to Beijing & Lhasa
Basecamp Date 2006-04-08
Summit Date 2006-04-17
Summit Time -
Summit Days 9
Total Days 18
Termination Date 2006-04-26
Termination Reason 14
Termination Notes Abandoned at 6400m due to disastrous arrangements by trekking agent
High Point (m) 6400
Traverse False
Ski False
Paraglide False
Camps 1
Fixed Rope (m) 0
Total Members 4
Summit Members 0
Member Deaths 0
Total Hired 3
Summit Hired 0
Hired Deaths 0
No Hired False
O2 Used False
O2 None True
O2 Climb False
O2 Descent False
O2 Sleep False
O2 Medical False
O2 Taken False
O2 Unknown False
Other Summits -
Campsites BC(08/04,5400m),ABC(12/04,5670m),C1(17/04,6400m),xxx(17/04,6400m)
Route Notes Sherpas: Ang Dawa, 18/5/73, Tapting, Cho Oyu 11/4/01 Nawang, 24/6/71, Tapting, Everest 16/5/04 as amputee (one leg) Nima Gombu, 2/1/69, Beding, Everest X11, Cho Oyu 6/10/06 Email from Tom McMillan - 23 June 2006 Pete Lardy, Nima Gombu and Ang Dawa reached C1 (6400m) on the first Monday in ABC, the day after Nima Gombu's birthday, that would be Monday April 17. According to my information, Nima Gombu was born on Feb 1, 1969, so I don't know about the part regarding the "day after his birthday." I got this information from Pete. There was a big snowstorm between April 18 and 20th. Linda and I reached Middle Camp on Saturday April 22. At this point George had been sick with a sinus cold pratically since we left the US and Pete had a sinus cold since April 17. I reached ABC on April 23 while Linda rested a day in Middle Camp. I felt alarmingly weak compared to how I am used to feel at altitude, and with George and Pete having given up due to illness. I asked Nawang how he felt. He told me that he got a pain in his chest when trying to hike up hill. So we decided to throw in the towel and sent a note down with the yak boy to send 20 yaks to end the expedition. That evening I returned to Linda with some food and fuel from ABC so I could prepare a decent meal for her. During that night Linda convinced me to keep trying, so we paid for a fast runner to take a note down to LO Mr. Dorjee asking him to cancel the 20 yaks and instead to send just 6 yaks. One of the two Chinese cooks had already quit (we saw him walking down to CBC on April 22), so our plan was to fire the other cook, and have enough yaks to take Pete or George down for a rest if we couldn't convince them to stay in ABC to see if they improved. We were going to have another puja and jump start the expedition. We also sent a note by runner up to our team explaining the new plan. We told them we could have the sat phone on all day and we sent them money so they could pay another group to borrow a sat phone and call us, so we had no chance to explain to them what the new plan was. Even more sadly, when our second note arrived in CBC, our Chinese cook intercepted the note (an English speaking translator for our trekking agent had also arrived, so they could read my second note) while Mr. Dorjee was trying to arrange a truck for our group. The cook did not wait to talk to the LO about this second note (which clearly said we were canceling the order for 20 yaks from earlier that day) and instead he ordered 6 yaks on his own, outside of the control of the LO. On the evening of April 23, 20 Yaks went past us in Middle Camp and arrived in our ABC. On the morning of the 24, Linda and I started to head back up to ABC with our six yaks. For some reason the yak driver (the guy who runs the Middle Camp) kept fairly aggressively asking us for money. You see we couldn't communicate with him and naturally assumed that the LO would pay him since we did not know that our cook had made the separate arrangement. I was feeling very strong and optimistic about the climb. Such a change from the previous day when I had felt so weak. About 30 minutes below ABC, we ran into George and Pete. I got really angry when I heard what had happened and that they had not troubled to call me on the sat phone. They had given away all our food and tent sites, and had opened the valves on all of the large base camp propane bottles, so there was no way to just turn things around. Therefore we all hiked down to CBC on April 24th. Linda spent the night of the 24th at Middle Camp and rejoined us at CBC on the 25th. Expedition Schedule - Cho Oyu 2006: Friendship Beyond Borders Expedition Sun 02 April flights from San Francisco to China, George has cough & sinus problems Mon 03 April Arrive in Beijing Tue 04 April fly from Beijing to Lhasa Wed 05 April Lhasa Thu 06 April Shigatse Fri 07 April Tingri (Lao Ding Ring) Sat 08 April Chinese BC - end of road portion of our journey (16,500 ft) Sun 09 April Chinese BC - Pete suffers asthma problems triggered by campfire smoke Mon 10 April Chinese BC - preparing to move higher Tue 11 April Team moves to Middle Camp (17,500 ft) - Tom has severe sinus infection and fever, descends to Tingri helped by Linda. Severe weather, road closures and events trap them there for 11 days. Wed 12 April Team at Advanced BC (18,600ft) - start of Cho Oyu climb Thu 13 April Team acclimatizing and setting up Advanced BC (ABC) site Fri 14 April Team acclimatizing and setting up Advanced BC site Sat 15 April Massive snow storm hits the region - all roads and passes closed, no transport available to Cho Oyu camps; no communication with team possible. Sun 16 April Team acclimatizing Mon 17 April Team members reach C1 (19898 ft) Tue 18 April Team acclimatizing/climbing to C1 Wed 19 April Team acclimatizing/climbing to C1 Thu 20 April Team acclimatizing/climbing to C1 Fri 21 April Tom and Linda arrive back at Chinese BC (16,500ft). Tom and Linda trek to Middle Camp (17,500 ft). Along the way they encounter one of the team's Chinese cooks. He has walked down alone from ABC, indicates he's quitting the expedition and heads for Chinese. Sun 23 April Tom treks to Avanced BC (18,500ft), while Linda rests one day at Middle Camp before going higher. That night. Tom descends to Middle Camp to confer with Linda about how to solve problems with remaining Chinese cook at Advanced BC (ABC). Cook refuses to use clean water for cooking and washing, refuses to cook the food the team prefers, and has threatened team members with knives when they complain about his behavior. Linda offers to fire the cook and take over all his tasks for the rest of the expedition in order to prevent the team from abandoning their effort to climb Cho Oyu. Mon 24 April Tom and Linda trek to ABC to rejoin team with a strategy to solve problems with the cook and get the expedition back on schedule. However,team has abandoned ABC, given away food and fuel, and encounters Tom and Linda as they head down to Middle Camp. Now not possible to continue any attempts to climb Cho Oyu. Tue 25 April Team arries back at Chinese BC. Mr Dorjee of Tibet Mountaineering Association (TMA) kindly arranges for Sherpas to be driven back to Nepal. Rest of team is driven by Mr Dorjee's staff back to Lhasa (an ardous 2-day drive on very rough roads). Mr Dorjee is a most honest and helpful person. He is our hereo. Wed 26 April Overnight stop in Shigatse. Paved roads from Shigatse to Lhasa make the last leg of the journey more bearable. Thu 27 April American team members in Lhasa. Sherpa team members head south to Nepal border by land. Fri 28 April Sherpa team members arrive back in Kathmandu, Nepal via overland from Tibet. American team members in Lhasa. Equipment prepared for flights to Beijing and USA. Sat 29 April Flight from Lhasa to Beijing Sun 30 April Beijing Mon 01 May Beijing Tue 02 May Return flight from Beijing to USA, end of expedition. Email by McMillan - 4 May 2006 I spent most the first 2 weeks in Tingri trying to recuperate from a serious sinus infection that seemed to peak the day that the rest of the group headed up towards ABC from CBC. Very unfortunate since I almost never get sick anymore, but one of the other members (George) had a cold when we left and that plus the big altitude jumps coming from Beijing floored me. The other two American members, and all three Sherpas members made it to ABC. George had a bad cold the entire time, which turned into sinusitis at ABC. He was sharing at ent with Pete Lardy, so Pete also was stricken by the sinusitis and I think that Nima Gombu got it as well. Unlike the Nepali cooks, our Chinese cooks did not provide any facility for washing hands before meals. They cooked with way too much grease and refused to provide enough quantity of clean drinking fluids. When I reached ABC on about April 23 both Pete and George were weak and unable to climb Pete. Ang Dawa and Nima Gombu had made it to C1, but then Nima Gombu had gone back and removed C1 and had given away the good from there. Nima Gombu refused to climb anymore. Possibly he felt his job was only to support George; he had already been paid; and George was not able to climb so he wanted to go home. George said that Nima Gombu had also been sick so I'm not sure how much was illness and now much was lack of motivation caused by our two evil Chinese cooks. I heard enough bad things about these cooks to write a nice short story but suffice to say they were attempting to sabotage the expedition. Nawang also refused to continue, saying he had bad dreams and some pain in his chest when climbing. Pete and George had given up completely (I had intercepted a note from them asking for 20 yaks when I saw Dorjee on April 21. Only Ang Dawa wanted to still try, God bless him (he is Nawang's middle brother). Linda later said it was unbelievable that five grown men had not been able to sort out the problem of the cooks in our absence. One of our two Chinese cooks had already left for CBC claiming falsely to be sick and the other cook was refusing to do any work. The Sherpas were eating with their friends in other groups and Pete and George were cooking one meal a day of our high altitude food.
Accidents -
Achievement -
Agency Chinese agent
Commercial Route True
Standard Route True
Primary Route False
Primary Member False
Primary Reference False
Primary ID -
Checksum 2459269
Year 2006
Summit Success False
O2 Summary None
Route (lowercase) nw side

Members

4 recorded members.

Name Sex Year of Birth Citizenship Status Residence Occupation
Peter Jacob (Pete) Lardy M 1975 USA Climber Colorado Springs, Colorado Truss designer Details Other expeditions
Linda Chaplinsky McMillan F 1949 USA BC Manager San Rafael, California Business consultant and consultant on nature conservation & ecology Details Other expeditions
Thomas Ian (Tom) McMillan M 1956 USA Leader San Rafael, California Database developer Details Other expeditions
George Aspinwall Patterson M 1944 USA Climber Santa Rosa, California Physicist Details Other expeditions

References

0 recorded references.