Kangchenjunga | 2011 SW Face

A USA expedition to Kangchenjunga in 2011 via SW Face, led by Cleo Weidlich. Summit reached on 20th May 2011. 2 members recorded.

Expedition Details

Field Value
ID 7105
Imported 2026-03-06 18:04:49.359634
Expedition ID KANG11103
Peak ID KANG
Year 2011
Season 1
Host Country 1
Route 1 SW Face
Route 2 -
Route 3 -
Route 4 -
Nationality USA
Leaders Cleo Weidlich
Sponsor Kangchenjunga Expedition 2011
Success 1 True
Success 2 False
Success 3 False
Success 4 False
Ascent 1 88th
Ascent 2 -
Ascent 3 -
Ascent 4 -
Claimed False
Disputed False
Countries -
Approach -
Basecamp Date 2011-04-13
Summit Date 2011-05-20
Summit Time 0748
Summit Days 37
Total Days 39
Termination Date 2011-05-22
Termination Reason 1
Termination Notes -
High Point (m) 8586
Traverse False
Ski False
Paraglide False
Camps 4
Fixed Rope (m) 0
Total Members 1
Summit Members 1
Member Deaths 0
Total Hired 1
Summit Hired 1
Hired Deaths 0
No Hired False
O2 Used True
O2 None False
O2 Climb True
O2 Descent True
O2 Sleep False
O2 Medical True
O2 Taken False
O2 Unknown False
Other Summits -
Campsites BC(13/04,5536m),C1(18/04,6278m),C2(19/04,6680m),C3(18/05,7200m),C4(19/05,7800m),Smt(20/05)
Route Notes Weidlich successfully summited Kangchenjunga, but nearly died on her descent. She left C4 for the top with Pema Tshering on 19 May at 8:00 pm. When she reached 8530m at 6:00 am the next morning, the crampon on her right foot skidded off a rock that was covered with ice. She had torn a ligament in her knee and was in "horrible" pain, but she continued on the to the summit, which she and Pema Tshering reached at 7:48 am on 20 May. Since she was in pain, she lingered at the top for only three minutes before starting to descend. At 8570m they met a Chinese climber, Rao Jian-Feng, who was in serious trouble. His oxygen supply was exhausted, he had no Sherpa with him, and he was "frozen in fear," Weidlich said. Pema Tshering stayed with him while Weidlich, despite her pain and what she thought was snowblindness (her goggles were lost when she skidded on the icy rock), managed to get down to C4 at 4:15 pm. She had crawled much of the way because of her limited vision. The next morning, the 21st, she was totally blind. Pema, the Kangchenjunga expedition's organizer Mingma Sherpa, and Mingma's brother helped her down to 7300m to a plateau 100m above C3. She stayed there overnight. The morning after that, the 22nd, she heard voices outside the tent which the Sherpas had pitched for her; Anselm Murphy and Ted Atkins, the members of a British team, were there and helped her get to C2, from where a helicopter flew her to Kathmandu for hospitalization. She was on oxygen from C4 to the summit down to 8400m where it ran out. She was using oxygen which Ted Atkins gave her in C3 to C2. The above events were described by Weidlich on 27 May in her Kathmandu hotel. A report written by Anselm Murphy on the 27th or 28th fills in details she had forgotten or was unaware of her state of pain with a torn ligament, limited vision and probable cerebral edema, which could have caused her blindness. His nine-page account fills in the gaps. "Cleo got into trouble on the way down. On descent from the summit she began to lose her vision, and she had also sustained an injury to her right knee which occurred at 8500m that turns out have been ruptured parallel ligaments." She managed to get down to her high camp. "The morning of the next day she was not in good shape. Ted Atkins examined her and she complained that she felt great pressure pushing on the backs of her eyes. This, along with the fact that she had trouble walking and needed to sit down frequently, and her irrational refusal to take oxygen or drugs convinced Ted that she was suffering from cerebreal edema." "Cleo left with her Sherpas before me and I watched her from a distance. She seemded to be taking only a few steps, aided by a Sherpa holding each arm, before sitting down to rest. Progress was painfully slow. I approached her and found Mingma near Cleo using her satellite phone to request a helicopter evacuation. She seemed to think this was possible from our current altitude (about 7400m), but was told that she needed to get down lower, preferably to C3. I talked to Cleo and tried to convince her to allow us to give her a shot of dexamethasone, a drug that would help her with her cerebral edema. She initially refused, so I talked to Mingma to see if he could influence her. Eventually I succeeded in persuading her, and a few minutes Ted Atkins arrived, who administered the shot." "I now said that I would hurry down to C3 and look for a suitable area for the helicopter and find something to mark it with. Ted also decided to come down, but was a short while behind me. I was very tired at this time and progress was very slow, I had to take frequent breaks. Ted later reported that the shot of dexamethasone kicked in about 10 minutes after it had been given and Cleo perked up a bit. I eventually reached C3 where many climbers were stopping for a brief rest on their way down to base camp. I was extremely slow when I arrived which I attribute primarily to dehydration --- the weather (now) changed and visibility became very poor, so the helicopter rescue was definitely off for that day." Gradually all the other climbers descended from C3. "Only Ted and I and several Sherpas were left. The Sherpas seemed primarily concerned with clearing the camp of gear -- tents, oxygen, other equipment. At this moment Ted and I made the decision to stay at C3 in order to help Cleo. We were very worried that the Sherpas wanted to take everything down, and that no equipment would be left to aid Cleo..." We met with strong resistance from the Sherpas when we requested they leave behind some oxygen. But the Sherpas were dead set to remove all the oxygen... "Unbelievably, with a woman's life in danger, (one Sherpa) refused to let us have" the full bottle he was removing unless we paid him $400 (normal price $280). Even more unbelievably, it later transpired that this was not even his oxygen to sell, as he claimed, but belonged to his client, who had already descended. With no choice, Ted and I agreed to pay him at base camp... We also managed to get a 2/3rds full bottle from the Sherpa sirdar after quite a bit of persuasion. We also had to fight to prevent him from taking down all the tents, so he left one 3-man tent that Ted and I could stay in and use as a base to help Cleo." There also was a communications problem: Atkins, Murphy and Weidlich had no walkie-talkie. "Soon everyone had descended and it was just Ted and I left at C3. Then one of the Cleo's Sherpas arrived. He said that Cleo and the other Sherpas had put up a tent about 100m above our current position. (Camp 2 is located at the bottom of a large, steep ice serac and it had been decided that to get Cleo down this would be too difficult, and anyway the top of the serac was a good spot for the helicopter to pick her up.)" Apparently he had come down to find food and gas cylinders, but he refused their offer of both; when he reluctantly agreed to take an oxygen bottle to her but then oddly brought it back, saying she had refused it. (She later denied the refusal). He climbed back up the serac to join her for the night. The only people still on the mountain were Cleo, the Sherpas with her, Atkins and Murphy. Next morning, Murphy and Atkins each took an oxygen bottle up to Cleo's tent. The three Sherpas were there; Cleo was sitting in the otherwise empty tent and said she had not been given any food or water; Murphy gave her what little he had, then got her on oxygen, and this seemed to help. "She was very upset and worried and that she might not make it down. She was relieved to see me and said that the Sherpas had not been too helpful. I assured her that we would get her down somehow and would not leave her there. Ted arrived soon and administered another shot of dexamethasone, which again, after a few minutes, did seem to help. Atkins went back to C3 to pack up. Weidlich had used her satellite phone to call for a helicopter and was told that one would be sent that morning. (Then the phone's batteries went dead because of overuse by the Sherpas to make private calls). At about 10 am they heard the distant sound of rotor blades. It seemed the helicopter crew planned to pick her up by dropping a line to her for her to clip onto; her position was at about the helicopter's operational ceiling. It made a couple of passes over their heads but then swerved off down to the valley and disappeared into the distance. "Cleo took the disappointment well and just got on with it." Weidlich could not see slightly through her left eye and she was on oxygen. When they got to the serac, she said she could use her figure 8 descender; Murphy supervised her movements, and "after three abseils were on safe, easy ground and walked into C3." A Sherpa had taken down their tent; Atkins and Murphy asked the two Sherpas who had been with Weidlich and were about to descend to Camp 2 to take her with them while the two Britons packed up all their gear, which took them perhaps an hour and a half to do. Murphy started down first and after about 5 minutes, he came to "a snow slope that was not equipped with any fixed rope. If you fell on this slope and were not able to arrest the fall, you would slide off the edge of a serac and plummet to the glacier below. In the distance below me I saw a figure laying motionless in the snow. As I got closer I was shocked to see that it was Cleo. She was face down in the snow, facing downhill --- Looks like she was abandoned at an altitude of slightly under 7000m. If we had not found her, I believe she would have died. I woke her up and held onto her as I got her to right her position on the slope. She was extremely distressed and crying and didn't know how she had got there. She started telling me to go down and leave her... I doubled the flow rate on her oxygen set to 31 minutes. After a couple of minutes she was calmed down and in a better state. Atkins had joined them. There was an urgent need for everyone to get down as quickly as possible. "At this stage, it was the seventh day above base camp for each of us, with six of those days being above 7000m. We were in poor shape and everything was a struggle." They moved down in single file with Weidlich in the middle. The area they were in traversed a snow slope above a serac and had no fixed rope; a fall here could be fatal. Weidlich had a minor fall, but her escort got her back on track. But now it was midday with avalanche risk. They finally arrived at C2 in a snowstorm only to find that all tents and equipments had been cleared away by the Sherpas. "We descended a few minutes below the regular Camp 2 to a where a few tents had previously been place in the hope that they might still be there. They were not. But one of the Sherpas was about to carry away Weidlich's three-man tent; he was asked to put it up and he did. Weidlich, Murphy and Atkins now spent the night in it. They were at 6400m and "Cleo was noticeably improved." "We were woken in the morning at about 6:30 am by two Sherpas (not previously involved with the situation). They had brought us sandwiches and the news that a helicopter was on its way. Sure enough, it arrived in about an hour. To our great relief, it managed to pick Cleo up and fly her to safety." Sherpas: Mingma Sherpa, 16/5/78, Nurbu Char, Makalu-9, with his own summit success on Kangchenjunga on 20 May, he has scaled all 8000ers (he runs a Kathmandu trekking agency) Pemba Tshering, 16/6/70, Mathilow, Walung, Makalu-9, Everest X3, Lhotse X1, Dhaulagiri X2, Annapurna X1
Accidents Weidlich fell, then diagnosed with cerebral edema and greatly impaired vision
Achievement -
Agency Asian Trekking
Commercial Route False
Standard Route True
Primary Route False
Primary Member False
Primary Reference False
Primary ID -
Checksum 2458253
Year 2011
Summit Success True
O2 Summary Used
Route (lowercase) sw face

Members

2 recorded members.

Name Sex Year of Birth Citizenship Status Residence Occupation
Cleonice Pacheco (Cleo) Weidlich F 1964 USA/Brazil Leader Palo Alto, California Nuclear engineer Details Other expeditions
Pema Chhiring/Pemba Sherpa M 1980 Nepal H-A Worker Makalu-5, Makalu-Barun - Details Other expeditions

References

2 recorded references.

Expedition ID Journal Author Title Publisher Citation Yak 94
KANG11103 - - http://www.extremos.com.br/Blog/Cleo-Weidlich/110808_Report_of_My_Expedition_to_Mount_Kangchenjunga_and_My_Accident/ - - -
KANG11103 - - http://www.anselm-murphy.com/ - - -