Kwangde Shar | 1978 ENE Spur-E Smt (up), S side (down)

A UK expedition to Kwangde Shar in 1978 via ENE Spur-E Smt (up), S side (down), led by Lindsay Griffin. Summit reached on 26th October 1978. 2 members recorded.

Expedition Details

Field Value
ID 11512
Imported 2026-03-06 18:04:49.359634
Expedition ID KWSR78101
Peak ID KWSR
Year 1978
Season 1
Host Country 1
Route 1 ENE Spur-E Smt (up), S side (down)
Route 2 -
Route 3 -
Route 4 -
Nationality UK
Leaders Lindsay Griffin
Sponsor -
Success 1 True
Success 2 False
Success 3 False
Success 4 False
Ascent 1 3rd
Ascent 2 -
Ascent 3 -
Ascent 4 -
Claimed False
Disputed False
Countries -
Approach -
Basecamp Date 1978-10-18
Summit Date 1978-10-26
Summit Time 1830
Summit Days 8
Total Days 14
Termination Date 1978-11-01
Termination Reason 1
Termination Notes -
High Point (m) 6093
Traverse True
Ski False
Paraglide False
Camps 4
Fixed Rope (m) 0
Total Members 2
Summit Members 2
Member Deaths 0
Total Hired 0
Summit Hired 0
Hired Deaths 0
No Hired True
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(18/10,4600m),Biv1(22/10,5250m),Biv2(25/10,5850m),E-Smt(26/10),Biv3(26/10,5900m),Biv4(27/10,5400m)
Route Notes Approach: From Lamosangu on the Friendship Highway eastwards! BC 18/10 circa 4600m (guesses only, no altimeters nor maps back then) After reexamination, rather 4440m on GE and HMG Finn Map Biv1 22/10 circa 5240m+ at the footstep of the upper section of the spur (in AAJ’s account, remaining were 762m => 6093-762=5331m) Biv2 25/10 circa 5850m (dwn to the rock band below the summit) Biv3 26/10 circa 5900m on the glacial shelf on the south side. Biv4 27/10 circa 5400m, afoot of the glacial shelf. Smt 26/10 by both members at 6:30 pm. Left BC beginning of November (unknown exact date). Origin of the project: The idea came a year before to Lindsay Griffin (LG) when he saw a picture of the peak in a magazine, thinking “what a fabulous line!”. Jim Duff, climber and doctor from UK who had worked in the medical centre in Khumbu said to LG something like: “You can see that very easily from Namche, but it’s not a permitted peak”. Before LG went to Kishtwar, Jim Duff contacted him saying something like: “I just got word that they are bringing this peak – among other ones - onto the permitted list. So you should write to Mike Cheney and see if you can get a permit for it”. Cheney, who ran Sherpa Cooperative and was used by British expeditions at the time, would arrange the logistics for their trip, with not much to prepare by the way: just getting the permit, then hiring a sirdar from Khumjung (who happened to be a thief, as it happened. He colluded with other to steal some of the equipment during the approach and in the end stole LG’s watch. LG later saw it on the Sirdar’s wrist. Cheney was annoyed about it), plus two porters. Acclimatization and approach march: The duet didn’t acclimatize at all, but used the long approach trek as an aid. LG had been climbing in Kishtwar in the summer, 3 or 4 weeks before coming to Nepal, so he was acclimatized but “fairly knackered”. Yet not well acclimatized, Roger Everett (RE) was very fit and acclimatized rapidly. He joined LG in Kathmandu. As he was starting a new job, (a 3-years post-doc research contract), they had a tight schedule for the expedition, “probably too tight for Nepal in those days where nothing worked properly!” (LG)! The duet started its trek at Lamosangu, on the Friendship Highway, needing from there 14 days to reach BC, trekking from W to E with a lot of walk up on big hills and down on the other side. LG thinks they took two porters from Kathmandu and they travelled on the bus with them to Lamosangu. After a couple of days, these two gave up, so that every day they had to find two or three new porters, sometimes spending the whole morning for that! At some stage, they enlisted one woman and her daughter. After passing Thami, they crossed the river near Samde, then slept at Pare village. Above the latter, they walked almost straight up to BC, some horrendously thrashing through Rhododendrons (there was no path, or they didn’t find a good way anyway). By the time they got to their BC, on the 18th of october, they had done a lot of walking. When unpacking their stuff in BC, they found quite a bit of it missing. That included camera film, clothing, but importantly rope: one had simply disappeared, the other one had been cut! So that only left for the climb was one rope about 30m long! “I suppose we were a bit naïve”, the stuff was tied up in big bags, so that we didn’t need to unpack until BC, explaining why they didn’t watch it on the way. LG thinks afterwards the stealing occurred at some stage of the approach march, during the night. But the most serious loss definitely was the ropes. Sirdar and porters would not stay at BC, instead going back to Khumjung. They would come back in a week or more. BC just consisted in one 2 persons’ tent. Reconnaissance: The duet first spent about a day or two in BC, considering their objective. The ENE spur (NE spur in publications) presented itself like an inverted Y, whose left branch in fact rooted not so far from their BC. They would first use that left branch to approach the upper spur section. On 19 or 20 of October, the duet took some stuff (including a small bivouac tent) to make a deposit at the start of the assumed difficulties. They started to climb the left branch’s lower and south-facing section to reach the east-west ridge leading to the start of the main spur. On reaching the east-west ridge, they discovered a small glacier on the far (south) side, which would make an easier connection between the BC the base of the main ENE spur. They walked most of the way towards the base, made a deposit, and returned via the glacier to BC. Then RE suggested one or two days more for acclimatization. So that they rested for 1 or 2 days at BC, with poor weather. Ascent: 22 October: the duet set off for the climb. This time they followed the glacier up to the deposit and camped there for the night. Then it snowed for two days! 23 October: duet waited at its Biv1, in poor weather. 24 October: duet still waited at Biv1, still in poor weather (clouds, snowing…). LG thought it was aiding acclimatization by towards the end of the day RE got fed up: “I don’t care what happens. If it’s not clear tomorrow, I am going down!”. With two unexpected days of waiting the food supply was starting to become an issue. Luckily the weather cleared in the evening. 25 October: The duet left on that morning for the proper climb. The lower section was quite straightforward, despite rather hard work because of the fresh snow and the limitation of the short rope. They climbed all day, in mixed AD-like ground, until soon before dark they reached a nice big ledge below the large rock band crossing the upper part of the spur. Such a place would make a perfect camp for the night (Biv2 at 5850m). Here LG, mindful of a possible change in weather, said to RE: “Look, the summit doesn’t look very far away! Why don’t we just leave our stuff here, go for it and come down by head-torch?” (at this stage, they had decided to climb down by the same route). To which RE answered, very astutely: “Don’t be an idiot, Griffin! It’s probably further than you think it is. We will stay here”! It would take them whole of the next day to climb that final section, which happened to be much steeper and harder than first expected, mostly found in mixed conditions [LG: We thought an overall grade at the time of around TD]. 26 October: They first climbed the aforementioned rock band, which is quite short at this point – a single pitch (?). Above, the ground consisting mostly of steep slabs covered with snow. Such mixed conditions by the way having nothing in comparison with dry ones (as a rock climb), as some of the repetitions would prove later [LG: “Americans in 1990 took five days and climbed 35 pitches to 5.8. There were a number of ascents prior to this. I remember Koreans saying it was 5.9 and someone European (I will need to check my notes; now I don’t think it was Thomas Senf. But I think it was a German photographer and he climbed it with his girl friend) said a pitch of 6a.”] The pitch through the rock band stands out clearly in LG’s mind and felt like the crux. There was a small barrel-shaped buttress. Using a small ledge on the right, overhanging the north face, he traversed in to that and above was a corner, where he could place a peg runner; here he realized he couldn’t climb that corner, being too hard (“I think this is probably what people refer to as the 5.9/6a pitch as it is a steep corner crack, probably with good protection”). So he came back onto the prow, then made some really weird rockover moves, with kind of snow and stuff onto this prow. He cleared away snow and was chastised by Roger, who was more proficient in Scottish mixed climbing. Roger dabbed snow back onto the rock and more or less front pointed the granite. The duo reached the summit just before dark, at 18:30 pm, the apex surprisingly presenting itself like a knife edge (having no idea of the geography of the peak!). One of the reasons they went on this day, eventually committing into such a late summit, was that they had been told by somebody (Mike Cheney possibly?) that a Japanese team was climbing the mountain from south. At the time nobody really knew if the peak had been climbed or not, but also the geography of the mountain was unclear, with no distinction between Kwangde Shar and Kwangde Lho for instance. Initially aiming for it, LG/RE believed that the traverse between those two would be rather easy! In addition, they were expecting the Japanese’s presence on the other side, believing they would just have to use their fixed ropes to get quickly down back to food and comfort! However, once on top, there was no sign of the Japanese, so that the duet would have to start its descent of the south side on its own. On the south-facing side of the very sharp summit ridge, they downclimbed a circa 200m/50° steep absolutely perfect neve slope (which had got sun then had melted and consolidated), in really cold temperatures. “Actually, the most enjoyable climbing and best conditions on the route” remembered LG. With still some light, they descended to the top of a big glacial shelf, where they made a third bivouac at around 5900m. 27 October: At first the duet had assumed they would go down by the (South) ridge of the main mountain, but they couldn’t get across that, and directly below the ground was nasty. Their only option was to follow the glacier shelf as it descended to the ESE. [LG: So what people have done in more recent times – I am pretty certain of this, is that they got on this glacier and follow it (it descends quite gently actually, being like a glacial terrasse with big cliffs below it) descending to the E, until they can climb up back up to the col between Kwangde Shar and Nupla, then abseil down the north side (I read that the Korean said 25 rappels, but that doesn’t make sense). Back in 1978, this hadn’t been done]. So, they followed that shelf down. They thought they might be on route used by the Japanese because they found what they naively thought to be ski tracks in the snow. But much later on, they realized it wasn’t, since the tracks disappeared over the edge of the glacier. It was just sastrugi. They walked all the way along until it got really late in the day, them being still separated from the glacier below by a sort of cliff. Way down the glacier below RE saw like a bit of a track in the snow, so they thought “these must be the Japanese”. So, they decided to try to abseil this cliff - which happened to be very steep, a vertical cliff, with a sole 30m abseil. They got to a point where the cliff was small enough, from where they did 3 abseils (each of 15m). RE remembers: “Placing pegs while hanging upside down and jammed into the rope knot, then all sorts of trouble extricating from the jammed knot. Fortunately, the pegs held”. When he was doing the last abseil, LG remembers it was absolutely pitch dark: Roger was not on a very good belay, so the anchor wasn’t great (because they hadn’t a lot of gear), and LG remembers he made a very tentative descent, trying to make is as smooth as possible and “light”. Then suddenly he touched the ground! They just left all the stuff in situ, walked down into where it was flat, they put the tent up and went to sleep (last - fourth – bivouac, at around 5400m. The climb was over, but not exactly the adventure. Crampons were used throughout the entire ascent and descent. 28 October: The next morning, the duet collected their rope, etc. and went down to where they saw wands coming in from the west and leading to a big kitchen tent! Inside the latter, they found a Sherpa and said “we haven’t eaten for days!”! And he basically said “tough” (he was, understandably afraid to part with any food without the permission of the Japanese, who were not present! They asked “where are the Japanese?” and the Sherpa answered that they were still on the mountain (they hadn’t seen them anywhere, realizing they were on a different mountain afterwards). Then they went down into the Lumding Khola and they bivouacked for the night (approx a little less than 4000m on Google Earth), with no more food at all at this stage. It snowed all the night, but they were protected by a large boulder. 29 October: The duet knew it had to cross the Lumding La for getting out to the Dudh Khosi. So they set of, and despite the fact they didn’t know where it was exactly and that it was snowing all time (thrashing up there the whole day in poor visibility), they managed to reach the col in the end, and discovered a few cairns but the track was very poor. By this time the snow was quite deep and on the far side, it was a bit dodgy. So they had “a bit of a sad discussion” and said: “we have to go back, since we haven’t got a clue of the route”. So they went all the way back down, thrashing through the forest. As they came down and it was getting dark, they had seen that there might be some yaks’ or shepherds’ huts... so they thought “what if we can get in one of these”, because they were pretty wet by then. Then they saw a little smoke coming out of a hut! So they charged on and burst into this hut, and it was full of Japanese and their Sherpas!! And they didn’t get any food!! LG remembers that these Japanese were really inhospitable, the Sherpas were really nice but said: ”we can’t do anything”. So they mostly dried all their stuff, because they had this big fire going, and they had a good sleep. [LG: Roger says in his note they gave us a bit of food. I was pretty sure they didn’t, though they did provide plenty of tea. Maybe they gave us such a small amount of food that I don’t remember it! Or maybe when we left to walk out they gave us a bit of food for the journey. I don’t remember them giving us anything, but Roger seems to think they did, and it is probably something you would remember! So, perhaps it is me who is wrong]. 30 October: On the next morning, the Sherpas said that the Japanese had said they needed to make a contribution for the wood that they had used. They explained not to have any money on them, but that they would make a contribution when getting to the Dudh Khosi. In order to guarantee that, they gave them some of their stuff to be carried by their porters, and so they could travel a bit lighter. And then they didn’t start in the morning until all the Japanese expedition had set off and broken the trail through deep snow. Sherpas had said “no, you cannot go out by the Lumding La and you need to go out by a lower pass further down” called the Moro La. So, they just followed their trench, which was brilliant: they went over and down to the Dudh Kosi, with a long way down until Ghat village. LG: “I don’t think I ever saw the Japanese again, but we spent a fabulous night with the Sherpas!”, in one of the Sherpas’ houses at Phakding, where they drank a lot of Chang (“which was dreadful on our empty stomachs” says LG). 31 October: On this day, the duet was back to Namche Bazar, where they met with their Sirdar who said “We went back up to BC, thought you were dead, and brought the whole load back! RE thought that was brilliant, when LG thought Fuck! On his side, as a habit he’d almost always used, LG had buried his money and passport before leaving BC. Not RE, who had taken it with him - knowing he had less time maybe? Anyway, LG had to go back to BC to clean the place and take his belongings back! The duet could stay in Namche for recovering during a couple of days. But now, Roger was on a really tight schedule. So they basically managed to fly Roger out from Syangboche, because there were some little planes flying from there - even if with very low weight allowed. To minimise luggage weight RE wore a maximum of stuff on him, including his climbing gear! Then LG set off to get back his stuff (at BC). Here, he realized he was “very, very weak” (“I don’t think I had ever something, before or afterwards quite similar really”). From Namche Bazar side, he spotted an alternative way to reach BC, this time avoiding the direct thick Rhodos’ forest by the left/south. He crossed the river again near Samde, reached Pare village where he slept for a night at the same house once again, then tried to walk up to the BC. Once he started to go up hill - having found a better way to go, he found his head was going very dizzy/spinning around, so that he could only progress if he was on his hands and knees! So he went up like that to BC, collected his money and stuff (including a little note), then he came back down to the Sherpa house again in Pare, then in Khumjung) on the day after. Now LG had to carry his stuff, plus a small part RE hadn’t had the possibility to take with him when flying from Syangboche. Like that he wasn’t sure being able to walk out, and he had money to fly out from Lukla (in two days). Fortunately, he met with a New Zealand medic girl, and she says to be going back to Lukla for flying out in a two days’ time, so she offered him to come back with her! Basically, she carried some of his stuff, fed him like with ten meals a day (!), then got to Lukla and flew out. Additional message from Roger Everett (13 February 2025): “Hi Rodolphe, Kwangde was a long time ago! I do remember it was a great route on a very appealing line. Hard work! The descent was rather more exciting than it should have been, as we found at basecamp before starting that someone had stolen half our one rope. We had to do short pitches on the way up, then there was a steep rock wall to abseil on the way down. For which the rope wasn't quite long enough. Placing pegs while hanging upside down and jammed into the rope knot, then all sorts of trouble extricating from the jammed knot. Fortunately, the pegs held. Then there was a monstrous storm, deep snow, and a bit of an epic getting over a ridge back to Namche. We were very grateful to a Japanese team who had a big team of porters to break trail, and who could also give us some food as we'd run out. All in all, a pretty normal team of 2 Himalayan trippers for that time, I guess!». Literature: Himalaya in Alpine Style, page 161. American Alpine Journal 1979, page 269. http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12197926901
Accidents -
Achievement -
Agency -
Commercial Route False
Standard Route False
Primary Route False
Primary Member False
Primary Reference False
Primary ID -
Checksum 2446641
Year 1978
Summit Success True
O2 Summary None
Route (lowercase) ene spur-e smt (up), s side (down)

Members

2 recorded members.

Name Sex Year of Birth Citizenship Status Residence Occupation
Lindsay Nigel Griffin M 1949 UK Leader Tregarth, Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales Mathematics teacher & alpine instructor Details Other expeditions
Roger Everett M 1951 UK Climber - - Details Other expeditions

References

2 recorded references.

Expedition ID Journal Author Title Publisher Citation Yak 94
KWSR78101 - - https://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12197926901 - - -
KWSR78101 AAJ Griffin, Lindsay Kwangde Shar, Khumbu Himal - 53:269 (1979) -