Asia, India—Garhwal, Shivling Attempt and Satopanth North Ridge

Publication Year: 1988.

Shivling Attempt and Satopanth North Ridge. Our expedition operated in two groups, Andreas Walder, Willi Wehinger, Walter Bell and I in the first and Dieter Blümel, Egon Haselwanter, Kurt Wolf, Gottfried Mayr and Traudl Stauder in the second. We are all Austrian except for Walder, who is Swiss. We established Base Camp at Tapovan on September 20. We acclimatized on Kedarnath Dome on September 26. Walder and I headed for the west ridge of Shivling. We placed Camps I, II and III at 5000, 5400 and 6100 meters on September 29, 30 and October 1. On the 2nd, we got to the summit ridge at 6400 meters but turned back because of bad weather and lack of time. We then went to camp at Vasuki Lake on October 5 and to a glacier camp north of Satopanth at 5500 meters the next day. Camp II was at 6000 meters on a col in the north ridge and Camp IV above a difficult ridge section at 6400 meters. We climbed to the summit on October 9. Because Group II’s objective, a new route on the east face of Shivling had just been climbed by Yugoslavs, they changed their objective to the west ridge. Blümel and Mayr got to 6100 meters.

Wolfgang Stefan, Österreichischer Alpenverein