Palung Peak, Siguang Peak, Cho Oyu, Attempts and Ascents. Together with my wife Marija I joined the Croatian Cho Oyu Expedition led by Darko Berljak. Above basecamp we worked separately. We wanted to climb a new route on the northwest ridge of the mountain (from the Palung La). To acclimatize we first climbed Palung Peak (7012 meters) in two days. Siguang Peak (7300 meters) was our next acclimatization plan. We crossed Palung La and descended under the Cho Oyu north face on the Palung glacier. The next day we tried to reach the summit but abandoned our attempt 150 meters below it due to lack of time. On the descent we spent the second night at 6600 meters. The day after we returned to basecamp over the Palung La. On September 26 we started from the Palung La for the northwest ridge. Within the first 100 meters we were caught by two small slab avalanches. Nonetheless we continued, hoping to find better conditions high on the slopes. But it was even worse. We decided to abandon our attempt at 6400 meters. The same day we descended to the basecamp. In the meantime our friends on the Normal Route had already finished the climb. Seven of them reached the summit. They had already ordered the yaks from Tingri and planned to clean up the high camps. We decided to try the Normal Route. The weather was still unstable and unpredictable. On September 27 we reached the summit at 3 p.m., after 10 hours of climbing, breaking trail alone in very deep snow. Thin clouds and gentle snow came along with us the whole day. Cho Oyu was the third 8000-meter peak for Marija and seventh (including Kangchenjunga south summit) for me. All three we have done together.

Andrej Stromfelj, Planinska zveza Slovenije