I have been lucky to become friends and climbing partners with a great group of Sherpas from the Rolwaling Valley. These include Mingma Tsiri Sherpa of Ascent Himalayas (first Nepalese to summit K2), with whom I climbed Everest in 2012. One mountain he had always wanted to climb was Beding Go (6,125m) in his home valley. When it was officially opened for climbing in 2014, we made an unsuccessful attempt, then planned to try again in October 2015 with a larger team of clients and Sherpas. After the devastating earthquakes in the spring, we felt a climbing trip would be a great way to assist the people of Rolwaling and bring more business to the area.

After acclimatizing and completing a solar project to bring electricity to people in the village of Beding, we established base camp at 4,900m below the south face of Beding Go. Our Sherpas checked the route and spent two days putting in anchors and fixing rope up the south face. After three days in base camp, we left for a summit attempt at 2:30 a.m. on October 21.

We made good time across the glacier and got to the start of the 600m south face at sunrise. Aiming for the southeast ridge, we climbed a very steep gully of snow and ice to reach the rocky section of face. This proved very loose, and it was difficult to place protection. On a traverse near the start there was a big rockfall, but thankfully nobody got injured. The exit onto the ridge involved climbing a steep snow slab that looked as if it would detach at any moment.

Once on the crest we could see six towers we had to cross before reaching the summit. Tsering Pemba and Nima Galzen went ahead to fix more rope. The first three towers turned out to be more difficult than expected, especially with so much rockfall. At this point several of the party went down. Mingma Tsiri Sherpa, his brother Pasang Tenzing Sherpa, Nima Galzen Sherpa, Tsering Pemba Sherpa, Dean Carriere (Canada), Dino Camargo (Brazil), and I decided to keep going.

Tsering Pemba and Nima Galzen continued to put in fixed line, and when we reached the final pillar it was obvious it would be the hardest. I had now been on the go for 12 hours and had to use all the remaining energy I had in the tank. One section was overhanging and I inadvertently swung onto the Tibetan side, thankfully held by the fixed rope. A scramble led to the narrow summit. The view was incredible, but we didn’t linger. It was a relief to get off the ridge just after dark and start carefully descending the south face. We finally reached base camp at 1:30 a.m. 

Cian O'Brolchain, Ireland