On September 30, Mathieu Détrie, Julien Dusserre, Pierre Labbre, and I arrived at our 5,130m base camp below the south side of the Nangpai Gosum peaks. [All three Nangpai Gosum peaks, as designated by the Nepalese government, are still officially unclimbed; III has hardly enough prominence to be deemed a separate peak.] During the approach we found the moraines to be unstable and chaotic, probably the result of the spring earthquake. The monsoon had been weak, but at first sight the faces looked to be in reasonable condition. However, seven days of warm weather completely changed conditions, and waterfalls were seen to appear up to 6,500m every afternoon on the south face of unclimbed Nangpai Gosum I (7,321m), our proposed line. 

We switched to Plan B: Nangpai Gosum I via the Japanese route up the south spur to the 7,240m south summit. On October 16, having sat though bad weather in base camp for 10 days, Pierre and I went up to the bergschrund below the face and bivouacked. Next morning the weather was worse than expected, so we descended. Not wishing to leave the area empty-handed, we decided to try a new route on the northeast face of Dzasampatse (6,295m). On October 17, Mathieu and Julien left base camp at 6 a.m., and at 3:35 p.m. were standing 20m below the summit, where they stopped because of extremely unstable snow on the narrow ridge. They descended the original Slovenian Route on the south-southwest ridge (650m, Azman-Golob, 2004), finding it very much easier than the grade of TD+ quoted by the first ascensionists. At 8 p.m. they reached the col at its foot.

The 700m line was named A la Verticale de la Peine and graded TD+ WI5. Next day, Pierre and I repeated the climb to the same high point, starting from base camp at 3 a.m., reaching the top at 9 a.m., and descending to the col by 11:30 a.m. It was a good line that saved our trip a little. 

Mathieu Maynadier, France