Nicolas Hojac (Switzerland) and I left Kyanjin Gompa on November 15 and walked more than five hours to reach the foot of the glacier that descends west from below the northwest face of Ganchempo (6,378m). We camped there at 4,760m. The next morning, at 3 a.m., we headed up the glacier to the foot of the northwest face. This took four hours.

Our original plan was to climb the mixed ground well right of the summit fall line, but on closer inspection we saw the ice was thin and fragmented. Instead, we continued up the glacier to a point slightly right of center of the northwest face and climbed directly up to the west ridge, just right of the summit. Conditions were very good, and apart from when we crossed the bergschrund, we only broke out the rope 60m below the ridge. Once on the ridge, it was only around 100m to the summit, which we reached in four hours from the foot of the face.

We spotted freshly fixed ropes to the south-southwest on the standard route, so we decided to descend that way and circle around the mountain to regain our tent. This took three hours. After a brief rest, we packed the tent and continued down toward Kyanjin Gompa.

The average inclination of our ca 700m route was 65°–70°. Maximum difficulties were found on several sections of 80°. [See AAJ 2024 for another recent route up the northwest face. Several unauthorized parties in the late 20th century are believed to have climbed this face, but their route lines are not known.]  

       —David Goettler, Germany