After acclimatizing with a trek to Everest Base Camp, Egon Egger and Benjamin Zörer (Austria) drove by jeep from Kathamandu to Num, via Tumlingtar. They arrived on April 14 and then trekked to a base camp at 4,564m to the south of the southernmost lake in the Shershon Valley, arriving there on the 20th.

From base camp, they could study their prime objective, Tutse (a.k.a. Peak 6, 6,758m). The right side of Tutse’s serac-torn north face avalanched day and night. The left side appeared safer, but as the face itself was quite dry, they decided to try the east ridge, attempted in 2003 by a Danish team. However, bad weather over the next three weeks hampered their acclimatization, and Egger’s health, which had not been good before arriving at base camp, failed to improve. On May 12 the two started out from base camp at 2 a.m., and, breaking trail through deep snow, gained the ridge at 5,494m. However, it was obvious Egger could not continue and the two retreated.

After two days’ rest, and with less than a week before the porters arrived, Zörer set off for a solo ascent of Shershon Lho (6,112m). On the 14th, he slept beside Shershon Lake at 5,195m. The next day he left camp at 2:30 a.m., reached the foot of the northwest face, and climbed its right side, finishing via the upper section of the west-southwest ridge. He was on the summit a little before 7:30 a.m.

The climb was approximately D, with 12m to 15m of bad ice at WI3/4. The rest of the face was 50°–70° snow slopes, with one short mixed section. Zörer descended the west-southwest ridge, which was relatively easy, with just two sections where he had to downclimb UIAA II/III. [This was the ridge that Michael Ball and a Sherpa climber used to make the first ascent of the mountain in 1954.] He was back at the tent by 9:30 a.m. and returned to base camp by noon.

— Information from Benjamin Zörer, Austria, and Rodolphe Popier, Himalayan Database

HISTORICAL NOTES ON SHERSHON, TUTSE, AND PEAK 5,822M: On September 3, 1989, Victor Saunders and Stephen Sustad left the lower Makalu Base Camp (ca 4,900m), crossed a ridge to reach the Shershon Valley, and climbed to the summit of Shershon Lho, returning to base camp the same day. Although Saunders believes they climbed the northwest face, the same face climbed by Benjamin Zörer, he is uncertain of the line they followed almost 35 years earlier.

There is no record of Tutse having received an ascent, although there are rumors it may have been climbed by a party or parties during acclimatization for Makalu. It was first brought onto the permitted list in 2003, and that year it was attempted by a Dutch expedition that gave up at 5,000m, having identified the east ridge as the only safe route on the mountain. The Dutch instead turned their attention to Peak 5,822m, which lies on the ridge running south from Saldim East Peak (6,374m). They climbed through a difficult labyrinth of crevasses on the west flank to reach a col on the north ridge at 5,600m. From here they followed the steep snow and ice ridge to the summit for a probable first ascent.