The Himalaya by the Numbers: A Statistical Analysis - Himalayan ...

The next day Humar resumed his ascent at 5:30 a.m., reached the northwest ridge and crossed over
onto the mixed ice and rock of the northwest face, came to a rock band with thin ice cover at 6500m,
then a col (saddle) between Bobaye’s middle and main summits and finally up the last 30-40 vertical
meters or 150 linear meters on the north ridge from the col to the highest point at 1:00 p.m. Most of
his ascent had been on terrain slanting at 60 to 90 degrees.
At the summit he had clear weather although gusts of wind were blowing snow horizontally, and it
was very cold. In his descent he took a different, more direct line via the west pillar and west face,
avoiding the extremely difficult northwest face, and was back in his bivouac at 4:00 p.m. This was 27year-old
Humar’s first solo climb.
Nampa stands north of Bobaye. Here two other Slovenians, Matija Jost and Peter Meznar, pioneered a
new route via the central couloir of its southwest face, and on 3 November they made the second ascent
of the 6755m mountain on the fourth day of their assault. They began their climb from their 4200m
depot at 10:00 p.m. on the 31st of October, and just above a large crevasse at 4500m they entered an
ice couloir. They needed two hours to surmount the first 300 vertical meters of the 50-degree couloir,
but they had to spend nine hours on the next very steep (85-degree) 400m section. At the top of the
gully, at 5500m, they rested for four hours on the rocks of a ridge to the left of the top of the couloir,
climbed for three hours on the ridge, then stopped again and now, at 6:00 p.m. on 1 November, made
their first bivouac at 5600m and went to sleep.
Next day they started late at 10:00 a.m., continued up the ridge and bivouacked at 6300m at 6:00 p.m.
Finally on 3 November they gained the summit after coming close to the west ridge and joining the
route by which a Japanese team in the spring of 1972 had made the mountain’s first ascent. They were
at the top at 9:50 a.m., descended by the west ridge and briefly by the north face to 5800m, where they
found a Japanese piton and rope, and on down to their final bivouac at 8:00 p.m. at 4800m on rock
below a col on the west ridge.
Three more members of the expedition set out on 1 November for an ascent of the highest of the
Slovenians’ peaks, 7132m Api, which is west of Nampa, on a route that had been attempted by a
British team in the autumn of 1992. (Led by Robert Brown, the five Britons had to abandon their climb
because of heavy snowfall and lack of time after they had reached 6000m. The Slovenians found some
of their pitons and rope.) The British called the feature they climbed the south face, but the Slovenians
believe it is more accurately described as the southeast face, and they completed the British route.
They were the fifth expedition to summit Api by any route.
Dusan Debelak and Janko Meglic completed their ascent of Api on the fourth day of their push up the
face. Tomaz Zerovnik started out with them, but became sick during the night at their third bivouac at
6050m and was unable to make the final day’s climb to the top. On their last day, 4 November, Debelak
and Meglic began at 1:00 a.m., traversed beside a crevasse and moved up the snow face in very cold
wind blowing the loose snow of frequent small avalanches at them, which made breathing difficult.
Finally they came to rock covered by thin ice and then arrived at the western plateau and from there
climbed the last 20 vertical meters (100 linear meters) to the top at 3:30 p.m. They descended the same
route, moving fast in strong wind, and slept that night in the bivouac where Zerovnik had waited for
them. They had crowned their expedition’s plans to summit three mountains with the third success.
successfully scaled three peaks in the Api Himal: Api Main (6th ascent), Nampa (2nd
ascent), and Bobaye (1st ascent solo by Tomaz Humar) (see inset box); and a 12-person
Japanese expedition led by Tamotsu Ohnishi explored several peaks of the Nalakankar
region in the far northwest corner of Nepal.
Seasonal Activity
The primary climbing seasons in the Nepal Himalaya are spring and autumn when the
bulk of the expeditions come during the good weather months from March to May and
September to November. Most commercial expeditions climb during these two periods.
The winter season from December to February has only had occasional activity when
Analysis of Climbing Activity 25