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Expedition to climb Zemu Gap from south: our first attempt fails in November 2011


In November 2011, a small team from Adventure Mania made an attempt to ascend Zemu Gap from south (tongshiong glacier).

approaching guicha la



Starting from Yoksum they crossed Guicha la and descended down the talung glacier via Yongiotak. Making a base near the junction of talung chu and tongshiong chu they managed to climb the rock wall and camped next to tongshiong's vast and complicated icefall.

our tent after the 5 days of snow storm in the tongshiong ice fall

abseiling in near blinding white out

Simvu and Tongshiong glacier as seen from our base camp

Our base camp after 5 days of snow. Pandim in the backdrop, Talung face visible



Their further progress was foiled due to 5 days of non stop snow storm. They however managed to repeat the 1936 Tilman route down the Rukel and Rongyoung chu gorge. From Yoksum to Mangan it took them 12 days in total( From Tongshiong base it took them 5 days). The members were Lhakpa Sherpa, Thendup Sherpa, Arjun Saha, Arindam Sarkar, Dukpa Tsering Sherpa, Pemba Sherpa and Anindya Mukherjee. This is the fourth party to have succesfully done this traverse (1890-Claude White, 1920-Raeburn, 1936-Tilman). Anindya and Thendup also achieved a rare privilage to have done this traverse from both directions (March 2011-Mangan to Yoksum:Expedition Mayel Lyang 2011). Adventure Mania is going back to Tongshiong glacier in December 2011.

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