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SHISHAPANGMA

Often Spelled: "Xixabangma, Shisha Pangma, Shishipangma, or Xixapangma"

Shishapangma photo: Mark Newcomb

One of the easiest 8000 metre peaks in the world, located in Tibet, near Everest.

$9450, £4650, €6950; Basic Climb Cost: $5450, £2650, €3950.

We provide discounts for groups of two or more.

2 September to 9 October, 2007, 2008, and 2009, 36 days in Tibet and Nepal.

Now accepting registrations for our 2007 and 2008 climbs. 

CLIMB IT TOGETHER WITH CHO OYU OR ON ITS OWN.

You can add Shishapangma to the Cho Oyu climb and gain a 20% discount!

This page is linked to the Cho Oyu page. Please "click" here to go to the Cho Oyu page.

We successfully climbed this peak. Please CLICK the "News" button.

Leader: Arnold Coster, leader of Everest and Cho Oyu, and technical expert.

Organizer: Jon Christian Otto, fluent Chinese speaker, Tibet and China Expert, with 10 years Himalayan climbing experience.

Interested? Please contact us: SummitClimb@earthlink.net

* Our “full-service” expedition includes: 

* Our "basic climb" includes: 

Add the following services to the basic climb:

Basecamp kitchen, cooks, meals, dining, and sleeping tents: $2450, £1150, €1750.

High altitude leaders, sherpas, tents, equipment, walkie-talkies, food, stoves, fuel, etcetera: $2450, £1150, €1750.

Leadership: During this full-service expedition, you will benefit from the leadership provided by Arnold Coster, fluent English and German speaker, Everest and Cho Oyu leader, and technical expert. He is a relaxed, considerate and thoughtful person; an expert leader and a highly-skilled professional who specializes in getting people to the summit and back down in 100 percent safety. For more about Arnold, please "click" on the Leadership link above. 

Organization: Your expedition is organized by Jon Christian Otto, fluent Chinese speaker, Tibet and China expert with ten years experience in Chinese Himalayan climbing. Jon is an excellent communicator,  an international diplomat, extremely well organized, with superb attention to each and every detail.  For more about Jon, please "click" on the Leadership link above. 

Sherpas and Equipment Transport: Our expedition includes transport of all of your equipment from Kathmandu to advanced basecamp, and returned to Kathmandu. While climbing on the mountain, we DO NOT ask our full-service members to carry heavy group equipment (although it is an option if you really want to), such as tents, rope, fuel, food, etcetera. We employ climbing sherpas, and high-altitude porters, to carry group equipment and supplies. For a minimal expense, we can also provide personal sherpas, and climbing-guides, to individual members who wish to have their own private sherpa or personal climbing-guide.

Training: Upon arrival in the basecamp, ALL full-service and basic-climb members are required to participate in one to two days of training in the areas of climbing techniques, glacier travel, rope fixing, ascending, descending, safety techniques, rappels (abseils), belaying, medical equipment and procedures, communications equipment, camping techniques and high-altitude cooking. For the expert and beginner alike, it is important to review these techniques in order to enhance skills, ensure safety-awareness, and work together as a team.

Safety: BOTH full-service and basic expeditions are allowed access to our extensive medical supplies, first-aid kits, medical oxygen, and a gamow bag in case of emergency. Thank you for being a well-prepared and safe team member!

Group Equipment: We provide a plethora of well-used, top-quality, and time-tested equipment, group gear, and supplies, including: rope, ice, rock, and snow anchor protection; basecamp and altitude tents; cookers, fuel, high-altitude food, walkie-talkie radios, bamboo marker wands, etcetera. We now provide each member with their own individual tent in basecamp, so you do not have to share. Please see the above EQUIPMENT link, to study what we bring for your use and safety.

Cooks and Food: On the road we eat in the local restaurants as available. In basecamp and advanced basecamp our skillful and hard working cooks prepare three hot meals each day with a very healthy diet of fresh vegetables, cheeses, eggs, and fresh as well as tinned ruits, meats and fish (all meats and fish are prepared separately out of respect for the vegetarians in our midst). They supply you with unlimited hot-drinks, the key to successful acclimatization. We have large weather-proof kitchens and dining tents, with comfortable chairs and tables. On the mountain, above advanced basecamp, we provide you with abundant and nutritious locally available quick-cooking food, so that you may prepare at least three meals and lots of hot drinks each day, in our specially designed high-altitude stoves using our butane-propane expedition mix fuel.

Personal Equipment: Plastic Double climbing boots are required, as are good quality leather walking boots. You will need to bring your own personal equipment, including rucksack, iceaxe, crampons, harness, helmet, plastic mountaineering boots, good quality leather boots, down/duvet jacket, wind/waterproof clothing, sleeping bag/mat, etcetera. Snowshoes, snowboards, or skis with climbing skins are optional, and snowshoes may be hired locally, although it is best to bring your own equipment. In addition, we ask you to bring 4 of your favorite high-altitude freeze-dried dinners for yourself. Please see the above EQUIPMENT link, to study what is needed.

Team Member Experience: Our leader, Felix Berg, and our team-climbing-sherpas, are there to ensure (for our full-service members) you make it up to the summit and down safely. However, this is not a guided expedition (although you could hire your own personal guide, sherpas, etcetera), and team members are expected to be able to care for themselves in a winter-camping and climbing environment. Although Shishapangma is considered to be one of the easier 8000 metre peaks, there are hazards present, and members must have experience in roped rock and ice climbing techniques (to protect from falling down the mountain or into crevasses), and have winter-condition climbing experience in the greater ranges of the world. It is also required that all members will have an awareness of altitude sickness, frostbite, and the recognition of their symptoms, prevention, and treatment. Once traveling on the Shishapangma Glacier and above, all members must be roped to another team member at all times. If you will be skiing/snowboarding, you must be very confident. This is no place for a beginner skier or snowboarder. Neither solo climbing, nor descending, are allowed on the Shishapangma Glacier nor above.

Fitness and Health: To participate in this expedition you must be a very fit and active winter-walker-climber in good health. Prior to joining our group, please see your doctor and obtain the necessary permission and advice, as well as medications for travel in extremes of altitude, and also for exotic locales. Note: You can purchase all necessary medicines inexpensively with no doctor's prescription in Kathmandu. Make sure you have physically trained yourself very thoroughly before joining this climb of one the easier 8000 metre peaks in the world. We look forward to climbing together with you!

DESCRIPTION:

Shisha Pangma, known in Tibetan as "the mountain over the grassy plain," is considered to be one of the world's easier fourteen 8000 metre peaks. Its also the only 8000-meter peak located wholly in Tibet.  After an early attempt, it was first climbed in 1964 by a Tibetan-Chinese expedition and was opened to foreign climbers in 1978. The peak originally carried a Hindustani name: Gosainthan. Shisha Pangma is known to be an "easy" 8000 metre mountain, and people have descended it on skiis. The skiing and snowboarding are best in the camp 1 and camp 2 areas. Above the camp 2 plateau, it is very rocky, icy, and a fall here would surely result in a fatality. We will climb it in September and October, during a season of relative warmth and sunny weather.

The Route, from a Chinese map.

After walking from the point where our vehicles drop us, the end of the road at "Chinese Base", we accompany our yak drivers to advanced basecamp at 5400 metres.

Vehicles drop us at 4600 metres. Its a one or two day walk to basecamp (sinclair, hume, pappenfus collection).

Advanced base camp lies on the north foot of the mountain at 5400 metres (sinclair, hume, pappenfus collection).

After organizing our advanced basecamp, we start the task of climbing up and down the mountain, together with our Sherpas, preparing camps and acclimatizing. We walk along the lateral moraine of the Shishapangma Glacier, and at 5800 metres, we cross the Shishapangma glacier in a flat area with many serac formations. We climb a skiable/snowboardable "headwall" to camp 1 at 6200 metres. The route from camp 1 to camp 2 crosses a flat plateau, then climbs another skiable/snowboardable "headwall" to a massive plateau where camp 2 is located, at about 6700 metres.

Camp 2 at 6700 metres (sinclair, hume, pappenfus collection).

From Camp 2, we cross the enormous and almost totally flat plateau, then climb a marginally skiable/snowboardable headwall dotted with rocky outcroppings at 7100 metres, until we reach camp 3 on a protected and safe rock-crowned flat buttress at 7400 metres.

Climber nearing the Gendarmes at 7600 metres (sinclair-hume-pappenfus collection). 

From the high camp, we ascend a fairly steep snow and rock ridge, past two huge gendarmes, and climb across snow slopes to the solid snow "knob" that tops the central summit at 8007 metres. There is usually a tiny surfboard sized flat spot from which to stand, take summit photos, and to soak up the scenery. From here you are greeted by incredible views of Everest, Cho-Oyu, the Tibetan plateau, and so many kilometres of mountains that it will be difficult to absorb the site. 

Just under the west summit at 7852 metres (sinclair-hume-pappenfus collection). 

This is the central summit at 8007 metres (sinclair-hume-pappenfus collection).

Very few climbers have reached the "true summit" of Shishapangma, which is perched further along a wicked double-corniced snow ridge that would require many hours of delicate traversing on an unstable knife-edged snow ridge. Our expedition will not plan to go there.

Looking toward the true summit from the central summit (sinclair-hume-pappenfus collection).

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Suggested day-by-day itinerary for Shishapangma climb:

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Last modified: 19 July 2007 04:01:29 AM