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2002
Mugs Stump Award Winners:
Edwards/Millar—West Face
of Swachand
Guy
Edwards & John Millar
This year’s post-monsoon season in the Gangotri region
of the Garwhal Himalaya, India, was greatly affected by a
mid-September dump of 3-4 feet of snow. Climbing expeditions
focused on east or north-facing snow or ice routes were unable
to even start up their routes. Our project, the unclimbed
1400m west face of Swachand, caught the sun in the afternoon,
allowing the snow to consolidate.
Swachand is situated up a side valley, approximately 25 km
up the Gangotri Glacier from Tapovan. It is a few kilometers
from the main trekking and approach route, and certainly a
tantalizing view in the distance. Swachand has only been climbed
once via the Maiandi Glacier and the snowy southeast side
in 1938 by the Austrians T. Messner and L. Spannraft. The
much steeper west face was first attempted by Malcolm Bass
and Julian Camp (UK) in 1998, however they were not successful
because of abnormally warm weather and stonefall.
John Millar, Conor Reynolds, and I spent several days watching
the face from a few different angles, acclimatizing, watching
for avalanches, and planning our route. A few days before
we were about to attempt the climb, Conor developed a bad
boil the size of a ping-pong ball on his back. He had to quit
and descend to go seek medical help and antibiotics. Thus,
it was just John and myself.
Early in the morning of October 3, John and I started out
from ABC ready to climb. Up the first snowfield, and onto
the ice-shield at the base of the wall. We hunkered in a bergshrund
and roped up for the first rock band. After 4 good M5 pitches,
we were on the "dragon" snowpatch, and just managed
to frontpoint to the top of it by dark. It took at least an
hour to hack out a sizeable enough platform for our tent,
but the refuge was welcome. The nights and mornings were cold!
The following morning, John found a WI 5 chimney to get us
up to an ice ramp, which led in the direction of a larger
left-diagonal weakness, which was a bit of a funnel for rockfall.
In the only significant rockfall that we saw while climbing,
I was hit hard in the foot, enough to cause some swelling
and to hamper my ability to frontpoint. I grimaced and followed
while John led all the pitches for the next day and a half.
The second pitch of day 3 was definitely the crux of the whole
route—John led a full 60m WI 5, M6 pitch. I struggled
to follow the pitch with the heavy seconders pack on. We started
swapping leads again, and reached the upper snow/ice face
at sunset.
On the fourth morning, four pitches up ice, snow, and sugar-over-ice
brought us to the summit ridge. We were hoping for some easy
going at this point, but the traverse to the summit was far
from that: big cornices, and very windy. We simulled up the
ridge on firm corniced snow, with one fiddly rock step, at
a rate of two breaths per step, to arrive on the summit at
4:00pm.
We only spent a couple of minutes on top. It was a sharp summit—dropping
steeply in all directions, and we were worried about the descent
(never underestimate 1938 climbers). The first 300m down the
south ridge was sharp and required focused concentration.
Finally, we got to safer terrain, did a few rappels, and camped
down a little lower for the night.
On the fifth day we were out of food after breakfast. We slogged
back up the upper Maiandi Glacier to the col south of Swachand,
then dropped down towards the Swachand Glacier. After a few
rappels, some downclimbing, and lots of kick-stepping, we
reached the base of the face. In the last moments of visibility
before some very threatening storm clouds were upon us, we
found our tracks from five days before.
In a whiteout and with thick and determined snow falling,
we managed to follow our old tracks back to the security of
fuel, food, and a bigger tent: our advanced base camp. We
collapsed relieved and de-stressed.
We
were very lucky, as six inches of snow fell that night, plastering
every slope. The next morning, lots of fresh avalanche debris
was visible, and new slides and sluffs were coming down everywhere.
Patience and good posture are necessary when climbing at altitude.
Thus we name the route Mulabhanda meaning "sphincter
clenching," a yoga/Sanskrit term.
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