Shisha Pangma - Inaki Route - Normal Route

On the photo you can see, on the lower left side the snowfield where camp 3
is located.
Going for the Inaki route one has to cross over this snowfield to the left,
descend and cross the hanging glaciers to a crevasse which leads up to the
great couloir. The couloir is left to the the left side. The rocks are to
the far right side .From top of the couloir one follows the East ridge to a
col. From the col you have to climb a steep for-summit. Over a ridge you
will reach the Main Summit of Shisha Pangma.
That is what we did on April 30th, 2013.

Now here our route which we will try on May 10th, 2013.

The normal route starts at the snowfield of camp 3. One has to climb up the
snowfield towards the rocks. The route follows more or less the left side
of the North-East ridge. After crossing the rocks a steep snowfields leads
up to the top of the ridge. On top of the ridge one has to climb up to the
prominent rock called rock gendarm. From this rock the route to the Main
Summit starts to cross on steep snowfields to the col between Main Summit
and Central Summits . This route is often not useable due to avalanche
danger. Therefor people normally follow the NE-ridge arround the rock
gendarm. Then they climb up the ridge which getting steeper to another rocky
area. From there arround 300m of fixed rope are needed to reach the Central
Summit of Shisha Pangma. If someone needs to go to the Main Summit, it looks
like there is a possibility to reach the col via a rock band on the South
side of the Central Summit . We will see.

Thomas
Shisha Pangma ABC