8000 Meters Facts
expedition 2004: History
(8201 m), which means “The Turquoise Goddess” is the
sixth highest mountain in the world, located a short
distance to the west from the world's highest mountain,
the Everest and the fourth highest, the Lhotse in the
Khumbu region of Eastern Nepal along the Tibetan border.
Its one of the towering peaks that stands with Everest
well above the surrounding mountains. Cho Oyu became a
familiar landmark to climbers ascending Everest's north
face. Just west of Cho Oyu is the Nangpa La, a
19,000-foot glacier pass, the main trade route between
the Khumbu Sherpas and Tibet. Cho Oyu's proximity to the
Nangpa La has earned it the distinction among some
climbers as being one of the safest 8,000 meter peaks.
The mountain was first noticed in 1921 during the
Howard-Bury's Everest reconaissance. Several photographs
were taken years after, but the mountain remained
unexplored until 1951 due to the Chinese authorities. In
1951 and 1952 British expeditin teams tried to climb the
mountain to prepare for Everest expeditions, but failed.
They came no further than 6800 m.
Herbert Tichy was born in 1912 and studied Geology at
university. During the winter of 1953/1954 Tichy went to
western Nepal with Sherpas Pasang Dawa Lama, Adbija and
Gyalsen. They climbed several 6000 m peaks and wanted
more. In 1954 Tichy, Sepp Jochler and Helmut Heuberger
organized an expedition to the Cho Oyu with seven
Sherpa's, Pasang Dawa Lama being sirdar. They carried
with them two oxygen cylinders for emergency use and
limited medical equipment. In the book of his
expedition, Tichy notes the advice given to him by a
surgeon before the trip on the use of a scalpel for the
amputation of severely frost-bitten fingers or toes:
"press hard and then make as clean a cut as possible."
Tichy and the Sherpas set up their last camp at 6930 m.
Because of frostbite and very cold weather, the team was
obliged to descend to a lower camp where they discovered
the presence of a Swiss team, also trying to make the
first ascent of the mountain. Tichy at this moment has
frozen hands but started the climb a few days earlier
than the Swiss. Tichy, Pasang Dawa Lama and Jochler
reached the summit on 19 October.
Cho Oyu is the fifth eight thousand meter peak that was
climbed, after consequently Annapurna (1950 by Maurice
Herzog) Everest (1953 by Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund
Hillary), Nanga Parbat (1953 by Herman Buhl) and K2
(1954 by A. Compagnoni). It is the first post monsoon
climb of an eight thousand meter peak.
The first ski descent from Cho Oyu was made on the first
of May, 1988 by the Italians Flavio Spazzadeschi and
Lino Zani. A second ski expedition attempted the
mountain in the autumn of 1988, where 4 French reached
the summit and descended on ski's. The next registered
ski descent took place on the 24th September of 2000,
where Laura Bakos became the first woman to ski from the
summit of an 8000 meter peak. She also became the first
north American to ski from the summit of an eight
thousander. The number of ski descents remain very
little at the present.
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