More than 9,600 expeditions

Miss Hawley in her home in Kathmandu (in 2016)

It was Salisbury who in the 1990s convinced Elizabeth Hawley, the legendary chronicler of mountaineering in the Himalayas, that it would be a good idea to digitalize her archive. Since 2004 the Himalayan Database has been available electronically. Today it includes information on more than 9,600 expeditions to over 450 mountains in Nepal, more than 70,000 mountaineers are immortalized in the archive. For anyone who wants to delve deeper into mountaineering on the highest mountains in the world the database is a true treasure chest.

Register expeditions online!

Tobias Pantel, Billi Bierling, Jeevan Shrestha und Rodolphe Popier (from l. to r.)

“It is a great wealth of information – no matter if you just want to know how many people have been so far on Mount Everest or Annapurna I or if you want to plan a climbing route,” Billi Bierling wrote to me in October. “The Himalayan Database answers all these questions.” In 2016, the German mountaineer and journalist had replaced the legendary chronicler, who is now 94 years old, as head of the database.

On the occasion of today’s possibility to free download the archive, Billi and the other members of the Himalayan Database team – the Nepalese Jeevan Shrestha, the Frenchman Rodolphe Popier and the German Tobias Pantel – point out to the mountaineers that “collecting the data is impossible without your help”. So if you are planning an expedition in Nepal, please register online for the database. That’s not too much to ask for as a small return for an open treasure chest, is it?

Ines Papert

And it was a first ascent at all! On 13 November Ines Papert was the first person who set foot on the 6718-meter-high Pig Pherado Shar in Nepal, also known as Likhu Chuli I. Billi Bierling, staff member of the legendary Himalayan chronicler Elizabeth Hawley, writes me that the Frenchwoman Cecile Barbezat and Nawang Dorje Sherpa on 21 October 1960 were at the top of Likhu Chuli II, “which conversely means that Ines made the first ascent of Likhu Chuli I.” This was the result of a research that her French colleague Rodolphe Popier made in the library of the French Alpine Club (Club Alpin Français).

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Likhu Chuli is on a 12-rupee-stamp

“It’s very clear they went to Likhu II by the west ridge and not to Likhu I”, says Rodolphe, who has reviewed the report of Barbezat, written more than half a century ago: “The text mentions a difficult climb up and no traverse at all between two summits. There are clear pictures taken under their claimed summit showing the Trakarding NW glacier straight down with the Tsho Rolpa lake (Gauri Shankar and Melungtse in the background) and from their summit showing South west ridge of Likhu 2 (still virgin and wrongly mentioned as south ridge). Even the picture of the summit taken from their Basecamp mentions their west ridge route on the right with no clear distinction of the both summits.” In other words: The informations in the text do not match the images. Barbezat and Nawang Dorje have claimed another summit than the one they really climbed. According to Billi Bierling the error in the database of Miss Hawley will be corrected immediately. And Ines Papert will be listed as the climber who made the first ascent of Likhu Chuli I. Congratulations, Ines!

P.S. While I’m at it: All the best, Miss Hawley! Sorry, I missed your 90th anniversary on 9 November.