The West Face of Vasuki Parbat 2010
Malcolm Bass

Our original objective was the fine peak of Janahut (6805m) at the head of the Gangotri Glacier in the Garwhal region of India. But the bureaucrats of the newly founded state of Uttarakhand intervened, and despite our Indian Mountaineering Foundation permit, they refused to grant us the required local permit. Our party of three Alpine Club members, (Paul Figg, Pat Deavoll, Malcolm Bass) and artist Rachel Antill, needed a new objective.
After pinging photographs of several tasty objectives back and forth between Yorkshire and New Zealand (Pat’s home), a consensus emerged. We’d have a go at the West Face of Vasuki Parbat, another Garwhal peak. Mick Fowler and Paul Ramsden had brought this spectacular face to the world’s attention when they made a strong attempt in 2008, and it was Harish Kapadia who had first showed Mick a photograph of the face. So it was very much an Alpine Club objective.

West Face of Vasuki Parbat with the route following the ice
line immediately behing the climbers (photo: Satyabrata Dam)

Mick and Paul’s attempt had been hampered by heavy snow fall, which ate into their restricted time budget and prevented them getting any acclimatisation done before they started up the face. After the snow stopped falling, temperatures plummeted, and the combination of cold and lack of acclimatisation led to an orderly retreat from half way up the face. But not before they had unlocked several key pieces of the route, information that they generously shared with us.
Our journey to base camp was delayed by customs and a heavy and late monsoon. We were lucky to reach the road head at Gangotri: two hours after we drove up it, the road was closed by landslides for 10 days. We arrived at base camp nearly a week behind schedule, but still with 5 weeks in hand. After acclimatising on the eastern slopes of Bhagirathi II we were ready for Vasuki.
Vasuki Parbat has had one, possibly two ascents. There is uncertainty about the possible first ascent in 1973 by the Indo Tibetan Border Police, route unspecified. Less contentious is that in 1980 a Japanese team climbed the icy east face after fixing rope up the first 600m. There have been two attempts on the North West Ridge, by a Welsh team and a French team.

Pat, Paul and I started up a water ice gully (not visible in the route photograph), then broke out right onto the spur. After the gully the first two day’s climbing were up easy snow slopes, a good gentle introduction to our heavy packs. Temperatures were low: minus twenty at night, so we’d had to bring big pits and lots of clothing. Sadly on the third day Pat decided that there were too many factors stacked against her, and decided to descend. A broken back only five months previously, a hacking cough, concerns about how well she had acclimatised, and some numb digits guided her decision. A very tough call for a climber as stalwart as Pat, and a dark moment for the team. Taking a couple of ice screws and the haul line for the gully, Pat down climbed to our last bivvy, spent the night there, and down climbed and V threaded her way back down to the glacier the next day.
Meanwhile Paul and I were under fire as the afternoon sun hit the face. The moderate snow slopes had narrowed to another icy gully, and I’d just led the first hard pitch of this gully, when, with horrible accuracy, a large block came spinning down and hit Paul on the belay below me. He slumped onto the ice screw anchors, and it seemed a dreadfully long time before he moved or spoke. He seemed improbably OK, and after collecting himself, he climbed up to my stance which was protected by a roof. We spent the afternoon there, and began again once it got dark, climbing quite hard mixed ground up the gully to a sitting bivvy. (Back at base camp when Paul unpacked his sac we found that one of the gas canisters had taken the force of the rock’s impact, a sort of metallic propane butane air bag).
Days 4,5 and 6 saw us following the Fowler-Ramsden line along a great ice traverse, saw me plummeting 10m and knocking myself temporarily silly (necessitating a rest day), and eventually breaking new ground up a steep, loose tower which we could rock climb bare handed in the late afternoon sun. The crux came on day 7. The loose rock tower had led to a sharp, horizontal snow crest which succumbed to à cheval tactics, and with a bit of chopping had provided the tent site for night 6. The crest ran into a short, steep rock wall. A steep groove, little edges either side for mono points, two good nuts, and a long, long reach from the top over a band of sugary snow to stick a patch of good ice. Committing to this pull, kicking deeply into the useless snow and reaching up again was my personal climbing highlight of the route. That night we camped under an overhanging wall that reminded us of Kilnsey.

We reached the narrow, sinuous summit ridge late on the eighth day, and followed it north towards the summit until darkness fell. The next day we passed over the summit, and kept on the ridge, losing height very gradually. A spectacular day this, our tools often plunged into the east face whilst our feet were on the west. Late in the day we began our descent of the north west ridge before bivvying for a last time at about 6200m. A long, hungry tenth day in deep snow on the north west ridge and north face saw us back in base camp for 10.00pm. We were utterly done in.