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NEWS: British First Ascent of Gangstang NW Ridge, India

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 UKC News 20 Jun 2016
Guy on Day 3, 2 kbMalcolm Bass and Guy Buckingham have just made the first ascent of the beautiful NW Ridge of Gangstang in the Himachal Pradesh Himalaya. They reached the summit on 9th June and descended to base camp the next day, completing a five day round trip. The pair have sent in a brief report of their expedition.

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 Josh Willett 20 Jun 2016
In reply to UKC News:

Great stuff, well done!
 bensilvestre 20 Jun 2016
In reply to UKC News:

Beautiful line and mountain. Well done!
 Toerag 20 Jun 2016
In reply to UKC News:

What's 'screech'?
 guy757 20 Jun 2016
In reply to Toerag:

Sorry, its a bit of slang. The Indians call it Tang, its like concentrated squash which is full of sugar and could probably strip wall paper but tastes really good when served with warm water and you are thirsty.

Guy
 James Edwards 20 Jun 2016
In reply to UKC News:
I left a rock 4,6 and 9 on that decent. If you found them, could I please have them back? They had red tape on them.
When I was there I was having thoughts about the majestic north Face as a quick dash at the end the trip, but was quite concerned about wandering about on the glaciers and falling in slots. It would have been quite unprofessional to dissappear never to be seen again in some lonely slot. I see from the photos that it has changed quite a bit since 2007 though.
Well done.
James
Post edited at 18:22
 balnakiel 20 Jun 2016
In reply to UKC News:

Brillinat stuff. Well done you both.
 Denni 20 Jun 2016
In reply to Toerag:

Common military term for concentrated squash issued in ration packs, bloody disgusting!
 Malcolm Bass 21 Jun 2016
In reply to James Edwards:

This may be too painful an issue to discuss on an Internet forum James; so I apologise if my directness causes you distress. We didn't see those three nuts mate. There was absolutely no sign of them. I think you might have to accept that they are gone now; after all it has been nine years since they were last seen. Perhaps the time has come to move on? With luck you may one day even be able to face replacing them on your rack.

( the north face presented far more objective danger this year than we would be prepared to accept. It would definelty have required climbing under seracs, one of which, the rightmost, calved big time when we were there. We also suspected the top quarter of the face was a snow slab poorly bonded to underlying grey ice. It had been a very dry winter in the area).
In reply to Malcolm Bass:

Malcolm, I was wondering where you had been! Congratulations on the ascent.

Best Wishes,

Charlie
 James Edwards 21 Jun 2016
In reply to Malcolm Bass:
They were only 20 (+) years old when i placed them. They had at least another 20 years left in them. Oh the loss!

The north face line looked aweful in your pictures, presumably you have seen a picture of Martin's of it looking far better (if not i will email you one).
It is hard to say what the quality of the snow / ice would have been like. It could have been dagger neve or porridge or bullet i only got within salivating distance.
I do remember an area of spooky snow on the easier section of the west flank of Gangstang, but it was very localised and i was perhaps hyper aware at the time (short roping).

I thought that the granite on the smaller rocky peaks on the north side of the valley from the campsite was really very good indeed. I tried a new rocky peak there but had to retreat within spitting distance of the summit when my clients both had head torch problems with 3 hours till sunnset. This area is deffinatly worth another exped trip, with such easy and convenient access (and i would love it if the next person returned my gear).

Well done again,
James
 StuLade 23 Jun 2016
In reply to UKC News:

Sweet, good job guys!

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