Mountaineering In Nepal

Parchamo

The Nepal Mountaineering Association call this peak Parchemuche, a name by which, as far as I can find out, no one else knows it! The peak, which lies due south of the Tesi Lapcha, is unnamed on the Schnider Rolwaling Himal map, but is given a spot height of (6273m/20581ft). The Mandala Lamasangu to9 Everest map calls the peak Parchome, which is quite possibly a spelling mistake. Bath Shipton’s and Gregory’s expedition surveys gave the peal an altitude close to 6318metres(20700ft).

Seen from the pass the mountain is an attractive but straightforward snow peak with a well defined north by north-west ridge rising from the relatively flat, crevassed glacier astride the Tesi Lapche. To the west of the ridge the face forms a uniform snow slope broken by crevasses and small seracs rising from the rocky lower buttresses above the Drolambau Glacier. The mountain had an interesting early history, some of which was outlined in 1955 by Dennis Davis and Phil Boultgee, members of the highly successful Merseyside Himalayan Expedition led by Alf Gregory.

As well as climbing nineteen summits in and around the Rolwaling Valley, their explorations took them to the head of the Drolambau, where numerous peaks were climbed, up the Ripimu Glacier and into the Menlung Basin via the Ripimu La. This was the most extensive exploration of the area first entered by Shipton that there has been, using a style of expedition, light weight and free ranging, that alas is no longer possible within the kingdom of Nepal.