Korea’s Oh Eun-sun says she is the first woman to have climbed the world’s 14 highest mountains, but one of her peaks is being disputed. Why?
There is no one “official” record of who has, or has not, climbed the 14 peaks over 8,000m high.
The nearest thing, for the nine mountains in the Nepali Himalayas, is the record kept by Elizabeth Hawley, an 86-year-old American based in Kathmandu.
Records kept by governments are not regarded as authoritative.
Last week Ms Hawley amended her Himalayan Database to mark Oh Eun-sun’s 2009 ascent of Kangchenjunga as “disputed”, after listening to arguments from Ms Oh’s Spanish rival, Edurne Pasaban.
Ms Hawley will interview Ms Oh and her Sherpas on their return from Annapurna.
If she decides to classify Ms Oh’s ascent of Kangchenjunga as “unrecognised”, her competitors - Edurne Pasaban, Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner of Austria, and Nives Meroi of Italy - will be back in contention.
These are some of the issues at the heart of the dispute over Kangchenjunga:
The summit photographs - Ms Oh ascended Kangchenjunga with at least three Sherpas, in very bad weather. A video shot at the summit in driving snow is said to be so blurry that it could have been taken anywhere. A still photograph (above) was taken at the summit, Ms Oh’s sponsors say, but not on the “three or four square feet” right at the top. Ms Hawley says the photograph is “clearly” not taken at the summit, because “summit pictures of other people on the same mountain in the same season show them standing in the snow”. However, pictures taken by climbers in previous years have shown rocks close to the summit. Another Korean climber who is on Kangchenjunga this year is hoping to identify the spot where the photograph was taken.
The Sherpas - One of the Sherpas who accompanied Ms Oh on the ascent of Kangchenjunga assured journalists at a press conference in Korea in 2009 that Ms Oh had reached the top. He told Ms Hawley’s assistant the same thing. However, Edurne Pasaban says Ms Oh’s other Sherpas have told her this is not correct. Ms Hawley would like to talk to them to determine the truth.
The rope - The summit photograph shows a green rope stretching over Ms Oh’s left boot. Spanish climber Ferran Latorre, who climbed to the summit of Kangchenjunga with Ms Pasaban 12 days after Ms Oh, has suggested that this is a rope fixed to the mountain by her Sherpas. He says this fixed rope went no higher than 8,350m, and concludes that the photograph was taken some 200m or so below the 8,586m summit. Jin Park of Blackyak, the Korean company that sponsors Ms Oh, says the rope in the picture is a 5mm rope used for attaching accessories - in this case, probably, an ice axe - rather than climbing.
The timing - Critics have suggested that Ms Oh must have made unbelievably rapid progress in the remaining three hours and 40 minutes it took her to reach the summit on the afternoon of 6 May 2009, after bad weather made it impossible to track her progress from base camp with a telescopic lens. However, it is unclear how high she was at this point. Mr Park estimates she was at a height of about 8,300m or 8,400m, in other words from 286m to 186m below the summit.
The flag - Ms Oh had been carrying a Korean flag, but accidentally dropped it before reaching the summit. It was later found below the summit - but according to Jin Park, only slightly below the summit. He says this is “clear counter evidence” that helps rebut claims she stopped 200m below the summit.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
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