British Mt Grosvenor

The Daxue Shan Range of Sichuan Province (dominated by the 7,556m Gongga Shan) is largely unexplored and contains several 6,000m peaks which have never even been attempted. One of these was Mt Grosvenor (aka Gonga-Konga) (6,376m) - a satellite peak of Minya Konka - of which the team hoped to make the first ascent by a route on its steep NW face. Although located at 3,800m, surprisingly their base camp was surrounded by the tents of over one hundred local people hunting caterpillar fungus - apparently a valuable aphrodisiac. A serious disadvantage of this was that during their first foray on the hill, their camp was plundered and most of their food disappeared, necessitating a 45krn round-trip to Kangding to restock. From the BC, Fowler and Cave attempted the Central Couloir, and although this provided some shelter from the variable weather (it snowed every day) after several days climbing, extreme danger from loose rock forced them to abandon at half height. Meanwhile, on the more exposed righthand side of the face, McAdie and Nadin experienced continuous spindrift and also had to abandon.