Attempt on Kyajo Ri Northeast Face

We had almost a week to watch the face and decide the best line to take. We decided on a prominent gully system, from the top of the hanging glacier finishing either just right of the summit, or cutting back left across the face to the summit. The version to the ridge is likely to be that attempted by the Italians in 2009.

View of NE face of Kyajo Ri. Our route went up diagonal line of ice below glacier, then gully above triangular rock.

To access the hanging glacier, there were hard rock-climbing options (every night covered in snow) in corners either to left or right of the glacier, that avoided the threatening looking icefall. However, below the icefall was a thin continuous line of ice leading round the icefall onto a snow gully that appeared to lead around the ice onto the glacier. This was threatened by icefall, but in watching the face all this time, we had never seen any fall off, so decided to take this line giving a much faster and easier way up onto the face. We aimed to climb the line with one bivvy on the face and one on the descent, descending the line of our earlier attempt on the SW ridge.
We had 2 rest days at basecamp to let Ben's hand recover, during which we unfortunately had some of the biggest dumps of snow during our stay, and constant cloud preventing the sun from burning it off the face. In another blow, we woke at 2:30 on the morning of the climb to find Ben suffering from a Migraine, and unable to join us on the climb, so Mike and I repacked to attempt it as a pair.

Sun rising over Everest and Cholatse.

2 pitched of fragile ice brought us out from under the icefall onto snow beside it. We were in a hurry to get away from the hanging ice, but knee/waist deep snow meant slow, hard work as I ploughed a trail upwards, every meter hard won, but a beautiful sunrise over Everest keeping spirits up.

Mike climbing up beside hanging glacier icefall.

Finally onto the glacier, it was only 8:30, but the cloud was rolling in already. We had landmarks already sorted to guide us to the start of our gully, the upward toil continued in a sauna like atmosphere, the steep, deep snow interupted by a pitch of superb ice, then more upwards digging to arrive shattered at the base of the gully.

Morning cloud rising from valley.

By now a few snowflakes were swirling around, as Mike comitted upwards with a few thin sketchy moves. I yell as a wave of spindrift starts pouring down the gully. Even out of the main flow, Mike is smothered, unable to see past his elbows. A slight lull allows him to move sidewaysmore out of the way, as the first wave turns to a constant barrage. Our line of weakness in the face has turned into a giant funnel, concentrating those few snowflakes over the few meters we are trying to climb.
  

Mike before and after spindrift starts.

There's no way we can climb in these conditions, Mike hammered in a piton and lowered off to the belay. While we wait, the flow of snow become worse and we decide to descend.

We downclimb snow, downpitching the scariest section, and abseil ice back to the ground.

Mike about to start descending.

The next day is glourious weather, but to justify our decision we watch multiple avalanches pour off the face in the sunshine. The face is clearly out of condition. We are out of time unfortunately and we packed up basecamp in the sun and headed down towards Kusum Kanguru for our next climb.

Saying goodbye to Kyajo Ri as avalanches wash the face.

Packing up basecamp.