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Friends of chance for Shisha Pangma
14:11 p.m. EST Mar 17, 2004
Marek Wencel, a Polish immigrant currently living in Seattle, will be heading over to Shisha Pangma this spring with Maximo Henostroza a friend he met by chance down in Peru. The duo will be climbing the normal route up Shish from the North side. Marek told ExplorersWeb recently how he ended up meeting his climbing partner:
"In 2002 I was leading a small expedition of friends to climb Huascaran, 6776m. Unfortunately, our strongest link on the team bailed 2 weeks prior to departure. So, already weakened, the 3 of us showed up in Huaraz, Northern Peru, about a month before the season started.
After spending few days there we realized that no one had attempted anything big yet. The whole town was telling us scary things about deep snow, bad weather etc, etc… After a team discussion we decided that it'd be best to look for a local guide and after few hours we stumbled upon this guy Maximo Henostroza and his uncle Glicerio. At first I was apprehensive about it, but after a long conversation and few cups of coffee we decided to hire Maximo’s team.
What sealed the deal was his work ethics. We were told to pay only for food and transport/mules to the trailhead, and pay them only after the expedition. So, as it turned out, there was no deep snow and the only bad weather we had was a few drops on a day we arrived and one more for good bye. We really had much fun during the expedition and boy, the dinner after!!!!!"
Sometimes when things look bleak and you’ve got people telling you not to go, a team member that backed out – you never know what’s going to happen! Maximo is an Everest veteran from 2001 and has even been up to 7500m on Shish before. Marek has climbed Denali, Aconcagua, and reached 7100m on Cho Oyu. They plan to arrive in Kathmandu on the 2nd and be on their way to Nylam by the 7th. From here the trek begins.
Standing at 8,027m, Shisha Pangma is the lowest of the world’s fourteen 8000m peaks. And not surprisingly, it was also the last to be summited. It is the only 8000er that lies entirely in Tibet, and was closed to western climbers until 1978.
Image of Marek and Maximo on the summit of Huascaran courtesy of Marek Wencel.
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