December 09, 2022: Two Canadian Climbers Maarten van Haeren and Ethan Berman climbed eastern Nepal’s Rolwaling’s Khang Karpo via a new route. They called their new line Tiny Changes and graded it TD+ M5 AI4. They made the first ascent of the northeast face.
Van Haeren told ExplorersWeb “As far as we could tell, the last climbing expeditions in this valley were a Japanese team that made the first official ascent of Dingjung Ri South in 2008 and Andy Parkin in winter 2010, The tallest and most imposing peaks in the valley were Dragnag Ri (6,757m) and Khang Karpo (6,647m).”
They trekked up from Namche Bazaar through Thame to Rolwaling via the Three Passes Trek they reached base camp at 4,900m. After some acclimatization trip with many obstacles, they finally tried the lower part of Khang Karpo via its northeast face.
After changing the line several times they finally managed to reach the summit. Instead of climbing through the rock shield above, they headed straight up the tallest part of the face to the summit glacier.
On summit morning, “we collapsed the tent, left our sleeping kit and stove, and started up with light packs,” Van Maeren recalls. “Ethan led all the pitches this last day, following mostly good ice or poor snow, through our crux pitch and into the final ice groove.”
