The Labuche Kang massif is part of the Himalayan range in Tibet. It is located North-West of Mt. Everest, half-way between the other well-known summits Cho Oyu (8201 m) and Shisha Pangma (8012 m).
This massif counts several summits over 7000 m but remains largely unexplored until today and it is hardly described in any reference book on Himalaya.
Only its main summit, Labuche Kang I (7367 m) hab been climbed previouly. The first and unique ascent so far was by a strong Chinese-Japanese team led by Yamamori [1] that succeeded in 1987 after a first exploration carried on the year before. The other highest summits of the massifs remained unclimbed so far.
The newly climbed summit is the attractive and well individualized summit reaching 7072 m and located few kilometers west from the main summit. Unnamed so far, we call it Labuche Kang II.
The silhouette of Labuche Kang II can be seen from far away. More specifically, it can be observed from the transhimalayan route Katmandu-Lhassa, when crossing the highest pass named Lalung La, 5050 m [2] [3].
Despite these characteristics, no documents describing this mountain were available until recently. The documents from Labuche Kang I expedition in 1987 provided photographs of the mountain and also the access route from the North. We kindly acknolwledge Yamamori [1] for the documents provided.
A sole previous tentative ascent by an Italian team in 1992 could hardly go beyond camp 1 [4]. It is the only known attemp before our expedition.
[1] Kinichi Yamamori, "The Unknown Peak in Tibet: Mt. Labuche Kang (7367 m)", in Japanese, published by The Himalayan Association of Japan, 1987
[2] Géo, 1988
[3] Michel Serre et al., "Au Tibet avec Tintin"; Fondation Hergé, 1994, pp 172-173
[4] Gianbatista Bissi, Milano, Italy