page_title: Alan Hinkes
section_title: Cho Oyu dispute
hierarchical_section_title: Alan Hinkes / Cho Oyu dispute
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Элизабет Хоули - американская журналистка, живущая в Непале. 15 ноября 2011 года, Катманду, Непал.English: Elitzabeth Hawley, an American journalist living at Nepal. 15-th of November 2011, Kathmandu, Nepal.
context_page_description: Alan Hinkes OBE is an English Himalayan high-altitude mountaineer from Northallerton in North Yorkshire. He is the first and remains the only, British mountaineer to claim all 14 Himalayan eight-thousanders, which he did on 30 May 2005.
context_section_description: His 30 April 1990 ascent of Cho Oyu, which he completed alone in low visibility, is disputed by some observers.  Cho Oyu has a broadly flat summit plateau with no cairn (the traditional prayer flags on Cho Oyu's summit plateau do not mark the "technical" summit).  The summit is a small unmarked "hump" (or "bump") (which many Cho Oyu YouTube summit videos miss).  While the height differential of this hump is small, Ralf Dujmovits, 3-time Cho Oyu summiter, notes that for a strong climber to get to the "hump" area can take another 30 minutes.
  The source of the dispute was that Himalayan chronicler Elizabeth Hawley, whose Himalayan Database is used by online databases like AdventureStats, "unrecognised" his Cho Oyu ascent in Spring 2005 (15 years after summiting).  Hawley based her decision on an interview with Hinkes, and on other team members. Hawley agrees Hinkes reached the summit plateau (as does Eberhard Jurgalski's list), but questions how Hinkes could have been on the “technical” summit for certain, if he could not see it.
  But his claim to have now climbed all 8000ers is open to question. In April 1990 he and others reached the summit plateau of Cho Oyu. It was misty so they could not see well; nine years later Hinkes said he had “wandered around for a while” in the summit area but could see very little and eventually descended  to join the others, one of whom said they had not reached the top.
  — Elizabeth Hawley, "Seasonal Stories", page 347, Spring 2005
  Hinkes logged the expedition's 30 April 1990 Cho Oyu ascent in the 1991 American Alpine Journal (AAJ), as well as the expedition's ascent of Shishapangma 12 days later on 12 May 1990, but he notes they climbed Shishapangma's central (west) summit (the true summit is circa two hours further on). Hawley's biography notes French expedition leader Benoît Chamoux: unhappy with this, as she did not credit Chamoux with Shishapangma either (Hawley had compelled the famous Himalayan mountaineer Ed Viesturs to re-climb Shishapangma for the same reason, which he did).  Hinkes would not climb with Benoît Chamoux, or any of the French team members, again.
  Hawley does not use the public accounts of the non-French team members. Czech team member Josef Rakoncaj, photographed Hinkes on the summit plateau of Cho Oyu (Hinkes with his usual photo of his daughter held out), and states Hinkes summited in his book "Na hrotech zeměkoule" (co-authored with Miloš Jasanský, 1993). Italian team member Mauro Rossi lists the 1990 ascent of Cho Oyu in his public resume.  Climbers with several Cho Oyu ascents, have disputed Hawley's main Cho Oyu summit criteria, "Did you see Everest?" (which is obviously unhelpful in Hinkes' case given the poor visibility), and the incorrect behaviours it is creating.
  Hawley's Himalayan Database records 3,681 ascents of Cho Oyu of which 18 are "unrecognised" since 1960, despite the difficulty of finding Cho Oyu's "technical" summit, and that older expeditions considered the summit plateau as sufficient. Chamoux's 1990 Cho Oyu expedition comprise seven of these "unrecognised" ascents (including Alan Hinkes), while a German commercial trekking expedition, led by Günther Härter, who summited Cho Oyu just 19 days after Chamoux in 1990 (and also in very low visibility, as recorded by the Germans), comprise another six.
  The dispute is noted in many Hinkes interviews. He highlights the lack of any evidence, or publicly verifiable sources, for the allegation, and he is supported by the Alpine Journal, and the British Mountaineering Council (BMC). Hinkes says he spent "at least an hour and a half" criss-crossing the flat summit plateau, alone, until he "was sure there was no more uphill".  Hawley's "Seasonal Stories" suggest an aversion to Hinkes, and her biography lists Alan Hinkes as a climber: she did not like.
  I spent at least an hour and a half covering every inch of ground on the summit plateau until, in the end, I was absolutely certain that I could not get any higher. There was no more uphill.
  — Alan Hinkes, "Alan Hinkes on climbing the world's highest mountains", 
caption: Elizabeth Hawley: The influential Himalayan chronicler decided, years after Hinkes' climb, not to accept his view; she remains the only publicly verifiable source of dispute on Hinkes' climb. She died in 2018.[28]
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