2004

After his successful second ascent of Mt Everest in the pre-monsoon of 2004, Andrew planned to follow up his success with ascents of both Cho Oyu and Shishapangma. Despite sharing a permit and basecamp with another Australian team, Andrew climbed solo on the mountain to make as speedy an ascent as possible, so that he’d have time to continue on to Shishapangma. He quickly established camps 1 and 2 but unlike other expeditions which normally make a third camp, Andrew decided to launch his summit attempt all the way from camp 2 at 6500 metres. Setting off at midnight, he ascended the long slopes towards camp 3 and soon caught the climbers who had commenced their own summit attempts from this higher camp. Climbing around the slower teams he made good speed and soon had the upper slopes to himself, continuing the long slog across the summit plateau until he was on the summit, where he savoured the spectacular views of Mt Everest, Shishapangma and a myriad of lower peaks. Returning to basecamp the following day he was injured in an accident and was unable to move on to Shishapangma, thus ending this expedition.

2005

Andrew returned to the mountain in 2005 as a commercial expedition leader. His second successful summit came after a few short weeks so he took the opportunity to finish the project started in 2004 and moved directly to Shishapangma. See Shishapangma 2005 for details of that expedition.