Mount Ghent Massif, Kondus Group. The German Institute for Foreign Research in Munich sent on June 29 its third expedition to the Himalayas. I was named leader of the "German-English-Pakistani Himalaya Expedition” (DEPAK). To the team also belonged the Austrian, Ernst Senn, my rope companion on Broad Peak in 1954, and the Rosenthal couple of Selb, Bavaria. Lavinia Rosenthal was to manage Base Camp, while her husband Philip hoped to join us two in climbing a 23,000-foot peak in the Kondus Region of the southern Karakoram. Two weeks after leaving Skardu, on a clear August morning, we left camp on skis at three o’clock and climbed upwards for some three hours on bone-hard snow. At six A.M. we reached the steep north flank of what we thought was Mount Ghent, where we exchanged the skis for crampons. The conditions were in part bad, and after I became tired, Senn had to make all the tracks. I had to rest every 30 paces. About noon we reached a ridge and shortly thereafter a 23,450-foot summit. From there, we could see that the highest point of the Mount Ghent massif was separated from us by a deep col and lay farther south. Since I was tired and since we should have to have an intermediate camp on the col, we called it a day with the ascent of our peak, which we called "DEPAK Peak.” After a planned and then an unplanned rest day, we started on an attempt on Silver Throne. We climbed for two hours to the southern spur and left all superfluous gear at the foot of the summit slope. The ascent went well at first and we alternated leads. The weather was not yet settled and we were off and on in a "steam laundry.” We continued slowly upwards in such thick clouds that we had to keep to the spur. As we advanced, our speed decreased, but finally at about noon we stood on the tiny summit of Silver Throne (ca. 22,640 feet).

Michael Anderl, Deutsches Institut für Auslandsforschung