Bandaka Group. Setting out on June 10, the Manchester Hindu Kush Expedition travelled overland to Afghanistan, using an ex-army truck. It took us over a month from Manchester to Ghonju. In twelve days we completed the 95-mile walk, with men and horses hired at Ghonju and Keran, up the Panjshir, along the Anjuman and the Munjan and up to the top of the Munjan Pass, where we established Base Camp at 12,700 feet. Although a party of German climbers had previously crossed the pass after climbing Bandaka from the Sakhi valley, the Munjan Pass area was otherwise unexplored. In the 32 days Base Camp was established, our party thoroughly explored the region around the pass, setting up eight mountain camps, ascending thirteen summits and surveying. On August 2 Peter Booth and Brian Cosby climbed the 18,600-foot summit on the ridge which runs east from Bandaka. We ascended the three peaks northeast of the latter: from west to east, P 17,500 feet, Booth, Cosby, Meredith, July 29; P 17,100, Cosby, Booth, Meredith, July 28, and Steven Crowther, Ian Bell, William Rowntree, August 3; P 17,100 Cosby, Meredith, July 28. We did not climb the first summit northeast of Bandaka Sakhi but did the next five summits on the ridge which runs east: from west to east, P 17,850, Bell, Rowntree, August 8; P 18,100, Cosby, Booth, August 13, and Crowther, Meredith, August 14; P 18,100, Rowntree, Bell, Meredith, Crowther, August 14; P 18,200, Rowntree, Bell, Meredith, Rowntree, August 14; and P 18,100, Rowntree, Bell, Meredith, Crowther. We also climbed four mountains east of Munjan Pass: P 16,800 (east of pass), Booth, Meredith, Crowther, Cosby and Shiro Shirahata and Ken Aoyagi of the Japanese R.C.C. II Expedition, August 6; from southwest to northeast southeast of the pass; P 16,800 (called locally Halolgek), Cosby, Crowther, August 8, (later climbed by Japanese); P 16,500, Cosby, Meredith, Rowntree, August 21; and P 16,600, Cosby, Booth, Rowntree, Meredith. The peaks climbed were small compared with Bandaka. Climbs were not of any great technical difficulty, but so far as we know, they were first ascents.

Clifford Meredith, Rucksack Club