Huascarán, Southwest Ridge. Dr. Ulrich Schwabe, Karl Gabl, Dr. Raimund Margreiter and I got to Base Camp above Carhuaz at 14,000 feet on July 6. We traversed across moraine to the ridge and set up Camp I at 17,000 feet. The climbing on the glacier and ridge to there was easy, but we had to fix ropes on nearly all the difficult ice ridge above Camp I. An American expedition, which followed us up our route, provided us with rope since we had not counted on such difficulties.

Camp II was at 19,200 feet at the top of the steep section. We climbed the next day up easier terrain with a few steep pitches to just under the summit of the south buttress, where we placed Camp III. A severe storm blew up in the night and kept us from going to the main summit, but we did climb some 250 feet to the top of the south buttress. It was July 18. We descended that same day to Base Camp.

Hansjörg Moser, Akademischer Alpenklub Innsbruck, Austria