Choquetira, Cordillera Vilcabamba. Nobumitsu Sakai and four members of Tohoku University Alpine Club reached Otaña village at the eastern foot of Panta through Yanama pass in mid-June, 1973. Ryozo Honkura and Yasutaka Kanamori on June 29 made the first ascent of Choquetira (17,192 feet), three miles south of Otaña. This peak has beautiful glaciers on its west side but little ice on the east, where the ascent was made. The next day Shigehisa Tezuka and Masataka Shiobara repeated the ascent. Thereafter they unsuccessfully tried Panta (18,603 feet), which Swiss first climbed in 1959 by its north face. The Japanese had to give up halfway up the face at 17,800 feet because of deep snow.

Haruo Sato, Tohoku University, Japan