Malubiting Group, Karakoram. The members of the expedition of the Bologna section of the Italian Alpine Club were Dr. Achille Poluzzi, Lino Bortolami, Silvano Fusaro, Gianpaolo Nann, Guerrino Sacchin, Nando Stagni and I as leader. We hoped to reconnoiter the Barpu valley and climb Malubiting Central. We traveled by jeep from Gilgit via Baltit in Hunza to Hoppar (8850 feet) near the confluence of the Bualtar and Barpu glaciers, arriving on July 8. We took 40 porters from Hoppar and two Hunza high-altitude porters. The Hoppar men are not to be recommended; they are troublesome, violent and thievish. It took us three days to ascend the Barpu and Sumaiyar Bar glaciers to Base Camp at 13,450 feet; we could easily have done it in two but for the porters. On the return we had to ask the Nagar police for protection in order not to lose all our equipment and to get back home safe and sane; at times we feared for our lives. We were at or above Base Camp from July 12 to 24. As soon as we arrived, we noticed avalanches that fell everywhere. The Malubiting group is unclimbable from the Barpu. The glaciers which descend from Malubiting are interrupted by an unbroken 150-foot-high band of vertical ice, below which lies rock which is swept day and night by enormous blocks of ice. We turned our attention to other mountains of the region. Two peaks lay west of Base Camp on the Sumaiyar Bar Glacier, five miles due north of Malubiting, separated by a 16,900-foot pass. Sacchin and Fusaro climbed P 5230 (17,159 feet), the more southerly, on July 20; Fusaro, Nanni and Stagni ascended P 5650 (18,537 feet) on July 21. They established two high camps and fixed 3300 feet of rope on the 55° ice to reach the col. On July 23 Poluzzi and I climbed P 5410 (17,750 feet), which lies six miles northeast of Malubiting and three miles northeast of Spantik.

Arturo Bergamaschi, Club Alpino Italiano