Kampire Dior Attempt. On June 24 Professor Franz Sindermann, the doctor for the German-Austrian Karakoram Expedition, left Ulm with a VW-bus for Rawalpindi with expedition supplies. The rest of us, who flew on July 10, were Helmut Linzbichler, the only Austrian, Hans Schmidt, Albert Roth, Ekkehard Kreiser, Wolfgang Krimmer and I as leader. For political reasons we had to fly to Gilgit while our supplies were sent by truck. In Gilgit we found that the Karakoram Highway, which is being built by Chinese, would be blocked for an indefinite time. Linzbichler decided to return to Austria. Although we too had only six weeks total time, we persevered, even though we had brought with us on the plane only the clothing on our backs. The native food and lack of hygiene caused numerous illnesses. After the gear finally arrived on July 28, we hurried to Base Camp at 13,775 feet. We ascended the Karumbar Glacier from west to east to reach the south ridge which we had hoped to climb. Despite snowstorms, we established Camps I and II and Roth and Kreiser reached a 19,000-foot foresummit on 23,436-foot Kampire Dior. Dr. Sindermann fell seriously ill at Base Camp from malaria. I had to summon those in Camp II to evacuate him. In any case, since we had only three days more on the mountain at our disposal, we could not have climbed the mountain.

Dieter Class, Deutscher Alpenverein