Nevado Alpamayo. In July, Glenn Garland and I climbed Alpamayo in 11 days, round trip from Colcas, including two rest days. The route to the north col, over the glaciers from the west, was very complicated due to low snowfalls the previous season, leaving crevasses open. This also resulted in very bad ice on the north ridge, the usual route. Indeed, we learned later that both a Venezuelan and a British/Swedish team had abandoned their attempts, the latter after a bad fall. We chose the northwest face instead and found excellent ice climbing to above the second schrund. We traversed between cornices out onto the north ridge and up nasty ice to the summit, near where we bivouacked in a crevasse. The Austrian party of Karl Pallasmann climbed the route in a similar manner a few days later, traversing onto the north ridge much lower down, below the first schrund.

Jack Miller