Baintha Brakk or The Ogre. Our expedition was made up of Kimio Itokawa, Shiro Aoki, Tetsuji Furuta, Toshiro Kitamura, Shosaku Kato, Masanobu Yonezawa and me as leader. We left Skardu on June 2 and traveled past Askole to Base Camp, which was established on June 15. We were anxious to complete the route started by us in 1974 up the ice corridor between Baintha Brakk and P 6990. Our route went up the south face. We established the following camps: I at 15,900 feet on June 24; II at 18,550 feet on July 5 and III at 20,175 feet on July 17. Climbers bivouacked at 23,000 feet on July 20 but were forced back the next day by bad weather. All were back in Base Camp on July 23. On July 27, 28 and 29 Camps I, II and III were reached respectively. Itokawa, Kitamura and I set out on July 30 and bivouacked at 21,000 feet in a snow cave. We climbed nearly to the foot of the summit rocks on July 31 and bivouacked at 22,950 feet and on August 1 at 23,300 feet. The direct route on the south face seemed impossible to scale and so we headed upward to the left to reach the summit ridge, where we bivouacked on August 2 and 3 at 23,550 feet. On August 4 we bivouacked at 23,700 feet. On August 5 we climbed a 10-foot overhang just below the summit and got to a point 23,870 feet high. We could have stood on the very summit (23,900 feet) only by climbing a 30-foot pinnacle but hard snow and wind would not allow that. We carried no sleeping bags above Camp III to save weight. We found close to the summit the two packs belonging to Bonington and Scott.

Yukio Katsumi, Shizuoki Tohan Club, Japan