Ganesh IV Winter Attempt, 1981. Our United States-Nepalese party included Mingma Tensing, also sirdar, Yogendra Thapa and Kamal Bandari, also liaison officer, and me. A sirdar and liaison officer are required. Thapa and Bandari are members of the Nepalese Police and also climbers. Mingma Tensing, who has reached the summit of Annapurna and Manaslu, is in the trekking business in Kathmandu. We also had two Sherpas. Mingma departed from Trisuli on December 18 with 15 porters and arrived at Base Camp on December 28. Thapa, Bardari and I went by helicopter from Kathmandu to Base Camp on the 30th. Base Camp was on a steep, 14,100-foot moraine below the south face of Ganesh IV above the glacier which feeds the Anku Khola. It had been Camp I for the Japanese-Nepalese first-ascent party in 1978. I spent two days at Base Camp, acclimatizing. On January 1 and 2, 1981 we all carried loads to Camp I at 16,700 feet. Mingma and Thapa remained there on the 2nd. Until then the weather had been beautifully clear, temperatures around —10° C with virtually no wind. Bandari and I carried loads and moved to Camp I on January 3 in light snow. By evening it was snowing heavily and continued to do so for five days. After two days, we descended to Base Camp in 60mph winds and —20° C amid heavy snow and avalanches on both sides of the route. On January 8 the weather broke and on the 9th we plunged through deep powder snow back to Camp I. The camp was flanked by avalanche-swept ice-falls. We ruled out the southwest ridge far to the left because of overhanging rock and ice, leading to an enormous hanging glacier. The ice-fall on the right was too steep and avalanche-prone. On January 10 we cramponed straight up 400 feet of 45° ice covered with six inches of powder snow and then up 50° ice, where ice axes and crampons barely penetrated. The whole top of the face was guarded by a wall. The 1978 route, of which I had seen pictures, had followed generally easy slopes through this area, but that route was gone. We could not search for a gentler route among the blue ice above because a new storm moved in on January 11 and it snowed for five more days. Our time and food ran out. We cleared the mountain on January 13.

Phillip R. Trimble