Chogolisa Attempt. Our Chogolisa crew met with an accident on July 18. We were descending the ice face of the 1975 Austrian route on the south face of the southwest summit in bad weather after reaching 6850 meters (22,474 feet). The night before we had a nasty bivouac at 22,000 feet, hanging off ice screws on a 55° slope and unable to light our MSR stoves. On July 18 we reached the top of the ice face on the left (wrong) side only to find a knife-edged ridge and an approaching storm. We had chosen the left side because of windslab-avalanche danger on the right. The three of us had descended to 21,800 feet by 4:30 P.M. The snow was softer here and we hoped to build a terrace for the night and light our stoves. Without warning, Canadian John Wittmayer was avalanched off, dragging our leader, Howard Weaver, with him. I was unroped at the moment, standing next to Howard when he went. They fell the length of the ice face and over a large schrund at the bottom, rolling to a stop at 19,000 feet. I climbed down alone, reaching them at six P.M. John was the worst off with a dislocated knee, cracked ribs and sprained fingers. Howard had wrenched both knees and had a severe concussion. Both were badly bruised; their faces blackened from frostbite sustained by lying on the ice. But both had, miraculously, survived their 2700-foot fall. The avalanche which carried them down also buried most of our gear, including our stoves for which I searched much of the night. Fortunately I had the tent and medical kit with me and could give them shelter and first aid. The next morning I climbed down to a Japanese tent for help. A large Japanese party was fixing its way up the southwest ridge. There were no climbers there, but I managed to contact them by walkie-talkie. They descended from their upper camps that day and the next. Avalanches and bad weather prevented us from reaching the injured climbers until July 21. They were still alive but in desperate shape after four waterless days. During the time I had been away, they had been hit by two further avalanches, the first wiping out their tent. Our other tent was at Camp III, some 200 yards distant. They crawled to this tent on July 20, only to be mauled by the air blast of the largest avalanche that night. We found them on the 21st in the remains of this second tent. On July 23 the rescue party of seven Japanese, three Japanese high- altitude porters and me began evacuating Wittmayer by stretcher. Weaver could walk with assistance. Helped by the low-altitude porters, we reached the jeep road and the Indus River on July 29. Wittmayer is now (September) in a Vancouver, B.C. hospital in good spirits but worried about having trouble walking for the rest of his life. Weaver has completely recovered.

Douglas Cannalte