P 6568 (“Manda South”) and Jogin I. From Bheronghoti it took Peter Athans, Maggie Fox, Peter O’Neil, Rachel Cox and me three days to march up the precipitous Kedar Ganga to reach Base Camp at 15,500 feet on the slopes west of the Kedar Tal (lake) on September 26. For the next week we turned our attention to the Jogin group. After establishing camps at 16,800 and 18,600 feet, O’Neil, Fox and I reached the summit of Jogin I (6465 meters, 21,211 feet) at four P.M. on October 2 after arduously postholing up the main glacier to the col between Jogin III and I. The summit ridge provided exposed, moderately difficult cramponing on ice and névé. On October 6 O’Neil, Athans and I crossed the main Kedar Glacier and camped at 17,000 feet in the cirque below the 3500-foot ice-and-snow ramp which led to the notch between “Manda South” and P 6529. [Editor’s Note: Permission had been given for Manda, the next peak to the north. The climbers apparently mistook P 6568, which is slightly higher, for Manda. P 6568, unlike Manda, had never been climbed.] On October 7 we climbed most of the ramp in 13 hours. On the lower 2000 feet we climbed unroped. The ramp, which began at 35°, steadily steep- end to 60° or 65°. We began belaying after 2000 feet. After three 60° ice pitches we bivouacked in an ice-hole. On October 8 Athans was feeling ill. O’Neil and I climbed the remaining 400 feet to the ridge and returned to the bivouac after fixing our two ropes. With a five A.M. start, all three of us ascended the two ropes and a third pitch to the ridge. We followed north along the ridge on frozen dirt, loose shale and snow for half a mile. We ascended a moderate snow-and- ice slope of 800 feet to the south summit ridge of “Manda South” and followed the ridge to the summit (6568 meters, 21,550 feet).

Mark Udall, Colorado Outward Bound School