Nun, Direct West Ridge Variant. Heavy late-winter snows and the closed Zoji La created logistical problems but Indian Airlines solved the Zoji Pass problem as we converged on Leh on April 26. We were Gary Ball, Andrew Dennison, Peter Lev, Paul Stettner and I. Our friendly and efficient liaison officer, Flight Lieutenant T. Shridhar, arranged passage by bus to Kargil and then by truck to “as close to Tongol as he could take us.” A few kilometers north of Panikhar we stopped just short of a muddy bog. From there it was the muscle power of beast and man. The local pony driver knew he had a sellers’ market: double overcharge for four days even though it took only two half days to get to Tongol! The Tongol porters knew the rig too. They used the spring snow just above town to charge double the normal rate. Despite these delays, Base Camp was established on May 4 a kilometer beyond the col of the most prominent gully south of town, not by the normal route because the more direct route led over dangerous snow slopes. Now carrying our own loads, Camp I was placed on a dramatic 16,000-foot pass in full view of Nun. Much of our carrying was done on skis while pulling our loads on light-weight plastic sleds. The move to Camp II dropped 500 feet into the valley leading to the main icefall. There a four-day storm dumped over a meter of snow. It was not until May 13 that we could start moving supplies to Camp III below the plateau headwall. The recent heavy snow caused us to use great caution on the headwall. Hugging ridges and ice bulges without fixed ropes, a safe route was established to a cache on the great plateau itself. By May 17 the entire cache was sledded to within a kilometer of the west face. From Plateau Camp we spied the face with binoculars and debated which route on the face was best. Large ice streaks appeared to grow with each sunny day. Despite an early start on May 19, Ball, Stettner and I were not near the actual face until noon. There we were stopped by a vertical ice ledge bottoming out into an ice chute that drained anything loose that wished to come off the west face. We gave up the idea of the face and headed up the vast slopes of the Czech route. Ball turned back with cold feet. Stettner and I traversed up to the north ridge and bivouacked in a storm-whipped snow cave. We returned to the plateau the next day. Earlier Lev had suggested we gain the west ridge directly from the plateau up the extreme right side of the west face. Climbing alpine style, we began this venture on May 21, camping beneath the bergschrund that evening. The next day was a long one. Six rope-lengths took us over the 45° snow face with touches of underlying ice. Above that we wound our way through rock outcrops and snow gullies ending with a sudden finish over the ice headwall which guarded the upper bowl between the west ridge and the French route. There, at 22,100 feet, we pitched High Camp and shivered at -35° C. May 23 dawned with ominous clouds but then cleared. With dispatch Lev led the last difficult 30-meter rock pitch just below the start of the summit snow ridge, but one pitch later he elected to turn back with Ball, who again was suffering cold feet in his too small boots. Also, Lev did not like the hollow sound of the snow and the snowy look of the Zanskars behind us. Stettner and I pressed on. The knife-edged summit ridge rose relatively gently for twelve rope-lengths, but on either side it dropped steeply. I had to decide on which side to step. Some of the way we belayed, some we climbed simultaneously, but near the summit there was a kind of Hillary Step for the last two exhausting leads. On the top (7135 meters, 23,410 feet) the storm seemed imminent and unconsolidated snow seemed ready to collapse at any moment. Less than an hour later we were off the difficult rock pitch just as the edge of the storm hit. By 6:15 P.M. we were back at High camp. By May 28 Base Camp was cleared.

Jock Glidden