Asia, Pakistan, Nanga Parbat Corrections

Publication Year: 1984.

Nanga Parbat Corrections. There has been a certain amount of inexact reporting on routes on Nanga Parbat in the last two American Alpine Journals. The Kinshofer Weg or Route was first observed and unofficially so named during Herrligkoffer’s 1963 German reconnaissance expedition of which Toni Kinshofer was a member. Herrligkoffer led another expedition in 1975 which attempted this route but failed. The following year Hanns Schell of Austria and his three companions succeeded in climbing the Kinshofer Route and so achieved the sixth ascent of Nanga Parbat. A confusion arises because in 1962 during the second ascent of Nanga Parbat from the Diamir side Herrligkoffer gave names to two features on the route: the Löw Eisrinne (a difficult couloir leading up from the Diama Glacier toward Camp II) and the Kinshofer Eisfeld or Icefield, a little higher up, between their Camps II and III on the west side of the north summit. Therefore on page 281 of the A.A.J., 1982 it should have stated that the Italians climbed the Diamir Face via the Kinshofer Icefield, not the Kinshofer route. There are also errors in the A.A.J., 1983. The same mistake is repeated on page 288 about a Franco-German-Austrian party. On page 283 Zebrowski was obviously on the southwest and not the northwest ridge (the Kinshofer Route first climbed by Schell and party). The couloir climbed by Loretan (page 286) was obviously not the Kinshofer Couloir, which is not a feature of the Kinshofer Route.

Louis Baume, Alpine Club