Pumori, Southeast Face to Northeast Ridge. Our multi-national team of friends consisted of Australian Geoffrey Bartram, Englishman Chris Curry, Americans Peter Getzels, Steve Amstutz, Robert Schreiber and me, and Nepalese Narayan Shrestha. Our route was to scale the icefall beside the rock spur on the southeast face and to follow the northeast ridge to the summit. Our route lay left (south) of the American winter ascent of 1981. We left Jiri on April 4 and established Base Camp at 5200 meters on April 16. Advance Base was placed in the séracs of the southeast face at 5915 meters on April 20. A higher cache was located at 6100 meters, but daily storms piled two feet of snow on the glazed blue ice of the face and forced a retreat to Base Camp on April 27. Curry and Schreiber, who remained at Camp I, narrowly escaped disaster the next day when a massive avalanche swept the route. Advance Base was moved up to 6100 meters in one climb from Base Camp and occupied by all climbers on May 2. Two days later, after struggling with several steep ice cliffs, daily snow-storms and nagging coughs, Bartam, Getzels and Shrestha bivouacked beneath a rock cliff at a notch hon the northeast ridge at 6400 meters. They reached the summit at 1:45 P.M. on May 5 and descended to the bivouac to join their four teammates who had moved up for an attempt the next day. Amstutz and Curry surmounted the top at 12:30 P.M. on May 6 and were followed by Schreiber and me at 12:45. Lingering on the summit, we two were enshrouded by cloud in a sudden storm with minimal visibility, which delayed our descent until sundown, when it subsided. We spent three more days clearing the route and finally left Base Camp on May 11. Shrestha’s ascent was the highest elevation reached by a Newari climber.

Michael André Unaffiliated