Z8. Our expedition consisted of five climbers, Irish Jo Hastings, Donal O’Murchu and me, Scot Gordon Simpson, Indian liaison officer Ravi Chandra, and cameraman Karl Winkelman and Dr. Barry Daly. It is symptomatic of the changing Himalaya that we got a bus all the way to Base Camp on the Pensi La at 4400 meters. The planned route on Z8 was the northeast ridge, but the approaches from the Durung Drung and Z8 Glaciers were both unacceptably dangerous and so we switched to the previously climbed west ridge. We placed a camp on the Z8 Glacier at 5000 meters and on July 23 Simpson and O’Murchu climbed the peak from a bivouac on the ridge. A fall of new snow the previous night made the going difficult and the descent in the heat of the day required great care. Hastings, Ravi Chandra and I repeated the ascent on August 1 with much better conditions.

Joss Lynam, Federation of Mountaineering Clubs of Ireland