Gangapurna. Our expedition was made up of two women, Nam Nan-Hee and Jeoung Young-Hee, both of whom went to the summit, and six men, Kim Ki-Chul, leader, Uhm Gae-Sung, Shim Gun-Shik, Nam Young-Hyun, Min Kyeong-Young and me. We climbed the east ridge from the south, roughly the Polish route in the autumn of 1985. We got to Base Camp at the source of the Modi Khola at 4200 meters on March 26. It was a long way to Camp I and so we had an intermediate dump. We traversed the lower slopes of Annapurna III to avoid avalanches and established Camp I at 4800 meters under a cliff just below the Gangapurna Icefall. Bad weather then held us up. We climbed a rock buttress to the right of the icefall, fixing some rope. We went up a sharp snow ridge and placed Camp II at 5600 meters on April 8. After climbing the knife-edge, we got to the normal Gangapurna route, which ascended crevassed snow to the col. We placed Camp III at 6300 meters on April 14 just below the col. Blue ice and snow ice at 60° were climbed to reach the col. Camp IV at 6800 meters was an hour above the col. On April 18, Uhm, Nam and Ang Kami Sherpa started at 4:30 A.M. but returned because of the wind; they set out again at 7:45 and got to the summit (7455 meters, 24,457 feet) at 1:45 P.M. On April 20 Jeong, I and Godre Magar also went to the summit.

Seok Chae-Uhn, Korean Alpine Club