Shivling, Northeast Face. Paolo Bernascone, Fabrizio Manoni and I as leader got to Base Camp on June 3. From June 4 to 12 we reconnoitered the normal route and our objective, the unclimbed northeast face. After three rest days, we set out at eight in the evening of June 15 with four days’ food and equipment to take advantage of the lower temperatures that made safer the great amounts of unstable snow on the face. We were slowed by more difficulties than we had foreseen, by the bad conditions and by several events. The loss of our stove kept us from drinking for the last three days and the loss of climbing gear forced us to climb much free without protection. Falling ice on the next-to-last day of the ascent injured my arm. We made the ascent in eight days and the descent in one. Since the face had no ledges, our bivouacs had to be on shelves carved out of the ice. The first 150-meter-high rock band was of UIAA V, VI and Al. The 350 meters of mixed climbing to 5500 meters had 85° ice and rock of V to VI. Higher, rising to 6000 meters, was an ice slope of 65° at the beginning and 70° to 75° in the second half. Finally mixed climbing led through a 85° to 90° couloir to the base of the 200-meter wall. Above that, 100 meters along the east ridge took us to the summit cap and the summit (6543 meters, 21,467 feet).

Enrico Rosso, Club Alpino Italiano