Akher Chioh Attempt and Tragedy, Eastern Hindu Kush. My wife Anita Burkhardt-Fendt, Klaus Cramer, Christine Wieloch, Dr. Klaus Schönwald, Edeltraut Schönwald and I as leader hoped to make the fourth ascent of Akher Chioh (7020 meters, 23,032 feet). The mountain was first climbed by Austrians from Pakistan in 1966. The next two ascents were made from Afghanistan. From Chitral, we jeeped to Uzhnu in the Thurko valley. With 25 porters, we made the three-day approach up the Uzhnu Gol, via Palut Gari and Wakhikan Gumbat, to Base Camp, which we reached on August 2, at 3600 meters where the Chuttidum Glacier enters the Kotgaz Glacier. We set up Camp I at 4460 meters on the upper Kotgaz Glacier on August 7. The next day, we reconnoitered the route which the first-ascent party had taken, turning to the southeast to the basin at the foot of the Kotgaz Zom-Akher Chioh group. On August 9, my wife Anita and Cramer had just arrived at the site for Camp II at 5250 meters with two others some 70 meters behind when a severe earthquake struck, causing a sérac avalanche from 400 meters higher, which killed Anita and Cramer. We retired to Camp I, finding the glacier much changed by the earthquake. The bodies were brought down to the Kotgaz Glacier on August 10 and helicoptered out on August 15 by the Pakistani Army.

Alfred Fendt, Deutscher Alpenverein