Pasu I, Ski Ascent and Descent. After a 26-hour bus trip up the Karakoram Highway, we took two days to reach Base Camp at 4000 meters on a flowered meadow up the large Pasu Glacier. We spent the next days finding a good route up the trough beside icefalls in the glacier itself. We fixed some rope there and found a good campsite at 5000 meters. On August 1, we packed loads and established Camp I. In the trough, we were nearly engulfed by an avalanche falling from séracs above. Four weeks of good weather made us hurry because a change in the weather would make the climb more difficult. On the way to Camp II at 6000 meters, there was a huge gap in the glacier, which caused us a day’s delay before we could descend into it and climb the perpendicular back wall. On August 7, Dirk Naumann, Ralf Lehmann, Dr. Volker Wurnig and I left Camp II for the summit at 4:30 A.M. At nine A.M., we saw Pasu I for the first time, but we still had to climb for hours to reach the top (7478 meters, 24,535 feet) at 5:30 P.M. after thirteen hours of long, hard work. It was no pleasure to ski down to Camp II because the snow conditions were bad and our legs were tired. The weather then turned bad with rain and much snow in the higher regions. Therefore, we could not climb Pasu II (7295 meters, 23,934 feet), also called Pasu East or Pasu Diar.

Max Wallner, Deutscher Alpenverein