Mount Everest, North-Northeast Face, New Route. In May, a Russian team led by Sergei Antipine from Krasnojarsk, Siberia, made an ascent of Mount Everest by the north-northeast couloir to the left of the classical route via the North Col. This new route from 6400 meters to 8250 meters is a firn and ice slope up to 45 degrees as well as a rock wall (45°, 850 meters long) and an ice groove (70 ° for 300 meters) that connects with the Northeast Ridge route first climbed by the Chinese in 1960. The top of Everest was reached on May 20 at 3 p.m. under conditions of bad weather by Valeri Kokhanov, Piotr Kuznetsov and Grigori Semikolenov from Krasnoyarsk. Two more climbers, Nikolay Zakharov and Evgeni Bakaleinikov, failed 80 meters from the top, turning back from the rocks below the summit. Intermediate camps were set up at 6400 meters (Advance Base Camp), 7000 meters (Camp I), 7450 meters (Camp II), 7900 meters (Camp III), and 8300 meters (Camp IV). [Another account of this climb appears earlier in this journal.]

Vladimir Shataev, Russian Mountaineering Federation