Changabang, North Face, The Lightning Route. Carlos Buhler (U.S.) led a five-member team, four of whom (Andrei Volkov, Andrei Marei, Ivan Dusharin, Pavel Chabaline) were Russian, on a capsule-style ascent of the direct north face of the 6864-meter Changabang in the Indian Garhwal Himalaya between April 13 and June 6. The team spent 20 days working on the 1700-meter face, using eight 50-meter 9-and 10-mm static ropes and three dynamic 10-mm lead ropes. They spent four days fixing ten pitches of snow and ice slopes, ice-filled comers and steep ice-covered slabs, then moved onto the wall for 16 days, summiting on May 29 and returning to ABC late on the evening of May 31. On the wall proper, they climbed “Russian-style,” with each member of the team taking one task (leading, belaying, hauling, etc.) for the duration of the climb. They called their climb, the line of which resembles a jagged bolt of lightning, the Lightning Route. An account of their climb appears earlier in this journal.