Diran, Ascent. Adrian Burgess and Rob Ziegler made the first American ascent of Diran (23,838') on July 10. The mountain was climbed in alpine-style over three days; we climbed the final 4,800 feet in eight hours to summit at midday. Base Camp was reached again at 10 a.m. on July 11. We were relying on information from the book Himalaya Alpine-Style; much of the information on the route in that book had been gleaned from Doug Scott’s 1983 ascent. It should be noted that some of the structure of the face may have changed, as we found the face leading to the ridge extremely dangerous and at risk from collapsing seracs and wet snow slides. This forced us onto the ridge about two hours further west than the West Col, which accounts for the extra height on the last day. On the first two days, we actually climbed in the middle of the night.

Adrian Burgess