Bandako*, Central Hindu Kush. During the summer months, Michael and Ruth Wortis, Sandra Merrihue, Steve Jervis, Bob Jahn and I drove across Europe and the Near East and climbed in Iran and Afghanistan. After a leisurely, five-week drive from Paris to Tehran, we spent ten days climbing in the Alam Kuh massif of the Elburz Mountains, northwest of Tehran, staying at the Iranian Mountaineering Federation’s stone hut at about 12,000 feet below Alam Kuh. In consistently good weather we climbed Siah Kaman (14,700 feet) on July 8, Takht-i-Suleiman, second highest, by two different routes on July 14. Our main objective was the Hindu Kush, and on July 21, Steve Jervis and I flew to Kabul to begin negotiations, while the others drove from Tehran. We had planned to go to the Wakhan corridor where there are still unclimbed peaks over 22,000 feet, but found it impossible to get permission. The Afghan government, which had allowed climbers in the Wakhan through 1964, had already turned down seven other expeditions before us. We settled for the central Hindu Kush, far from all borders, and chose the neighborhood of Bandako (22,450 feet). We drove in one day from Kabul to Dasht-i-Rewat in the Panjshir valley, where we left the car and engaged seven men and seven horses for our baggage. We then walked 90 miles in six days, crossed Anjuman Pass (13,700 feet), descended the Anjuman valley, and ascended the Sakhi valley to Base Camp at 13,000 feet. On August 7 we established Camp I at 16,400 feet just below a large glacier, and in the succeeding days we looked for a route on Bandako. It appeared that the only feasible route lay on the other side of the mountain, so that we were forced by lack of time to abandon it and direct our energies elsewhere. Instead on August 12 Steve Jervis and Sandra Merrihue made the third ascent of P 6110 meters or Bandako Uris (20,046 feet; first ascent on July 17, 1963 by V. Gazert, Ch. Speer and I. Trübswetter of Garmish-Partenkirchen, Germany.) This lies north of Bandako. On August 14 Steve Jervis and I made an attempt on P 6414 or Bandako Sakhi (21,045 feet) and were turned back by bad weather after passing the difficulties shortly below the summit. On August 27 we disbanded in Kabul. In 1960 the second German party to the Hindu Kush made the first ascent of Bandako (Berliners W. von Hansemann, D. Hasse, S. Heine, and H. Winkler on September 22) and it has been climbed three times since (by Germans from Garmisch-Partenkirchen Konrad Holch and Thomas Trübswetter on July 17, 1963, who also that same day climbed P 6400, and by Austrians and Italians in 1965).

Robin Hartshorne

*The Germans’ spelling "Bandakor” is certainly wrong, since the last syllable is from the Persian "kuh" or "koh", which means "mountain".