Peak 6571m, West Face. Peak 6571m in the Khumbu region lies six kilometers south of Ama Dablam and five kilometers east-northeast of Kangtega on the divide between the Hinku and Mingbo watersheds in the Hinku Himal subrange. On the Schneider Khumbu Himal map (1988) it is unnamed, but on some maps it is indicated as “Melanphulan” (see photo above for location). Supy Bullard and I climbed the west face from a camp at 5640 meters on the edge of the Hinku Nap Glacier. On April 27, we climbed 13 pitches to a small bivy at 6250 meters. The next day, we climbed 11 pitches to the summit and descended to a second night at the bivy, completing the descent the following morning. The climbing was predominately in 60-degree ice runnels, with more interesting mixed climbing for a couple of pitches just above the bivy. We rappelled the route mainly from ice-thread anchors.

This peak is featured in a fine photo taken by Ace Kvale captioned “Unnamed, unclimbed, Khumbu region” (see 1996 AAJ, p. 285). That photo shows the upper half of the west face, and the upper pitches of our route above the snow shoulder, straight-on, as seen from Ama Dablam Base Camp to the northwest.

Peter Carse