Three Expeditions To Climb In Pakistan

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30783, 22 June 1965, Page 20

Three Expeditions To Climb In Pakistan

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter)

KARACHI.

Three mountaineering expeditions, two Japanese and one American, will visit Gilgit and Baltistan in Pakistan soon to attempt to scale three peaks in the Karakoram range.

First to arrive will be an 11-member expedition from the Alpine Club of Tokyo, led by Mr Hirotugo Shirok. It will make an attempt on the Kinyang Chish peak, which is about 23.500 feet high. In the first week of June, the All-Kyoto Karakoram ■ expedition will arrive in Karachi before making an; attempt to scale Mount Diran, 23,840 feet high.

The third team is the American Karakoram expedition led by Mr Graham Martin Stephenson, which will attempt Mount Nanga Parbat, of 22,660 feet.

Mountain Mass The northern areas of I Pakistan, where the teams will establish their camps, are in the centre of the Karakoram range, the biggest mass of mountains and glaciers in the world. In the Gilgit area alone, there are more than 20 peaks ranging from 20,000 feet to 26,660 feet. Similarly, in Baltistan. there are many high peaks, the highest being K-2, 28,250 feet high, and the second highest mountain in the world. Baltistan has the highest glaciers in the world outside the polar region. The snow-covered peaks and huge glaciers of the Karakoram range and Nanga Parbat in the western-most extension of the Himalayas have an irresistible attraction for mountaineers and scientists.

More than 60 expeditions have visited the areas during the last 14 years and almost all the formidable peaks there have been challenged, and conquered. K-2, Nanga Parbat, Broad Peak (26,550 feet), Hidden Peak (26,470 feet), Gashor-brum-2 (26.360 feet), and Rakaposhi (25,550 feet) were all conquered by mountain-

eering expeditions between 1953 and 1958.

K-2 was scaled by Mr Achile Compagnoni and Mr Lino Lacedelli, members of a 16-member Italian expedition led by Professor Ardito Desio. Nanga Parbat was conquered by Mr Hermann Buhe of the eight-member GermanAustrian expedition led by Dr. Karl Horligkoffer. Four members of a fivemember Austrian expedition, led by Mr Harcus Schmuch, scaled Broad Peak, and Hidden Peak was conquered by Messrs Peter Schoening and Andrew Kauffman, of the 10member American expedition led by Mr Nicholas Clinch.