Eiger and Cathedral Attempts, Kishtwar. Our party was composed of ...

Eiger and Cathedral A ttem pts, Kishtwar. O ur party was composed of Em m ett Goulding, A nthony L atham , Joss Lynam , Clare Sheridan and me as leader. We hoped to climb peaks on the south side of the K iar N allah. Base Cam p was set up at the foot of the Sarbal G lacier on June 14 and a cam p at the foot of the Eiger at 19,700 feet on June 17, but the proposed route up the icefall leading from the Sarbal G lacier to the west ridge was dangerous owing to windslab and so we turned to our second objective, Cathedral. We made cam p on the Sickle M oon G lacier below the west face of Cathedral on June 21. The whole party climbed to a bivouac at 17,000 feet. On the 23rd Sheridan, Latham and I climbed rock of HVS standard to reach the south ridge at 17,725 feet, where a rock step turned us back. We reoccupied the Eiger Cam p but the icefall was still dangerous. Two attem pts to climb a peak of about 18,700 feet, im m ediately west of Eiger Cam p, were frustrated by bad weather. Finally L atham , Lynam and I climbed a 5000-m eter (16,404foot) peak above Base Cam p by its northw est ridge, straight-forw ard except for a 300-foot rock step. A fter a bivouac above the step, we reached the top on July 5. C a l v i n T o r r a n s , Irish M ountaineering Club