Langtang Lirung, Winter Ascent. Two Japanese teams went to the ...

Langtang L irung, W inter Ascent. Two Japanese team s w ent to the norm al southeast ridge o f Langtang L ining (7234 m eters, 23,734 feet). O ur group led by Koichi Ezaki consisted o f M asayuki Sano, M anabu Kuboki, K im ihiro M oriya, C hie Takeuchi (f), H iroshi Kudo, Yukifum i Ito and me. Ezaki, Kuboki and Sano had been to the m ountain the previous winter, but they had been unable to get higher than 6200 m eters because o f the need to fix more than the 1400 m eters they already had. Now we cam e better supplied and fixed a total o f 2250 m eters. We established Base C am p at 4800 m eters on the Lirung G lacier on N ovem ber 28. We clim bed a gully to place C am p I at 5600 m eters on D ecem ber 1. We put C am ps II and III up the snow -and-ice ridge and above the rock band at 6200 and 6600 m eters on D ecem ber 4 and 8. A strong wind then prevailed, destroying Cam p III and h alf ruining Cam p II. All returned to Base Camp. We then attacked the m ountain from C am p II. Kuboki, Sano and L opsang Jangbu Sherpa stood on the sum m it on D ecem ber 14 tw elve hours after leaving C am p II. (M s.) C hie T erayama, Sapporo A lpine A ssociation