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Shailendra Raj Sharma, Tourism - 24 Oct 78

Van Meter report: new route on West Face joining West Ridge at 23,600 ft.

Sapp, Connor and Landry chose not to go on last section on easy West Ridge; summit long distance from them horizontally and they were extremely exhausted. Trio had been climbing since 7 pm the night before, taking all night to ascend the West Face couloir, 3600 feet of alpine climbing. Continuing on would have necessated a probably biv and possible frostbite.

We did this climb in a non-traditional tactic without any Sherpas; our team down to only 5 lead climbers after illness forced 2 others out. To have put up a major new route in the Himalayas under these conditions is a major accomplishment to the advancement of Himalayas climbing. Our group feels that we are a success even though the summit was not reached.

High point: Oct 20 noon 23,600 feet


Coffee - 23 Oct 78

Were on West Face.

Coffee and Van Meter arrived KTM today. Coffee goes back to BC with cash on 25th Oct.

3000 feet of rope to C2 on top of rock buttress; above 17,500 feet: 17,800 to 17,900 feet, about 14-15 Oct.

C3 about 2-3 days later, about 19,800 ft on 17 Oct by McCullough, Sapp, Andrews and Van Meter about 3:00 pm.

Landry and Connors started from C3 to summit at 10:00 pm 18 Oct in full moonlight - trying and headlamps.

Alpine ascent; managed 2000 feet vertical feet of very steep climbing, harder than expected. They reached C3 5:00 or 6:00 am 19 Oct; rested at C3 on 19 Oct.

19 Oct Van Meter and Andrews went and fixed rope on this 2000 ft to give Landry and Connors better chance to summit next night to climb through the night, yet to top early am and get down the same day.

19 Oct Andrews and Van Meter to C2 from C3 after fixing rope while McCullough and Sapp went up and joined Landry and Connors.

2nd team of Mac and Sapp started at 8:30 pm. At about 11:00 pm, when both teams are well above fixed ropes, 2nd team caught up with 1st at about 22,300 feet. Hardest climbing they'd ever done: snow not very deep on rock and not secure.

11:30 pm - 12:00 midnight. Mac feeling high altitude, effects and needed to go down and did so alone. Managed to reach C3 in early hours of am in darkness and then hallucinated 4 hours.

Other 3 went on up and it 11:45 am of 20th got onto top of ridge, where Italian and Japanese routes met theirs at 23,600+ feet and +600 yards lateral from top. Figured 8 hours to top from there on no oxygen which meant after dark, so came down and reached C3 at 4:30 pm where they collapsed and Landry went snowblind but Sapp fine quickly.

That was end of climbing but not all of mountain.

Made first ascent of West Face to establish routes.

Buttress was enormous, very long; needed stronger team for 2000 ft of rock climbing at high altitude.


Shailendra Raj Sharma - Tourism 13 Oct 78

30 Sept message:
BC - 10 Sept 13,000 feet
C1 - 23 Sept 16,000 feet
Weather unsettled

7 Oct message: from leader weather totally bad 6 and 7 Oct. Rick Mosher going back; his wife Arlette (trekker) sick and requires return to US and husband may go with her to US. Dennis Coffee arrived 5 Oct at BC.

Route change requested: from SW Ridge. C1 had been established directly opposite the route. Too dangerous icefall on ridge.

Want West Face; estimate 3 camps total; waiting for good weather.
Lead climbers Landry and Connor inspected West Face and decided it feasible.
Sharma will be given change of route.
7 Oct from LO: route change because of avalanches.
Daily snowfall and avalanches.

Postcards from Greg say of 4 Oct
C2 is at 17,500 feet
C3 will be at 19,000 feet
C4 top camp


Shailendra Raj Sharma - 1 Oct 78

Annapurna III C1 established at 16,000 feet on 26 Sept and then further advance halted due to unsettled and bad weather. All members well.


Coffee - 21 Sept 78

Infected hand apparently a spider bite which developed a kind of gangrene.


Coffee - 19 Sept 78

SW Ridge looks pretty good although may go off slightly because of serac wall in early part of climb.
Highest at 16,000 feet where C1 will be.
2 people on 5 Sept at BC - all on 8th.

14,440 ABC 9 Sept
13,000 BC 8 Sept
16,000 dump 10 Sept

Such heavy snowfall that lot of avalanche and will wait 1-2 weeks before putting in C1.

No Sherpas with expedition.

Coffee, escorted by Hirsch, arrived by helicopter from Chamro village. Coffee has swollen right hand from infection, nature of which is unknown. Was seriously ill with very high fever (104 degrees) and even at times delirious; now fever down and hand not so swollen as before, Had hoped to walk to Pokhara, but yesterday found he was too weak and sent for helicopter. Hopes to be able leave KTM after only couple of days.


JOMR - 6 Sept 78

Annapurna III had no Sherpas at all with them when they were in Pokhara; when asked who would be cook for LO, they pointed to the 7 BC members.

(Mike Cheney earlier reported expedition fired their Sherpas evening before leaving KTM).

Expedition seemed to have no idea about their route.


Steve Van Meter - 18 Aug 78

New route: SW Ridge, which Italians looked at in 1977 and decided would too long because of technical difficulties of steep ice and rock, long ridge to summit; ridge is quite narrow; think it is climbable.

If not feasible (too many objective dangers), could switch to West Ridge or would like alternative mountain, Annapurna II or IV or Gangapurna.

Approach via Modi Khola. BC 12,500 feet at foot of glacier. Route is up glacier.

2 or 3 camps above BC; definitely one on 2 rock wall high up on ridge at 22,000-23,000 feet, which could be highest camp.

No Sherpas above BC except sirdar Sange Sherpa who will help through icefall to 17,000 or 18,000 ft.

We want to try to climb this peak without any Sherpas on the mountain.
1) to keep cost down, and
2) seems to be trend in Himalayan climbing.

Leave KTM about 22 Aug. 7 or 8 days to BC with 60 porters.
Summit 1st-2nd week Oct.
Slowest part of climb probably icefall and 1st rock wall; could be avalanche area.
$40,000 budget
No oxygen
7 people at BC

Annapurna III

Steep ridge mixed rock and of 3 miles to summit.
2nd rockwall 22,000-23,000 ft.
Long steep ridge with maybe C3 on this ridge.
C2 17,000 ft.

1st rock wall 15,000-17,000 ft.
Glacier - icefall 12,500-15,000 ft with C1 somewhere on glacier.
BC - 12,500 ft


Letter from Tom McCullough, BC - 5 Oct 78

The sole way onto any route is via a long, trip consuming day through one ice field - treacherous looking but quite benign and dying. So our first team is up onto one of the long finger-like rock buttresses that invades the icefield, then along the snow rock ramp to the West Face start. Seems like a variation of the West Face will become the new route. The summit pair has been selected and along with that decision goes all the acrimony, mashing of teeth. Then everyone settles into their role and we continue. Werner Landry and Ed Corners are to go for the summit with usual offerings of the possibility of a second and maybe even a 3rd attempt. I have managed to keep some of the people well during Dennis' absence, the most notable failure being my own health for 3 days.


Letter from Tom McCullough - 23 Sept 1978

Slowly moving we are moving materials up to the base of the buttress. Bad weather has slowed our movement. New snow impaired our crossing of a high morraine to reach advanced base at 16,200. Right now Ian studying all the medical books. My training as in EMT is coming in handy. Hopefully Dennis will return soon. My first guess was a bug bite but he wasn't sure; would be good to get some word about his condition. We are still plagued by a few bugs, colis-infected bites; takes a long time for wounds to heal.

Couple of climbers have gone up around Tent Pass to take a look around to avoid camp fever.
The fall colors are spectacular, very delicate small alpine flowers changing colors. Weather getting cooler but when will the monsoons end? The mist seems to settle in the Sanctuary.
Volley ball had become a regular pastime, our game improves with time at altitudes. Each day we have some activity going on. We will send 2 climbers up to advance in two days to search the route (Ed Connors, Werner Laudry). I'll go up with them to film their movement. Camp spirits are high, but everyone would sooner be on the mountain.


Letter from Tom McCullough - 16 Sept 78

We are safely settled at base camp nursing our colds, wounds and wet clothes after too many times across the Madi Khola. We finally got all the loads across; a week-long study in frustration in trying to coax the porters across the river early enough in the morning while the river is still passible.

The delay caused us to [use] more base camp supplies than planned so we have been sending out for food with each mail run. Speaking of leaches, they were not so bad at our various camp sites and especially at Macchapuchhare base camp.


Letter from Tom McCullough - 28 Aug 78

Tonight we are at Hinko, blocked from the Annapurna 3 base camp by three rivers. Tomorrow, early we will cross the rivers when they are lower. Alternatively build some bridges. Everyone has managed to come down with a cold - seems to be the continual runny nose and cough that the porters have. We are almost a day behind schedule. We probably will not be able to pay the porters to base camp since the budget was very slim in the area. We will ferry the 30 loads overselves over about 4-5 days. We had three good days of carrying mixed with 3 days when the porters would go no further at mid-afternoon.