Mountain: Nanga Parbat
Route: Diamir Face
Country: Pakistan
Height: 8125meters/26,660ft
Dates of Expedition: June – July, 1997
Overview of climb: Nanga had not been climbed by a Russian and only once by an American in 1997. Our joint Russian-American team hoped to succeed in climbing this interesting route in good style, with a minimum amount of extravagant sponsorship publicity associated with the climb.
Team Members: Victor Kolesnichenko, Andrei Volkov, Andrei Mariev, Ivan Dusharin, Carlos Buhler,(leader), Viatzheclav Volkov, Alexander Dosaev, Luba Shvedova, Ali Madat(cook)
Lasting Impression:
The mountain ultimately allowed five of us to reach the summit in good weather on two different summit days in July. Following one year after the tragedy of Igor Benkin's death on K2, this trip helped all of us to gather the confidence we needed to succeed on other great mountains together. I could not imagine climbing with a nicer group of people than we had on this team. The highlight for me was to achieve the summit together with Ivan Dusharin, a man of enormous experience and great integrity. I had met Ivan 19 years earlier on the joint Soviet-American Exchange Team to the Pamirs in 1978. But despite our years knowing each other, we had yet to summit a mountain together. See our web presentation at: http://www.shura007.com/k2/1997nanga/english/index.html
