| Year |
Team |
Route |
Summit? |
Significance |
Description |
| 1938 |
British team |
SW Face |
N |
|
An expedition led by James Waller reached 7602m before they
were avalanched. Fortunately nobody was hurt but it was decided to abort the
attempt. |
| 1955 |
New Zealand team |
SE Face |
N |
|
Gave up due to deep snow |
| 1957 |
British team |
SE Face |
N |
|
Came within 100m of the summit |
| 1960 |
American Team |
SE Face |
Y |
First ascent |
William Unsoeld, George Bell, Nicholas Clinch and Jawed
Akhter.
|
| 1976 |
Japanese team |
W Ridge/N Ridge |
N |
|
From a BC on the Mandu Glacier the 14 man Japanese team
established camp I on the west ridge at 16000ft before the route was
destroyed by an avalanche. Subsequently attempted the north ridge but only
reached 18200ft before running out of time and gear. |
| 1980 |
David Belden & Christine de Colombel |
SE Face |
N |
|
Reached a high point of 23625ft but descended due to bad
weather and heavy snowfall after their tent had been avalanched in the
night. |
| 1981 |
Polish team |
SE Face |
Y |
First ascent of SW peak |
Summited by Zygmunt Andrjej Heinrich, Marek Malatynski and
Przemyslaw Nowacki formed part of a larger team. BC was established on Serac
Glacier from where they climbed to the col between the two Masherbrum
summits. Here they bivouacked in a snow hole before continuing to the SW
summit. During another high bivouack Nowacki and Malatynski died in the
night having been exposed to strong cold winds throughout as well as the
preceding day. Heinrich made it back to BC but was lucky to survive a
650-1000ft fall at 24600 ft. |
| 1981 |
Volker Stallbohm & Abdul Karim |
SE Face |
N |
|
Reached the col between Masherbrum and Yermanendu Kangri but
could not continue to the summit due to bad weather and lack of food. |
| 1981 |
American team |
N Face & W Ridge |
N |
|
From a BC on the Mandu Glacier they reached a high point at
5486m where they had a close encounter with serac fall and promptly decided
the route was too dangerous to continue. |
| 1981 |
British team |
|
N |
SW peak attempt |
Reached 23400ft at which point bad weather broke out and
they were unable to go any higher. |
| 1983 |
Japanese Team |
|
Y |
Second ascent |
Masahiro Nomura and Takeyasu Minamiura summite via the same
route as the American's in 1960. |
| 1985 |
Japanese Team |
N Ridge |
Y |
Third ascent, new route |
Siege-style over a period of a month and a half fixing much rope.
Frequent collapse of the upper glacier force them to traverse right to the
NW ridge. Placed high camps at 5600m (I), 6100m (II), 6300m (III), 7200m
(IV). Above camp IV the team were forced to traverse further right onto the
NW Face due to rotten rock on the NW Ridge. Eventually they reached the col
between the main and SW summits. All ten members reached the summit. |
| 1985 |
Austrian team |
NW Face |
Y |
Fourth ascent |
A 6 man team that also sieged the mountain but fixed only 600m. Two
summit attempts were made from camp III at 6300m. The first was abandoned at
7000m at which point 2 members left the expedition due to the enormous
danger of falling rock and ice. On the second attempt one member gave up
while the other three bivouacked at 7200m before continuing to the summit.
The summiteers were Andreas Orgler, Michael Larcher and Robert Renzler. They
reached the summit the day after the Japanese. |
| 1985 |
British team |
E Ridge from North |
N |
|
From the Yermanendu Glacier to the north they attempted the east ridge,
climbing from the Masherbrum La to the summit via several subsidiary summits
including Yermanandu Kangri (7821m). They was quickly thwarted due to poor
snow conditions. |
| 1996 |
Russian-American team |
SE Face |
N |
|
The six man expedition attempted the peak in semi-alpine
style. They reached a high point of 7200m at which point they decided the
avalanche risk was too great to continue. |
| 1996 |
American team |
E-SE Ridge |
N |
|
Four man team led by Peter Cole reached a high point of
6050m. At camp II (5650m) they were avalanched from both sides. They were
uninjured but had to wait three days for snow conditions to improve before
descending to BC. |
| 2000 |
|
|
N |
|
Details to follow |
| 2003 |
Steve House, Marko Prezelj & Matic Jost |
N ridge |
N |
|
Initially set a BC up in the Mandu Glacier however it was
impossible to gain the ridge as the Austrians had done in 1985. BC was moved
to the Yermanendu Glacier via a small pass. The attempt on Masherbrum was
soon abandoned due to persistently poor snow conditions that lead to a
number of slab avalanches. |
| 2006 |
Russian Team |
NW Face |
N |
|
Objective danger of the route repeatedly increased after 4-day snowfalls meant the team went no higher than ABC (5800m) |
