The weather was still nice for the crossing of the highest pass on our trip. From the south, the 5260-meter (17,500 foot) Konmaru La was an easy climb over a saddle that had been clearly visible from my viewpoint of the previous day.

The view from the top was similar to the one I had seen the previous day, but it now included the 7100-meter Kun and Nun peaks to the south and the 7600-meter peaks of the Eastern Karakoram to the far north. I actually got to climb the pass twice because I discovered shortly after beginning the descent that I had misconfigured my camera. So I had to go back up and reshoot all of my photos.

The descent down the north side was much more difficult. There was a fair amount of snow in places near the top, so we had to take an even steeper route than normal. Then halfway down, the trail entered a beautiful but rugged gorge where the well-built trail had been washed out in many places two years before. The temporary alternate route went up and down and frequently used the stream bed as its only way through.