a032  0026  05 Aug 78
PM-Women-Climb,320
Laserphoto FX1
    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - An adventurous band of women leaves Sunday for
far-off Nepal on the first leg of a journey they hope will end at the
icy top of towering Annapurna, the world's 10th tallest peak.
    If they succeed, they will have made history - the first all-woman
American team to conquer a mountain more than 8,000 meters high.
    ''In mountain climbing, 8,000 meters (more than 26,000 feet) is a
magic mark,'' said Christy Tews, who will manage the base camp this
fall while 10 women attempt the harrowing climb.
    Ms. Tews said that while Japanese, Chinese and Polish women have
climbed beyond 8,000 meters, American women have yet to reach that
mark.
    The climbers, ranging in age from 20 to 50, all are experienced
mountaineers, Ms. Tews said.
    The group flies from San Francisco to Hong Kong and will assemble in
Nepal. From a staging area at Pokhara, the women will set out on a
10-day walk to the mountain.
    Ms. Tews said they expect to establish the base camp in early
September.
    Then, depending on weather conditions, they will begin the four- to
six-week assault of Annapurna, a feat completed successfully by only
four other expeditions.
    The Sherpa guides will include several women, she said.
    Arlene Blum, a biochemist at the University of California at
Berkeley, will lead the climb. She has had 10 expeditions in Asia and
Africa and was a co-leader of the first all-woman assault on Mount
McKinley.
    Other climbers include Joan Firey, Seattle; Alison
Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz, England; Liz Klobusicky, Germany; Vera
Komarkova, Bolder, Colo.; Prio Kramar, Seattle; Irene Miller, Palo
Alto, Calif.; Margi Rusmore, Santa Cruz, Calif.; Vera Watson,
Stanford, Calif.; and Ann Whitehouse, Laramie, Wyo.
    Four of the women will be leaving husbands behind. Ms. Tews said
families generally have given the expedition full support.
    The climb is expected to cost $80,000. Donations will finance part
of the trip, and the women have raised $24,000 by selling T-shirts.
    
ap-ny-08-05 0327EDT
**********

a071  0355  05 Aug 78
PM-National Overview,550
    HACKENSACK, N.J. (AP) - New York Times reporter Myron A. Farber,
sitting in a cell next to a murder suspect for refusing to surrender
his files on the Dr.X murder case, ''is like any other inmate'' in the
Bergen County jail.
    Farber and his newspaper were convicted of contempt for defying a
court order to surrender their material on Dr. Mario Jascalevich, the
surgeon referred to as Dr. X in Farber's stories on a series of
mysterious deaths at a New Jersey hospital.
    Farber served seven hours in jail last week before his sentence was
stayed temporarily by a New Jersey Supreme Court Justice. A last
minute effort to keep the reporter out of jail until an appeal could
be argued was rejected Friday by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood
Marshall.
    ---
    SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Immanuel David, who spent more than $30,000 on
food and posh hotel rooms for his family in the past 14 months, will
be buried with his wife and six of their children at county expense,
relatives said.
    David, who claimed to have revelations and to be able to destroy the
world, committed suicide this week. After learning of his death
Wednesday, Rachel David helped the couple's seven children plunge from
the 11th floor balcony of their $90-a-day, three-room suite before
she jumped over the side to her death Thursday morning.
    Only a 13-year-old daughter, Elizbeth, survived. Friday night she
was reported in critical condition at LDS Hospital.
    David's brother, Dean Longo, a Vero Beach, Fla., police sergeant,
arrived Friday to handle funeral arrangments. He said he could not
afford to pay for the family's funeral. He said the county had already
been contacted for help. The family will be buried in Utah.
    ---
    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - An adventurous band of women leaves Sunday for
far-off Nepal on the first leg of a journey they hope will end at the
icy top of towering Annapurna, the world's 10th tallest peak.
    If they succeed, they will have made history - the first all-woman
American team to conquer a mountain more than 8,000 meters high.
    ''In mountain climbing, 8,000 meters (more than 26,000 feet) is a
magic mark,'' said Christy Tews, who will manage the base camp this
fall while 10 women attempt the harrowing climb.
    Ms. Tews said that while Japanese, Chinese and Polish women have
climbed beyond 8,000 meters, American women have yet to reach that
mark.
    The climbers, ranging in age from 20 to 50, all are experienced
mountaineers, Ms. Tews said.
    ---
    ALBANY, Texas (AP) - Waterlogged residents of western Texas, already
inundated by up to 30 inches of rain in the last two days, braced for
more flooding today as the runoff sent rivers gushing from their
banks.
    Water poured over earthen dams and spillways, and creeks that barely
trickled a few days ago grew two miles wide across the rolling west
Texas prairies.
    The killer storm - remnants of Tropical Storm Amelia - has claimed
at least 20 lives while carving a 200-mile-long swath of destruction
from central to northwestern Texas.
    No rain was falling early today and skies were forecast to remain
partly cloudy.
    The Texas Department of Public Safety said 20 bodies had been
recovered across the state, including 16 in central Texas and four in
Albany, a farming town of 2,500 residents.
    
ap-ny-08-05 0656EDT
**********

a233  1233  16 Aug 78
AM-Focus-Adventurers, Bjt,840
TODAY'S FOCUS: Why? Not Only Because It's There
Laserphoto NY25
By MARC CHARNEY
Associated Press Writer
    NEW YORK (AP) - They leave the everyday comforts to climb mountains,
cross oceans in small boats, make epic balloon flights or marathon
swims.
    Why do they do it? It's an age-old question, and this summer there
are legions of adventurers about whom to ask it.
    This week alone, Diana Nyad and Stella Taylor tried - but failed -
to swim 100 miles or more to Miami; Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and
Larry Newman of Albuquerqu3 were trying to cross the Atlantic in a
balloon; two separate teams of Americans were in the Himalayas to
climb K-2 and Annapurna, two of the world's highest peaks.
    Those are just some of the adventurers in the public eye, doing the
most spectacular of feats. And there are others, men or women
everyone knows - canoeists or rock climbers or sailors, seeking out
rapids or cliffs or seas that may have been conquered many times
before, but never by them.
    Each has his reasons; each holds a fascination for the stay-at-home.
    Some explanations are as timeless, and as personal, as George Leigh
Mallory's was more than a half-century ago, when he was asked why he
wanted to climb Mt. Everest: ''Because it is there.''
    Others are as contemporary, and as complicated, as wealthy publisher
Malcolm Forbes' description of why people - himself among them - make
epic balloon flights. Apart from ''the great challenge,'' Forbes
says, ''An audience is vital; attention is a spur . . . Who'd be a
successsful writer, artist, etc., if nobody was watching?''
    Miss Nyad, on the other hand, had an answer both simple and
practical as she contemplated big-money contracts before her swim:
    ''This swim could set up my whole future,'' she said.
    But that is hardly the story for others.
    Consider Thomas Mutch, a geology professor at Brown University who
took students climbing a Himalayan peak nearly 22,000 feet high to
learn the meaning of exploration:
    ''I would disagree very strongly,'' he said when asked about Forbes'
explanation. He pointed to the way Charles A. Lindbergh landed in
Paris in 1927 after the first solo transatlantic flight - astounded
that his lonely flight had caused a stir.
    Mutch says mountaineering is ''a very very private feeling.''
    And he says: ''In exploration, you're talking about the goal, the
id3a of getting to some place. There's something exhilarating about
it. To struggle up a pinnacle and toward some point at the top,
whether you reach it or not - is a very simplifying experience.''
    Simplifying?
    ''The world's a complicated place. Most of the time, you kind of
muddle through. But most people who have climbed find that during a
climb all of your mental and metaphysical experiences are centered on
one activity - getting to the top. For that period of time, life
seems very, very straightforward. And afterward, you know that you did
this; people can't take this away from you.''
    Forbes, who has sunk profits from his magazine into cross-country
ballooning, says that sport evokes ''the way man first flew . .  the
air excites people; it's not a moonwalk; but it's as near as you can
get to it on earth.''
    As for epic flights, he says, ''Everybody likes identity. Everybody
wants something that they're known for. It's fun, it's a challenge,
and it's what you might call instant fame.''
    One man who achieved instant fame is Hugo Vihlen of Homestead, Fla.,
who is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for crossing the
Atlantic in 1969 in a boat 5-feet, 11 1/2-inches long, the smallest to
make the voyage. He says his goal was ''to set a world record.''
    But then he adds other motives. ''There are adventurous people who
are not content to go home every day and stagnate,'' he says, and
there is the satisfaction of planning for a difficult feat.
    ''Obviously, it's a calculated risk,'' he says. ''But by the
research you can eliminate an awful lot of the risk.''
    He rejects the idea that he was testing himself: ''I knew it could
be done. I didn't reach any big inner thoughts. I was a Marine fighter
pilot, so I knew about being afraid.''
    That, in turn, clashes with the thoughts of rock-climber Charlton
DuRant of Morganton, N.C., who teaches outdoor life at an Outward
Bound school and says adventure makes an individual face himself.
    Like all the others, DuRant stresses preparation; he speaks of ''a
dangerous situation that becomes safe because you're educated.''
    But he also says that ''a large part of climbing, to everybody that
climbs, is fear. In some way or another, you're dealing with it.''
    ''When you're mountaineering, you make irreversible commitments
. . . You go over a line; the only way you can tell about this
adventure is if you've finished it.''
    So it is a complex business, the ''why'' behind adventuring.
    But the rewards are sometimes quite simple. Joshua Slocum, who
couldn't swim, described them this way after completing the world's
first solo sail around the world - a three-year venture - in 1898:
    ''I had profited in many ways by the voyage. I had even gained
flesh, and actually weighed a pound more than when I sailed from
Boston. As for aging, why, the dial of my life was turned back till my
friends all said, 'Slocum is young again.' ''
    
ap-ny-08-16 1536EDT
**********

a269  1622  16 Aug 78
AM-Focus-Adventurers, 1st Ld, a233,100
EDS:The following subs the 3rd graf to show the ballonists succeeded.
TODAY'S FOCUS: Why? Not Only Because It's There
Laserphoto NY25
By MARC CHARNEY
Associated Press Writer
    NEW YORK (AP) - They leave the everyday comforts to climb mountains,
cross oceans in small boats, make epic balloon flights or marathon
swims.
    Why do they do it? It's an age-old question, and this summer there
are legions of adventurers about whom to ask it.
    This week alone, Diana Nyad and Stella Taylor tried - but failed -
to swim 100 miles or more to Miami; Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and
Larry Newman of Albuquerque crossed the Atlantic in a balloon; two
separate teams of Americans were in the Himalayas to climb K-2 and
Annapurna, two of the world's highest peaks.
    Those are 4th graf
    
ap-ny-08-16 1925EDT
**********

n514  0130  22 Aug 78
 
BC-Women 2takes 08-22
Attention: Sports editors, following is a Sports Plus feature.
By BARBARA VARRO
(c) 1978 Chicago Sun-Times
    Suddenly, women are more in the news than ever before as they
challenge nature, statistics, convention and their own strength.
    - New York marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, 28, battled high waves,
seasickness and jellyfish stings in an attempted Cuba-to-Key West
swim before being persuaded to give up. The Phi Beta
Kappa graduate of Lake Forest (Ill.) College begged
to continue her swim and wept when she was forced to abandon
her swim after going 70 miles.
    - Former British nun Stella Taylor, 48, swam 140 miles of
a Bimini-to-Florida course and was trailed by a shark that had to
be killed. Clutching a good-luck teddy bear after being coaxed out
of the water, the ''simming nun'' said she was goin to begin
training immediately for another marathon swim from Florida to the
Bahamas.
    - Englishwoman Robyn Davidson, 28, dubbed ''the camel lady,''
trekked all alone across 1,200 miles of sand dunes, salt marshes
and scrublands of Australia's harsh Gibson Desert on camelback.
She captured and tamed the four camels in her caravan herself.
    - Barbara Mast, a 27-year-old Bridgewater (Mass.) real estate
broker, is hiking 2,000 miles along the Donner Trail, following
the route of a wagon train that started out from Springfield,
Ill., in 1846 and was lost in California's Sierras.
    - And this September, 10 women will attempt to scale the 26,545-foot
-high Annapurna in Nepal. The first Aemrican women's Himalayan
expedition in history will be led by 32-year-old California
biochemist Arlene Blum. The youngest member of the team is
21-year-old University of California student, Margi Rusmore, who
has climbed to the peak of Alaska's 20,300-foot Mt. McKinley.
    Adventurous women all. Why? What makes them do it?
    Nyad has said that while she once wanted to break records
for self-esteem, that is no longer her reason. ''I only do a swim
if it's a good business venture. Why shouldn't I want public and
financial recognitoin?''
    Davidson said she wanted to ride camelback across the Gibson Desert,
which has claimed the lives of explorers in the past, because of her
love for both camels and a good challenge.
    What do others think about female adventurers, whose numbers have
been increasing in the last couple of years? What's the motivation
behind a wish to accomplish great feats, to break records, to
be first? Some women think these adventurers are bonkers, and some
men say more power to them. (and some men think they're bonkers,
and some other women are encouraging.) One psychiatrist thinks that
they may have problems with masochism and that their drive to
succeed may be rooted in a childhood desire to gain approval
from their fathers. Another believes adventurous females
may simply be adopting a me-too attitude and showing that they can
accomplish feats traditionally tried by males.
x x x
    While Nyad and Taylor were swimming their hearts out last week,
we took an informal pool to determine what males and females think
of their attempts. A majority of the males and female
polled said they were disappointed that neither woman accomplished
what she setout to do. But there were other telling
comments. Some women asked, ''Why would anyone want to do something
like that?'' Most of the men answered, ''Why not?''
    More women than men expressed a negative, so-what attitude.
They said things like, ''What are they trying to prove?'' and ''They
must be nuts.'' One woman said that she thought everyone was
taking these adventurers too seriously, and questioned whether
the media wouldn't be wiser to make heroincs out of those who make
more valid contributions to society. ''With all of the brouhaha
about those women who were brave enough to go out there and try
to beat the sea,'' she said, ''it seems to me that females are falling
into the same macho trap as males.''
    Another woman said she probably harbored some resentment
toward those women who were trying to prove themselves via a
treacherous swim. Perhaps it was only that she was put off by the
fact that the swimmers seemed on the brink of accomplishing great
things, while she wasn't, she said.
    Others said they just didn't understand why a woman, or a man for
that matter, would want to do something as masochistic as
swimming for days in rough seas, being stung by jellyfish and menaced
by sharks. These women obviously don't have the climbing-a-mountain
-because-it's-there mentality.
rl     (MORE) 08-22
 
 
ov cd
...
(End missing.)
**********

a035  0044  04 Sep 78
PM-Women Climbers,90
    KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) - The 10-woman American team climbing
26,502-foot Annapurna One in western Nepal reports it is more than
half way up the mountain.
    A message received today said the women established their base camp
at 12,149 feet on Aug. 26 and their first camp after that at 13,839
feet on Aug. 28.
    The climbers are about two weeks ahead of schedule. They left
Katmandu Aug. 14 and did not expect to establish their base camp until
mid-September.
    
ap-ny-09-04 0349EDT
**********

a087  0714  18 Oct 78
PM-Annapurna,180
    KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) - Four members of an American women's climbing
expedition reached the top of the 26,502-foot Annapurna Sunday,
Nepal's ministry of tourism announced today. They are the first
Americans and the first women to climb the peak.
    The ministry said the message from the base camp did not name the
four. A day before the conquest of Annapurna, three women members and
two Sherpa guides set up their fifth high-altitude camp at 24,500
feet, from which they made the final ascent.
    The ministry said the women planned another attempt on the world's
10th highest mountain.
    Before leaving Katmandu Aug. 14, the leader of the 10-woman
expedition, Arlene Blum, 35, Berkeley, Calif., said she wanted to give
more women a chance to climb the mountain.
    ''Our main target was to climb an eight-thousander peak (a mountain
more than 8,000 meters, or 26,247 feet, high) so we selected
Annapurna,'' Miss Blum said.
    Annapurna, the main peak in the Annapurna Range, was fist climbed by
two Frenchmen, Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal, in 1950.
    
ap-ny-10-18 1020EDT
**********

a096  0803  18 Oct 78
PM-Annapurna, 1st Add, a087,160
KATMANDU, Nepal: in 1950
    Miss Blum, a University of California biochemist, took part in the
1976 American Bicentennial climb of Mount Everest, the world's highest
mountain, but did not reach the summit herself.
    The Annapurna team includes six Sherpas and about 200 porters
carrying 13,000 pounds of food and equipment.
    Only four previous attempts on the mountain succeeded.
    Before the expedition left Katmandu for the month-long hike to the
base camp, Miss Blum said only women were chosen ''because there has
never been an all-American women's team to the Himalayas, but more
importantly we wanted the experience as women of planning and
coordinating a Himalayan expedition.
    ''American women have participated in such assaults before, but we
have never had the opportunity to participate from the very beginning
in the organizing of an expedition because the leaders have always
been men.''
    In 1975 an all-women Japanese expedition scaled Mount Everest.
    
ap-ny-10-18 1109EDT
**********

a213  1801  22 Oct 78
AM-Foreign Briefs,420
    KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) - Two members of an all-women mountain-climbing
expedition who became the first Americans to conquer the 26,545-foot
Annapurna last week were identified by Nepal's Tourism Ministry on
Sunday as Irene Miller, 42, of Palo Alto, Calif., and Vera Komarkova,
35, of Boulder, Colo.
    The successful climb had been reported Wednesday, but it was not
known then which two team members reached the summit.
    The ministry said the two women were accompanied by two male Sherpa
guides on the final assault Oct. 15 to the peak of the world's
10th-highest mountain. Other team members are planning to try for the
summit as well, the ministry said.
    ---
    LONDON (AP) - A salvage team pumped the last of 9.6 million gallons
of oil from the hold of the crippled tanker Christos Bitas in the
Irish Sea Sunday, and divers were sent to inspect the damage to the
hull of the 58,000-ton ship.
    The Greek-owned vessel ran onto rocks off the coast of Wales Oct. 12
and spilled almost one million gallons of crude oil into the Bristol
Channel. Despite efforts to contain the slick, the oil fouled 100
miles of the Welsh coastline and killed hundreds of sea birds.
    ---
    GODTHAAB, Greenland (AP) - Adults will be limited to a few ounces of
liquor a day under a rationing system that will be introduced on this
Danish island next year to combat what officials say is excessive
drinking.
    Greenland Radio reported Saturday that the Greenland Council had
accepted rationing for its 40,000 adults over age 18, based on a
system of ration coupons.
    ---
    NEW DEHLI, India (AP) - The Indian government has given approval to
the British Aerospace Aircraft firm for starting up production of
Jaguar jets for the Indian air force, officials announced Saturday.
    The number of planes to be built was not officially disclosed, but
the deal is reported to be worth an estimated $2 billion and to
involve 40 warplanes purchased outright and 200 more to be
manufactured domestically in collaboration with India's Hindustan
Aeronautics.
    ---
    LONDON (AP) - A Canaletto painting worth almost $250,000 was
recovered Saturday after the crate in which it was packed blew off the
roof of a car on a highway west of London on Thursday.
    The 52-by-33-inch painting of Venice's St. Mark's Square was being
taken to an airport for shipment overseas. An amateur painter found
the crate and called police. Giovanni Canale, or Canaletto, lived from
1697 to 1768 and is known primarily for his delicate and finely
detailed scenes of Venice.
    
ap-ny-10-22 1306EDT
**********

a080  0642  26 Oct 78
PM-Annapurna Deaths,200
    KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) - Two members of an all-women American
mountaineering expedition climbing the 26,545-foot Annapurna main peak
have died, an official of Nepal's Tourism Ministry said today.
    He said the ministry did not have their identifications or other
details about the deaths. A U.S. Embassy official here said the matter
was handled by the ministry and the embassy would have no immediate
comment.
    Since there is no radio communication between Katmandu and the
expedition's base camp, a helicopter was sent to the camp this
afternoon and was expected to return to Katmandu Friday morning.
    On Oct. 15, Irene Miller, 42, of Palo Alto, Calif., and
Czechoslovakian-born American Vera Komarkova, 35, reached the summit
of the world's 10th-highest mountain accompanied by two male Sherpa
guides.
    They were the first Americans and the first women to climb the
Himalayan mountain. The 10-women expedition was led by Arlene Blum,
33, of Berkeley, Calif.
    Other members of the expedition were Joan Firey and Prio Kramer of
Seattle, Margi Rusmore of Santa Cruz, Calif., Vera Watson of Stanford,
Calif., Ann Whitehouse of Laramie, Wyo., Alison Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz
of England and Liz Klobusicky of West Germany.
    
ap-ny-10-26 0945EDT
**********

a104  0914  26 Oct 78
PM-Annapurna Deaths, 1st Ld-Writethru, a080,350
URGENT
Eds: New material, editing changes throughout based on release of
IDS.
    KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) - Two members of an all-women American
mountaineering expedition scaling the 26,545-foot Annapurna main peak
have been killed in a climbing accident, an official of Nepal's
Tourism Ministry said today.
    The ministry official said he had no further details, but expedition
spokeswoman Lorraine Rorke, in San Francisco, identified the victims
as Vera Watson, 46, of Stanford, Calif., and Alison
Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz, 36, of Leeds, England.
    ''All we know is that they died in a climbing accident. There has
been no further explanation,'' Ms. Rorke said. She said both women
''had a great depth of experience in climbing.''
    First word of the deaths came in a telephone call from officials in
Nepal to Ms. Watson's husband, Ms. Rorke said. San Francisco was the
expedition's kick-off point.
    There is no radio communication between Katmandu and the
expedition's base camp. Officials said a helicopter was sent to the
camp and was expected to return to Katmandu Friday morning. Annapurna
is 100 miles northwest of here.
    On Oct. 15, Irene Miller, 42, of Palo Alto, and Czechoslovakian-born
American Vera Komarkova, 35, reached the summit of the Annapurna main
peak, the world's 10th-highest mountain, accompanied by two male
Sherpa guides. The team radioed afterward that they were staying on
the mountain and other expedition members would try to scale the
summit.
    They were the first Americans and the first women to climb the
Himalayan mountain. The 10-woman expedition was led by Arlene Blum,
33, of Berkeley Calif.
    Ms. Watson, a computer programmer at IBM Corp. in San Jose, Calif.,
was the first woman to solo climb Aconcagua in Argentina, the highest
peak in the Western Hemisphere. She also was part of the all-women
ascents of Mount Robson, Canada, and Mount Sajama, Bolivia.
    Ms. Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz, an art lecturer, had been on expeditions
on Hindu Kush and the Karakorum in Central Asia, and was the first to
reach the summit of Gasherbrum 3, in Kashmir.
    Other members of the Annapurna expedition were Joan Firey and Prio
Kramer of Seattle, Margi Rusmore of Santa Cruz, Calif., Ann Whitehouse
of Laramie, Wyo., and Liz Klobusicky of West Germany.
    
ap-ny-10-26 1217EDT
**********

a227  1228  26 Oct 78
AM-Annapurna Deaths,400
    KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) - Two members of a 10-woman American expedition
have been killed in a climbing accident on the 26,545-foot Annapurna
main peak, officials said Thursday.
    The Ministry of Tourism said it had no further details of the deaths
thst occurred more than a week ago. But a spokswoman for the group in
San Francisco, kickoff point for the expedition, identified the dead
women as Vera Watson, 46, of Stanford, Calif., and Alison
Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz, 36, of Leeds, England.
    Spokeswoman Lorraine Rorke said all the women ''had a great depth of
experience in climbing.''
    ''All we know is that they died in a climbing accident. There has
been no further explanation.''
    Colin Miller, another spokesman in San Francisco, said the deaths
occurred Oct. 17, two days after two other members of the expedition
reached the summit. He said it took several days for news of the
tragedy to come from the expedition's base camp at 13,000 feet.
    The deaths were confirmed Tuesday in a phone call from Christy Tews,
base camp manager for the expedition, to John McCarthy, Ms. Watson's
husband.
    Miller said the rest of the expedition was now down from the
mountain but he did not know where they were. Ms. Tews was expected to
return to San Francisco Thursday.
    Officials said a helicopter was sent to the camp 100 miles northwest
of Katmandu and was expected to return Friday morning. There is no
radio communication between Katmandu and the base camp.
    Irene Miller, 42, of Palo Alto, Calif., and Czechoslovakian-born
American Vera Komarkova, 35, reached the summit on Oct. 15 with two
Sherpa guides. They were the first Americans and the first women to
climb the Himalayan mountain. The team radioed the base camp they
planned to stay on the mountain and other expedition members would try
to make the top.
    Ms. Watson is a computer programmer for IBM Corp. in San Jose,
Calif. She was the first woman to climb Argentina's Aconcagua mountain
alone. Aconcagua, at 22,834 feet, is the highest peak in the Western
Hemisphere. Ms. Watson also was part of the all-women teams that
climbed Mount Robson in Canada and Mount Sajama in Bolivia.
    Ms. Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz is an art lecturer. She has participated
in expeditions to the Hinyu Kush and the Karakorum ranges in central
Asia and was the first to reach the summit of Gasherbrum 3, in
Kashmir.
    Other members of the Annapurna expedition were Joan Firey and Prio
Kramer of Seattle, Margi Rusmore of Santa Cruz, Calif., Ann Whitehouse
of Laramie, Wyo., and Liz Klobusicky of West Germany.
    
ap-ny-10-26 1532EDT
**********