Posted: Jun 23, 2005 09:41 am EDT
Last year, the Basque climbers Iker and Eneko Pou changed their mind only days before departing for Pakistan, where they planned to free climb ‘Eternal Flame’ on the Trango Towers: “When we were told that another eight teams were climbing the same route, we seriously started thinking that going to Pakistan that summer was not a very good idea."

"When the number of potential climbs to ‘Eternal Flame’ and the Slovenian route – which share the first 300m increased to twelve, we decided to change plans fast - almost the day before buying our plane tickets. Freeclimbing that route is difficult enough, and we couldn’t do it with so many other teams climbing at the same time," they told ExWeb and headed for Madagascar, to climb "Bravo Les Filles".

It's a go for 2005

This year though - it's a go. The brothers will go to Trango Towers in July, to free-climb Eternal Flame, on the Nameless Tower. The route was first climbed by Wolfang Gullich, Kurt Albert, Milan Sykora, and Christof Stiengler in 1989.

"It is a mythical wall and we thought it appropriate to climb via the Eternal Flame route that was opened in 1989 by a group of German climbers. We will try a free climbing ascent between the months of July and of August ," Iker told ExWeb. This would be the first freeclimbed summit via the Eternal Flame route.

Eternal Flame route has only been climbed on three occasions

The east face of Great Trango Tower and Nameless Tower are among the largest vertical faces of the world. Nameless Tower was ascended for the first time by a British team on their second attempt in 1976. Not until 1987 did Nameless Tower see its second ascent by a new route by a Yugoslav team. Great Trango Tower's main summit (6286 m) was first climbed in 1977. In 1984, the 5000 foot Norwegian Buttress was the first route established on the massive East Face, which led to the first ascent of the East Summit (6231 meters).

The Eternal Flame route has only been climbed on three occasions, first by a German team in 1989, then by a Madrilenian team in 2000 and in 2003 by Juan Vallejo, although none of them made a free climb ascent.

Most recently Miles Smart and Tim O'Neill made a couple of attempts at climbing Eternal Flame (Grade VI 5.12c) on Nameless Tower. On their second attempt, only nine pitches from the summit after just nine hours of climbing, O'Neill took a 120-foot whipper that left him badly bruised, but otherwise unhurt.

Since 2003, the brothers Eneko and Iker Pou have been involved in a world-wide project called “7 Walls, 7 continents”, aiming to free climb a representative big wall in each continent.

The climbing tour started in Yosemite, where the brothers free climbed El Niño on El Capitan. Next came the exposed and technical ‘Zumbelzt’ route on Naranjo de Bulnes, the huge limestone big wall in northern Spain. Then the Totem Pole in Tasmania, a 70 m pillar rising from the sea, surrounded by water. And ‘Bravo les Filles’ (600m up to 8b), on the island of Madagascar. Next up is the Asian stage of their project – freeclimbing ‘Eternal Flame’ on the Trango Towers.

 EMAIL   PRINT   SHARE   TEXT