"Summit! Summit! The three survivors from the Up Project-Trip One team, celebrating the final achievement of the expedition: The Top of Naysar Brakk. Image by Barnasse, courtesy of the expedition and Montagna.org (click to enlarge).
Stretching after the long trek to K7's Base Camp. Image by Barnasse, courtesy of the expedition team and Montagna.org (click to enlarge).
Korean climber Mi Sun Go - The young lady is well known in the Sport-climbing World cup series. This summer she is out on her first Karakorum experience. Image by Barnasse, courtesy of the expedition and Montagna.org (click to enlarge).
Iqbal's Wall, 400 m: Cristian belaying Luca on the third pitch. Image by Barnasse, courtesy of the expedition and Montagna.org (click to enlarge).
The perfect summit pyramid of Naysar Brakk, seen from BC. Image by Barnasse, courtesy of the expedition and Montagna.org (click to enlarge).
Hervé, on the knife-sharp summit ridge of Naysar Brakk. Image by Luca Maspes, courtesy of the expedition and Montagna.org (click to enlarge).
Cin cin - Prost - Cheers! Final party held by the German DAV team - plus the Swiss, who joined up and contributed to the bar. Image by Barnasse, courtesy of the expedition and Montagna.org (click to enlarge).
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Chogolisa/Charakusa kids debrief: Seize the moment!
Posted: Jul 29, 2005 09:26 am EDT
After two months exploring and climbing hidden valleys of Pakistan, leader Luca Maspes and members Christian Brenna and Hervé Basnasse are back in Skardu. It’s time to summarize the climbs in their last week of stay, when the three headed for Charakusa valley, whilst their team-mates returned home. Here goes Luca Maspes' debrief:
“When our team-mates departed, we were yet in Chogolisa’s BC, trying to solve a boulder problem we had named “The Master of Survival.” At the very last minute, in a final attempt - Brenna finally sent it at 7c/7c+ at 4300m.
"Back then we were considered pioneers"
On Sunday, we moved from the Chogolisa glacier to a new paradise of rock and ice, a place I remember from a previous trip in 1998. Back then we were considered pioneers – now there were four expeditions present: Koreans, Germans, Swiss and Americans.
We reached K7’s BC after a 6-hours trek. Our camp was surrounded by huge peaks: K7, K6, Kapura, Cassin Peak, Fathi Brakk, Parhat Brakk, Naysar Brakk, Beatrice, Farol Peak, Drifika, Haji Brakk... Beyond was Kondus peak, our original goal, now off limits by Pakistani authorities.
A small world for sport-climbing mutants
Manners come first, so we started our stay by accepting an invitation from the Korean team. It was an old style expedition aiming to climb Drifika, a beautiful snowy 6400m mountain. They climbed ‘Korean style’, having set an ABC, two or three higher camps, fixed ropes and hired high altitude porters. They told us everything was ready to attempt the summit as soon as the weather permitted.
There was only one girl on the team: The energetic Mi Sun Go, the strongest sport-climber in Korea. She immediately recognized Christian Brenna (another sport-climbing champion). Both were on their first Karakorum experience… Perhaps it’s a new trend?
"Seven years had passed: I got lost after three pitches"
"And you, where to?" she asked. Well, I had promised Hervé and Christian the best rock in the region, so on the next day we moved to the base of Iqbal's Wall, a 500-wide, 400m-long rock of the best granite one could ever find. Well, at least that’s what I thought, recalling the beautiful route I opened there with Natale Villa and Galen Rowell. I tried to repeat the route, but seven years had passed (and two months at altitude): I got lost after three pitches.
Hervé continued heading the climb, through a new route. The fact is, two or three pitches before the summit the rock was absolutely rotten. After two hours of hard work, we decided to go back. It was the first time we abandoned a climb in this expedition. Back on the ground, I apologized - obviously, the only route on the most beautiful rock of the Karakorum was the memory of that we had climbed back in 1998.
Our German neighbors
Yeah, the first ‘out’ of our ‘Trip One’. So let’s change the subject – let’s talk about the Germans:
They were all young, a DAV (German Alpine Club) expedition aiming to promote a new generation of German climbers – they were all between 18 and 24 years old, coordinated by the veteran Ian Mersch. They’ve been tackling Drifika (in a much lighter style than the Koreans), Farol Peak (an unclimbed 6000er of snow and mix sections) and one of the rock pillars of K7.
We had a good time together, and agreed to meet on Saturday for a mega-party, to celebrate whatever we had climbed by then.
The perfect pyramid
On Wednesday we rested and got ready to leave for one of the most perfect granite towers of the Karakorum: Naysar Brakk – a pure three-side pyramid. We chose to climb a route opened by Steve House, Marko Prezelij and Steve Swenson the previous year: "Tasty Talking", a spur merging into one of the three sides of the pyramid. It would be the second ascent through that route.
We left the tent at 4:30 am. We started climbing a gully and... after three and a half pitches we abandoned the line. The rock was weak, and we were getting edgy. We had wanted a difficult but relaxed climb, and instead we had got ourselves on a route which demanded total focus! We had had enough of focusing on Chogolisa – now we were on holidays!
Sunset summit
Three pitches more, and we were again in the gully, where it joins the north Spur of Naysar, climbed in 1988 by British David Hamilton. It was getting late, and we were in the middle of a 500-route at 5000m in the Karakorum. But now we really wanted to reach the top of that perfect pyramid. Ten pitches of 7th degree (in the old alpine graduation) followed – it took us five more hours to reach the summit, after climbing the knife-sharp summit ridge.
After the summit pictures, we hurried back to the col. We had to be fast, as we had left our head-lamps in BC. At 10:00 pm, in complete darkness, we met Ibrahim, Nabi and Nazir (our BC crew) who were searching for us. However, we were just 10 minutes away from BC, walking fast because, after 16 hours with only an energy bar as food, we were hungry!
Trashed hands "made in Italy"
Our last two days in the Charakusa valley were spent just relaxing in the sun and having boulder competitions with the Germans. We ended up our hands full of bruises, but at least we left some boulder routes ‘made in Italy’ in the surroundings of BC.
By the way, our congratulations to the German team, who successfully summited Drifika!
An Italian young team led by Luka Maspes explored and climbed in the Chogolisa area in Karakorum this summer. Team members were: Luca Maspes, Hervé Barmasse, Gianluca Bellin, Cristian Brenna, Francesca Chenal, Ezio Marlier, Giovanni Ongaro, and Fabio Salini.
The team made anumber of first ascents and new routes. Among them, they opened “Up & Down” on Chogolisa Shield. Christian Brenna free-climbed it some days later. Beside longer routes, they’ve left a bunch of boulder routes around BC – they guys wasted no time when the weather was too bad to climb higher!
Brana, Maspes and Barmasse stayed in Pakistan another week, exploring and climbing in the Charakusa Valley, where they climbed Iqbal's Wall and Naysar Brakk.
The Chogolisa expedition is the 'Trip One' of a bigger project named 'Up Project', focused on exploratory expeditions to lesser known mountain ranges.
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