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Here joints maps of the area : |
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Intercative map Biafo glacier (85 ko) |
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Latok group -c6,456/c7,151m- : |
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In the upper Biafo area, the glance is attract by the Uzun Brakk valley from where the imposing Ogre' group and the marvellous Gothic tower of the Latoks group is rising up. Just as the Ogres, Latoks are difficult and complex granite mountains, with the high towers and frozen barriers. Moreover, Latok would like to say "difficult mountains" in the language local Balti langage. The granite rock of the Latok-Baintha Brakk group is as splendid as Trangos. The group includes 4 principal summits which are Latok I, II, III and IV. These four summits were climbed by their Southern slope starting from the Biafo glacier side. The first climb was made by an Italians teams in 1977, the three others by Japanese, two years later. |
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Latok I -c7,145m-, North face (Karakoram Walker) : |
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Brendan
Murphy and Dave Wills. Both had attempted the unclimbed 2,400m North
Ridge before and Wills was returning for his third attempt on this stupendous
line, often referred to as the Walker Spur of the Karakoram. After thorough
acclimatization, the two crossed the rimaye at c4,700m and climbed the
initial couloir to a tent site at 5,250m. In three days they climbed
1,500m of the ridge in the superb spell of weather that blessed the
Karakoram at the end of July. At the end of the third day they were
excavating a bivouac ledge on a sizable snow mushroom when the whole
thing collapsed. This resulted in Wills, unfortunately, joining the
elite ranks of a group of well-known climbers who have lost their rucksack
in a committing situation high on a big mountain. Included in the 'sack
were the tent, stove and his sleeping bag. Wills spent a thoroughly
miserable night and the pair made an 18 hour descent the following day
to their spare tent and a second stove left at 5,250m. Borrowing replacement
gear from the Ogre team, the pair made a second attempt in August but
only reached 5,880m before having to sit out three days of bad weather.
With the storm unabated they retreated once more.
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Latok I -c7,145m-, North ridge : |
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Tom Nonis and Barry Rugo, the other half of their expedition, had previously been attempting the Ogre. Bouchard and Richey already have the 7,145m peak booked again for '98. On the neighbouring Latok I (7,145m) (see Latok I) New Hampshire climbers, Tom Callaghan and Tom Nonis, abandoned their attempt on the unclimbed North Ridge after Callaghan injured a knee early in the expedition. Before the incident the pair had made several trips up to 5,500m over a 19-day period of consistently poor weather. |
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Latok II -c7,151m- : |
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First climb by italians team (leader Bergamaschi in 1977), second by japanese in 1979. The west ridge has severals attempts, high point ever climbed was c,6,850m by this route. In 1995, A german attempt lead by the famous climber Alexander Huber) by a new route on the impressive Southwest face (800m high) in 1994. |
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Latok II -c7,108m-, North West ridge : |
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Latok II and especially the North West Ridge has a long history, primarily
involving British expeditions. It was first attempted from the col below
Ogre II by a Japanese team in 1975 but they abandoned their project
due to rockfall and serious avalanche danger. In 1977 and '78 two British
parties made further progress and reached c6,600m, although both attempts
were marred by the death of climbers; Don Morrison on the first due
to a crevasse fall and Pat Fearneough in '78, hit by stonefall in the
dangerous Braldu Gorge. In 1987 Joe Brown and Dee de Mengel from a strong
eight-man team retreated from above 6,800m in a serious storm. What
now remains is an integral ascent of the entire ridge above the col.
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Latok II -c7,108m-, South ridge : |
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The mountain itself has been climbed only twice, first in 1977 by Arturo Bergamaschi's Italian expedition, succeeded in forcing a route up mixed ground on the tapering South Ridge, with Alimonta, Mase and Valentini reaching the top well into the night after a long push from their top camp (Camp 5) in bad weather. Above Camp 4 the route was over rock and mixed ground (pitches of IV) to a lower South Summit, in turn connected to the highest point by a narrow snow arête which took three hours to cross. Some days later four more Italians were able to reach the South Summit but turned back from this point. The route does not appear to have been attempted since. |
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Latok II -c7,108m-, "Tsering Mosong" line : |
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One
of the most outstanding achievements of the season 97 was the first
ascent of the Southwest Face of Latok II by the well-known German brothers
Alexander and Thomas Huber, plus the equally well-known American, Conrad
Anker and a fourth German climber, Toni Gutsch. These four reached the
7,108m summit on the 19th July after having climbed a hard big wall
route up the 1,000m+ sheer face above the huge central couloir.
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Latok II -c7,108m-, "Nomadu" line : |
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Franz Fendt and Christian Schlesener, reached the Latok II summit via the North West Ridge to make the third overall ascent of the mountain. On their second attempt this pair left the camp below the headwall at 6,000m and climbed up the left branch of the couloir to reach the crest of the ridge at c6,600m. The eight pitches of this section gave difficult technical climbing with two hard cruxes and the ridge above provided more technical ground with short, hard rock steps. The pair reached the summit after 36 hours of continuous climbing with difficulties up to VI+ and A2 plus 80-90 ice. They then spent 14 hours rappelling the route to their 6,000m camp and a well-earned sleep before continuing down the stoneswept couloir to Base Camp. The new 1,100m line above the last camp in the couloir was named Nomadu. |
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Latok III -c6,949m- : |
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The
impressive rock pyramid of Latok III was first climbed in July 1979
by Sakae Mori, Kazushige Takami and Yoji Teranishi, members of a Japanese
team that fixed 1,600m of rope on the difficult Southwest Ridge (VI+
and A2).
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Latok III, borrow summit (Indian Face Spur) -c5,200m-: |
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In
1990, the Indian Face Spur, the fine granite pillar was climb by Sandy
Allan and Doug Scott in 1990. The UK group climbed approximately one
third of the way up the pillar at British HVS and A1/A2 but retreated
with the realization that the route was far longer than it looked. However,
they were able to reach the summit of Pt 5,400m via a loose ridge at
AD standard. The group report much abandoned rubbish at some old Base
Camps of German origin. They were able to porter out c25kg of trash
from one of these camps which is now all but clear, leaving just one
or two other sites, which it is hoped might be tackled by future parties
visiting this relatively accessible area.
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Latok III -c6,949m-, West face : |
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The
West Face of Latok III is c2,000m high with the first section a snow/ice
slope followed by an impressively steep rock wall, well-seen in the
book Himalayan Alpine-Style.
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Latok IV -c6,456m- : |
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Ohmiya is no newcomer to this region. In 1980 he made the first and,
until last summer, only ascent of Latok IV (6,456m) via the Southwest
Face, just to the right of Latok V. While excavating a snow cave on
the descent both Ohmiya and his partner, Koji Okano, fell 50m into a
crevasse, breaking a number of bones. They waited for four days but
when no help came Ohmiya managed to tunnel through the outside wall
of the crevasse and crawl down the glacier with a broken leg. In close
proximity at the time were Victor Saunders and Will Tapsfield, who had
been attempting nearby Uzun Brakk. This pair were informed of the accident
and subsequently climbed up to the crevasse on Latok IV, where Okano,
who had been stranded down the hole for eight days, was successfully
pulled to safety.
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Latok V -c6,190m-: |
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Latok V is the name ascribed to the small 6,190m pyramid that stands
at the end of the South East Ridge of Latok III (6,949m) on the watershed
running between Latok III and IV. It is probably, though by no means
certainly, unclimbed and was attempted last summer by Motomo Ohmiya
and partner.
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Latok VI : |
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In 2001, Odintsov organized a second team for a return match. Out of the original party it seems that only Ruchkin was interested but the pair enlisted Igor Barikhin, Mikhail Davy, Sergey Khadzhinov and Alexander Klenov. Base Camp was established at the former site late on the 22nd June and subsequently, while waiting for some delayed baggage, all members made an acclimatization ascent of a small subsidiary summit of the Latok group, which they refer to as Latok VI. |
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Redakh Brakk -c6,000m- : |
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In a good example of exploratory mountaineering during July/August
the experienced four man British team of Bill Church, Tony Park, Colin
Wells and Dave Wilkinson climbed three previously virgin peaks from
a Base Camp off the Kero Lungma Glacier (immediately south of the Hispar
and approached from Skardu via Arandu). The team's original intention
had been to attempt a c6,000m peak seen the previous year and dubbed
Mystery Mountain. They were able to locate its position on existing
maps but once in the field found that an intervening glacier basin,
not marked on any maps, meant that the peak was unreachable from the
Kero Lungma. In changeable weather and with masses of old spring snow
(but little problem with fresh snow) they turned their attentions to
a 5,000m peak on the south side of the glacier, later christened Tsuntse
Brakk, which gave 1,000m of PD climbing with a pitch of Scottish 3.
After this they tackled a 5,200m peak (Goma Brakk) directly opposite
on the north side of the glacier (1,000m: F) and finally, on the 13th
August, made the first ascent of Redakh Brakk (c6,000m), which lies
on the watershed with the Hispar Glacier. The route from the south was
via a complex but easy glacier to a col on the main divide and AD+ snow
and ice up the West Ridge to finish. Errors on existing maps were corrected
in a fine piece of traditional exploration and Wilkinson plans to return
this year for a crack at Mystery Mountain.
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Spaldang Peak -c5,550m- : |
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Preparing the Biantha Brakk expedition, Huber then teamed up with Volker Benz and Karl Spitzhof to make the first ascent of a nearby 5,550m tower which they christened Spaldang. The 900m high route on the East Pillar (1,400m of climbing) was partially sieged. The lower section, which was not so steep, gave fairly reasonable climbing (IV to VI) to a shoulder below the steep upper pillar. The upper section proved to be generally V and VI, except for the 120m headwall which was split by a perfect hand jam crack and fell to Huber at IX- (around F7b/7b+). This was a very impressive performance at the altitude, although by this stage in the expedition Huber was well-acclimatized and presumably still retained some of the old magic that allowed him to free climb the Salathé earlier in the year. |
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Shel Chakpa -c5,800m- : |
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Dave
Wilkinson returned to old haunts in 1999 with a visit to the Arandu
(Basha River) Valley in the company of fellow British mountaineers,
Bill Church, Gus Morton and Stewart Muir. The objective this time was
a fine, pointed snow peak of c5,800m towards the head of the valley
that rises east from the village of Zil towards the flanks of the Ganchen
Massif.
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Sokha Brakk -c5,956m-: |
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Two British climbers, Ian Arnold and Dave Millman, were visiting the
adjacent Sokha Glacier to the south, where they managed to climb one
small peak. Arnold had visited the glacier twice before and, in 1992,
climbed the South Face of Pt 5,495m (IV+) and made a spirited attempt
on the difficult and serious North Face of Pt 5,956m, an unclimbed peak
on the main ridge southwest of Sosbun Brakk, subsequently christened
Sokha Brakk. Little climbing has ever been attempted on the Sokha's
dramatic peaks, though the glacier was visited as early as the first
part of last century by the indefatigable Bullock-Workmans and then
again in the late '30s by first Tilman then Scott Russell.
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Sokha Brakk (Sekha Brakk/Dragonfly Crest), -c5,450m- : |
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Dave Wilkinson returned to old haunts in 1999 with a visit to the
Arandu (Basha River) Valley in the company of fellow British mountaineers,
Bill Church, Gus Morton and Stewart Muir. The objective this time was
a fine, pointed snow peak of c5,800m towards the head of the valley
that rises east from the village of Zil towards the flanks of the Ganchen
Massif.
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Sosbun Brakk -c6,413m- : |
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H.W.Tilman,
before the war, had drawn attention to the slim tops of the valley of
Hoh Lungma. It described it, in " Blank one the map " (E.Shipton)
as "an uncompromising rock wall crowned with jagged towers".
But the beauty of these peaks is misleading: the rock is dangerous with
enormous rotted scales and cracks with sandy edges : Sosbun mean "
heap's stone " in baltis and is well named. The climbing is very
hard, as on the very beautiful face, 1100m high, vertical and often
overhanging.
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Tsuntse Brakk-: |
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In a good example of exploratory mountaineering during July/August the experienced four man British team of Bill Church, Tony Park, Colin Wells and Dave Wilkinson climbed three previously virgin peaks from a Base Camp off the Kero Lungma Glacier (immediately south of the Hispar and approached from Skardu via Arandu). The team's original intention had been to attempt a c6,000m peak seen the previous year and dubbed Mystery Mountain. They were able to locate its position on existing maps but once in the field found that an intervening glacier basin, not marked on any maps, meant that the peak was unreachable from the Kero Lungma. In changeable weather and with masses of old spring snow (but little problem with fresh snow) they turned their attentions to a 5,000m peak on the south side of the glacier, later christened Tsuntse Brakk. |
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Uzum Brakk -~6500m- : |
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After their failure on Latok II, in 1994, Alexander Huber accompanied
by seven German tried the Southern face while passing by the higher
Uzum Brakk glacier in 1995. The route borrows the fine Southern ridge
with obvious technical problems in the higher section (first time tried
by a Japanese group in 1975 and later by a certain number of British
forwardings but remains always virgin). Some members of the team arrived
above 6500m.
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Workman peak -c5,882m- : |
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The five-member italians team was on the Biafo Glacier in 1999 for
almost a month from mid-July to mid-August but poor weather prevented
them from achieving more than two ascents. On the 23rd July 1999, Giangi
Angeloni, Angelo Carminati, Giorgio Carran, Gigi Rota and Ennio Spiranelli
climbed the Central Spur on the West Face of Workman Peak (5,882m),
finding snow and mixed terrain up to 60°. On the 28th, Angeloni,
Rota and Spiranelli climbed a nearby c5,800m summit, for which they
propose the name Tarci Peak after the great Bregaglia/Masino activist,
Tarcisio Fazzini, killed during the winter of 1990 in an avalanche.
The three Italians climbed the 600m South Ridge and West Face, which
gave 12 rock pitches up to VI.
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Sources :All informations mainly coming from,
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To the same topics:
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