|
2007
Mugs Stump Award Winners:
Ménard/Turgeon—Attempt
on the North Face of K6, Pakistan
All
five toes look like small carrots growing out of my inflatable
doll-like right foot. This footstep (I should say footmiss…) I will remember. The one that ‘denied’ all
the previous ones and drastically put an end to my expedition
and any chances to be able to finally climb K6.
 K6.
Such a little name for such a big peak. It’s north
face, almost 3000m of a vertical cocktail of rock, ice, snow
and serac, which faces the Charakusa valley in northern Pakistan,
is little known and remains unclimbed. For a second year
in a row, me and partner Maxime Turgeon applied for a permit
to attempt an alpine style ascent of this face.
It
is still very unclear to me how climbing permits are granted,
but I’m starting to think there’s some
sort of Poker game implied into the process… For 20
years, the valley had been closed to tourism, but fortunately
it has been reopened to climbers since 2000. To get a permit
for K6 and K7 though, the biggest mountains of the region,
is another story. Without much surprise, in 2006 we did not
get that permit, and so we headed on the Choktoi for a try
on Latok I. While we failed on Latok I, we climbed on a few
nearby peaks and learned much from our Karakoram trip, so
we applied for K6 again, but not without putting pressure
on the ministry of tourism on our way back in Islamabad.
 Also
learning from our previous experience, we planned our next
Himalayan trip with 2 friends in order to split cost. Indeed,
Kelly Cordes and Scott Decapio had similar schedules and
were interested in K7, so we were all happy to be travelling
together. Well, ‘General K6’, for once, must
have dealt a Royal Flush that beat ‘Sergeant K7’s’ usual
Full House because we had the go for K6 but learned, shortly
before departing, that we were refused access to K7. Juggling
with several ideas, we pushed on with the initial plan, worst
case; we would all climb on the same peak. We wouldn’t
miss our chance to finally be able to climb K6. The future
would prove that no one would get to climb this majestic
peak in the season.
The Charakusa valley has climbing objectives from boulders
to 7000m peaks, not neglecting bugaboo-like granite spire,
but in top of all, you can establish base camp on a grassy
meadow with running streams of crystal clear water. So quickly
(after the usual headaches terms had passed once in base
camp), we started acclimatizing on surrounding peaks. Objectives
were plentiful and after a first trek up to 5000m, we got
sight of all four summits of Farol peak (ca. 6350m) and interest
in a new line up its central one.
 Located
relatively far from our established base camp, we leave
in the afternoon of August 31st with all of our climbing
gear, food for a day and a tent with the plan of hiking to
the base of the peak, set camp and climb our proposed route
in a single push the next day. We start to climb around 4h30
am, simul and solo climbing rapidly up to 5700m at which
point we get a bit bummed by the sight of fixed ropes on
the headwall in front of us (!?). Adding to our disturbed
moral, the rising sun now hits intensely on us. I take the
lead, both resolved to continue our ascent anyhow, and wanting
to free climb the headwall, I take care to climb around the
artefacts that soil the beautiful orange granite. Further
up, after a long and strenuous ice pitch, Max takes the lead
into a broken and loose corner and at about 20ft up over
is single pro, he breaks loose and falls only to get caught
by his ‘spring-leash’, a homemade keeper leash
attached to the spike of his ice axe. He gets over it and
resumes his pitch, and in our deficient acclimatized state,
we reach an altitude of 6000m. At around 4h30 pm, without
any bivy gear or stove, slowed down by a complex saw-teeth
like rock arête (and not too cheerful to go thru an
open bivy to reach the summit of an already established route),
we decide to bail in the nearby exit gully, even though we
know it leads to a serac-threatened col.
 A
few rappels later, we start downclimbing (a bit hastily!)
the steep glacier with nasty 100m high overhanging seracs
over our heads. With Max under me, still tied together
and without any pro between the two of us, I place my foot
on a step formed by a small crevasse in the middle of the
face but everything collapses and my tools rip out of their
catch. I plunge head first, let go an ice axe to grab the
other one with both hands and do my best trying to self
arrest myself. My pick just can’t catch purchase in the hard
serac snow that I’m now plummeting down of. I feel
a sudden painful tweak in my right ankle; I try harder to
plunge my ice axe and eventually my freefall ends, a few
meters before tugging onto Max’s rope end, with a sudden
stop, my foot jerking on small ledge that breaks my talus
bone.
 The
first thing that goes thru my mind is a bad feeling that
I will not be able to climb K6 in this trip. Furthermore,
I screwed up the ankle so badly that I’ll even have
a hard time just getting back to base camp, not mentioning
how I’ll get back to Hushe, the nearest village two
days walk away…
A mix of butt-sliding, four-legged crawling, one-foot humping
and lots of pain get me back to base camp. Even more painful
though is actually leaving base camp, Max, Kelly and Scott
and all of what surrounds the Charakusa valley (a decision
I take after 5 rest days nursing my injury). I manage the
trek back to Hushe with the help of homemade crutches and
porters. The possibility of hooking up with Steve House,
Marko Prezelj or Vince Anderson (that are also in the valley)
and a solo project convince Max to stay in base camp. The
rest of the trip is better reported by Max himself:
 “I decided to stay with the others and see what the
weather would bring us. On the 11th, after my third Cypro
pill (the joys of traveling in Asia) I find back the tent
I left over a week before, at the base of Farol, for an attempt
on a narrow ice line (spotted on our epic climb) that leads
to the unclimbed 6350m East summit. Extreme heat from the
sun slowed my progress on the South-West oriented route and
I had to bivy as soon as I reached the summit ridge. Saved
by an early start, I was standing on my personal highest
summit ever by noon the next day, alone in the middle of
the Karakoram under a perfectly clear sky. Over 1300m above
the surface of the glacier, with only 50 meters of 6mm cord
to go down; there wasn’t any time to loose. At 9h pm,
soaked wet due to an extended session of canyoning and with
barely half of the cord left, so frozen it could stand straight
by itself, I was back to the security of my tent.
On the 17th, a day before the porters came, Marko Prezelj
felt like he still had some energy to burn. So I joined him
to recon what the south face of K7 West had to offer. Without
previously scoping the face for a particular line, we turned
our attention to a shallow dihedral and crack system that
stroked the south face of the farther east pillar.
 At
7h30 am we threw our rock shoes on. Pitches after pitches
we quickly went by perfect overhanging hand cracks and
steep dihedrals… mostly in the 5.10, 5.10+ range. At 5h
pm the summit was still a few rope lengths ahead, but it
seemed so close that there was no way either of us would
bail. Finish by head lamp it’ll be!!! At 8h30 pm, 3
pitches and a few meters of aid later we were on the top
of the buttress. An accomplishment feeling can be all too
relative. We hadn’t reached any real summit; the formation
that we’d just climb didn’t even have a name.
But we left in the morning with a vision and the goal of
reaching the top of that 900m pillar with only a single light
pack between the two of us and we attained that goal and
this was as satisfactory as having reached any other summit
in the Charakusa or any other valley. 13 raps, in a really
compact rock gully, and 4 hours later we were back to our
packs at the base of the route.
That
night was the end of the last Scotch bottle and at the
same time the end of the trip for Steve, Vince and Marko.
As for me, there was still almost 2 weeks left and lots of
project in mind, but the fallowing events would prove that
it was the end as well, climbing wise. Despite the events,
it was once again a wonderful experience, in an extremely
wild and powerful environment, amongst really great people.”
Thank you Mugs Stump!
Back
to Award Winners
 
|
