First Ascent of Muchu Chhish, 7453 m

Expedition Report by Hacek

“This year’s expedition to the Hindu Kush Mountains in Afghanistan didn’t work out, so our alternate destination were the Karakoram Mountains in Pakistan. Radoslav Groh (Radar) came up with the suggestion that we try to climb Pavel Korinek’s long-standing project on the virgin mountain Muchu Chhish (7,453) in the Batura Muztag mountain range. After a phone call with Pavel, it was decided.

On 6^th June, a trio of Czech Krkonošee mountaineers and good friends – myself, Radoslav “Radar” Groh and Jaroslav “Banana” Bansky leave the Czech Republic and travel to Alibad in Hunza via Islamabad. The acclimatization climb of 6,000m didn’t work out due to my illness and so after a short break we move over the Muchuchar glacier to the base camp under Mucha Chhish itself. We will have to acclimatize right here. Finally we decide to acclimatize for four days. We want to sleep at altitudes of 4,600, 5,400 and 6,100 metres. Except for the last camp, we follow the route of the expected ascent, which will lead along the south ridge up to 7,300 on the main ridge. The acclimatization went according to our plans. We leave the base camp on June 25^th and return after three nights on 28^th June. It’s not ideal acclimatization but we don’t have more time. The weather is supposed to hold for about a week. On the first day (1^st July) we hiked up the rocky couloir to the glacier at 4,800m, and follow it up to 5,350m, where we build our first bivouac. We have ascended 1,400 metres of altitude. It’s about 10:30 am and unbearably hot. The next day we finally climb. The first pitches are mixed and rock climbing in M4. After that we start ice climbing and it is endless. We climb diagonally up to 6.300m below a dominant serac, where we build C2. The next day is full of physical hard work. Snow and ice climbing with a maximum gradient of 70 degrees. The snow is so deep in places that we often use special snowshoes from Auftriib, which are inserted between the boot and the crampons. It’s an invaluable aid, without which we wouldn’t move any further. Today we are glad for the hard-earned 500 vertical meters. We’re bivouacking at 6,750 metres. Another 500 metres of altitude awaits us the next day. The terrain is laying down and becoming endless at the same time. We have to be careful with cracks and the right choice of tracks. The snowshoes are back in action and Banana is blazing the trail for most of the day. He’s at his best. In the early evening we reach 7,250 metres just below the summit ridge and build our fourth and final bivouac. It starts to snow. On the morning of 5^th July it clears up and we start to climb to the summit. We want to go light, so we leave our tent and bivouac gear in C4. The summit is about 1,500 meters west of us. First we have to climb about 150 metres, then the terrain starts to rise again. Over a few heights we reach a large rock tower below the headwall. We have about 150 vertical metres to the top. The track is again led by Banana. At 10:20 am local time we are at the summit. There’s nowhere else to climb.  I leave a snow anchor there with our signatures and the inscription “Muchu Chhish- Krkonoše Expedition”.

The way from the top is complicated by poor visibility and wind-blown tracks. Moreover, we often have to climb uphill again and there is not much strength left. We are lucky to arrive at the rock corner that we use to descend back to our tent. We don’t hang around too long and start descending again. The weather is about to turn bad. We can’t see a step and so we descend the glacier rather on autopilot. I have to put my goggles off to try to look for a path between the crevasses. Fortunately, I often look behind me as I climb up and try to remember exactly the terrain below me. This helps me a lot when descending in similar situations. Below 7,000m the visibility improves and we easily descend to the location of our third bivouac (6,750m). The next day the weather is supposed to gradually deteriorate and so we get up early.  We descend 1,500 vertical metres down to the glacier. Of this we rappel only 100 metres. It is around noon and it is again terribly hot. There are avalanches falling all around and even the glacier route doesn’t look safe. Nevertheless, we decide to descend further.  We are tied to the ropes and choose our descent route very carefully, taking into account the danger of avalanches and glacier crevasses. The descent takes us a lot longer than planned. We don’t reach base camp until late afternoon. The weather holds overnight.

In the morning, however, we wake up to a gloomy morning. The weather is definitely breaking. We descend the Muchuchar Glacier back to Aliabad accompanied by raindrops.

Hook“