In recent years there has been a marked trend in mountaineering favouring climbing
the 8 000m peaks. This 8000m number seems to appeal more than the beauty of
a line or remoteness of a mountain and this trend is supported by the burgeoning
commercialism that has taken off in expedition mountaineering. Paying someone
else to organise the whole expedition, fix the ropes and supply the oxygen to
climb the mountain is certainly easier than getting an expedition off the ground
yourself - deciding on a peak, selecting a route of ascent, planning all the
details of the expedition and then going out there and trying to climb the peak
entirely on your own initiative.
However this is what we chose to do. Our first major decision was to select a peak which was challenging and attractive yet also achievable. Andre Schoon had three years earlier explored the mountains in the Shimshal and Batura region, with leading a South African expedition there in mind, and these peaks were high on our list for some time. But in the end, by majority vote, we decided for Chogolisa, which had also been in the back of our minds for some years.
Chogolisa – also called Bride Peak – is a strikingly beautiful mountain in the heart of the Karakoram, close to K2, Broad Peak and the Gasherbrums. Its kilometre long summit ridge connects the higher southwest summit (7 668 m) to the subsidiary northeast summit (7 654 m).
The first attempt to climb Chogolisa’s was in 1909 by the Count of Abruzzi. The mountain is best known for claiming the life of famed Herman Buhl in 1957 when a cornice collapsed during the descent from an unsuccessful summit bid with Kurt Diemberger. The Northeast summit, Bride Peak, was first climbed a year later by a Japanese team using bottled oxygen. The first ascent of the slightly higher Southwest summit (7 668m) was not before 1975 by an Austrian team. By 2004, the mountain had seen a mere 8 or 9 successful ascents.
Based on information available from previous expeditions, we decided to attempt the mountain from a base camp on the Vigne glacier via its 1000m high technical northwest spur. This would enable us to reach the huge ice plateau at about 6 500 m on the mountain’s north side and from there climb up its north face to the southwest summit (7 668 m). The northwest spur is the key to this line, comprising a triangular shaped rock pillar at its base and a steep snow, ice and rock ridge continuing up to the ice plateau.
Our climbing team consisted of seven South Africans, all MCSA members - Linda
Daffue from Kroonstad, Anthony van Tonder and Ian Bailey from Pietermaritzburg,
Fran Hunziker, Andre Schoon and Robert Zipplies from Cape Town, and myself from
Johannesburg. We were joined by two Dutch friends, Marian Slot and Harry Kikstra,
both members of the NKBV. Cecilia Rademeyer, then a prospective MCSA member,
had agreed to be the expedition’s non-climbing doctor. Little did she
know then that she would be spending her time treating blisters, wound, coughs
and diarrhoea and worrying about avalanches, rock fall and crevasses.
After three months of hectic planning, sorting out the myriad problems, finalising
travel and visa arrangements, obtaining specialised equipment and medical supplies,
freighting equipment and food ahead to Islamabad and engaging our agent in Pakistan,
Vista Tourism, to get the peak permit and deal with all the local logistics,
we could finally relax on the Emirates flight over Dubai to Islamabad. There
we had to attend the obligatory ministerial briefing, meet our Liaison Officer
(LO) and buy the last of our food requirements. We also met Yayah, our main
guide, and Hussein, our sirdar, who were to accompany us during the next seven
weeks. Both showed in the coming weeks a never-ending patience with our demands,
an admirable dedication to their job, competence and good humour in all situations.
Our LO however was a constant source of frustration and annoyance.
We then embarked on a two-day journey up the Karakorum Highway (a 10-year joint project between the Pakistani’s and the Chinese) along the deep Indus valley. In Skardu, one of the bigger towns in the Northern Territories, we changed our bus for a bunch of jeeps and took a bouncy 6 hour ride up another impressive road hewn into the mountains to Askole (3000m), the trailhead of our 70km slog up to base camp. An astounding 104 porters would accompany us on our trek in, another 20 or so had already carried in food or would do so later.
Our trek led us up first comfortably along the mountain slopes of the Braldo valley, but soon turned into a never-ending up and down over mostly slithery rubble covering a massive confused sea of dirty ice, the Baltoro, past those famous peaks: Great Trango, Nameless Tower, and Masherbrum – separated from each other by immense subsidiary glaciers feeding into the Baltoro. After 6 days we finally arrived at Concordia (4600m), the confluence of three major glaciers, surrounded by K2, Broad Peak, G4 (Gasherbrum IV), plus a host of ‘lesser’ peaks. Concordia resembled a tent village. It was a busy year with K2’s 50th summit anniversary.
From Concordia we headed up the Vigne glacier - a long day coaxing and cajoling the porters as far as we could make them go. Base camp was established on 16 July at about 4 900 m on the glacier. Our camp had an incredible setting in this wide glacial basin flanked by a steep fluted snow and ice wall to the east, with the West Vigne glacier opposite and the mighty walls of K2, Broad Peak and Gasherbrum IV further down the valley.
From BC we began the arduous process of lugging equipment up the gently sloping Vigne glacier at first and then past a daunting-looking icefall. Instead of tackling the labyrinth of precarious-looking snow bridges and ice walls, we opted for skirting the problem on the rather exposed left-hand snow slopes. This led us to the upper glacial basin of the Vigne glacier, where we established our Advanced BC (5500m) at the base of the 1000m high rock spur. We retained two of the porters to help with ferrying loads between these camps. Still we took more than a week carrying instead of the planned three days. The weather was continuously poor with heavy snowfall on some days preventing us from even moving out of base camp. It was only during the latter part of the carry that the weather improved signalling the start of our first window of consistently good weather.
From ABC we could now see the whole of the mountain’s northwest flank below the main summit and the southwest ridge (standard route), as well as the northwest spur we intended climbing to reach the ice plateau. Our initial plan was to secure the steep rocky spur with fixed ropes to make the carry to high camps easier, to facilitate retreat in case of bad weather and to enable all team members to reach the plateau if not the summit. From the top of the spur we would go fast in small roped parties. Harry and Robert started off fixing the first section. They struggled to find solid anchor points, placements that we could still trust after days of alternating hot and cold weather and continuously loading them. The rock consisted of shattered boulders and pieces, merely of frozen-together, and the ice was hidden under deep soft snow. The following day Ian and Ulrike continued up to a saddle on the crest of the spur. The other team members followed up the ropes carrying heavy loads. We started early in the morning, at 4am or even earlier, to have at least 5-7 hours of climbing before the sun would soften the snow too much, making any further climbing too difficult and dangerous. We managed to set up camp 1 at this saddle by 28th July and move ropes and some equipment higher up the ridge to an altitude slightly more than 6000m, before foul weather hit us again.
As day after day of bad weather and heavy snowfall went by our spirits in advance base camp waned. Time was running out. It was clearly not possible anymore to continue in the same style. Our only hope, to still put someone on the summit, was to form a small and strong team, which would have to push on fast and light in alpine style. In a last ditch hope that we might be blessed with better weather and snow conditions that would allow a summit attempt, Harry and Ulrike went back up to Camp I on 3rd August, but simply had to sit tight there for two days in continuing foul conditions with no immediate hope of going further. The deep snow not only made pushing the route a physical problem, but also posed a real avalanche threat. Although we knew from weather predictions that during the next few days we would enjoy another window of good weather, on 5th August we realised our time was up and finally decided to call it a day. We retrieved the gear from our high point above camp 1, struck camp and brought as much of it as we could down to ABC. The following day Ian and Ulrike went up to the saddle again to collect the remaining items and take the fixed ropes down the mountain. At the same time the rest of the team started carrying tents, gear and excess food back to base camp. A few more days of ferrying loads to BC followed.
We sent the bulk of our climbing gear and non-essential things down the Baltoro and only took what was absolutely necessary with us over the Gondogoro La. On 11th August we left BC at 1am, crossed the Vigne glacier and climbed up the steep snow slopes to the La hoping to reach its top at sunrise. Unfortunately low, thick clouds hid K2 and the other 8000-er of the region from our view. Down the other side we were greeted by grass and alpine flowers and birds, the first in many weeks. What followed were a relaxed few days, interspersed with rest days, working our way down this shorter and generally more hospitable valley, while still being treated to awesome views of glaciers and mountains like Masherbrum, K6 and K7.
While enjoying the pleasant surrounding of lower altitude we were discussing the success or otherwise of our expedition. We failed in achieving our main objective of summiting Chogolisa, but we felt we still had achieved a great deal. All the expedition members returned home safely and with friendships intact. No one became seriously ill (our acclimatisation was highly successful, climbing to advance base camp and beyond in sensible stages) and no one suffered injuries. Most importantly of all the expedition brought back a wealth of experience from all its organisational aspects to lessons learned climbing on the mountain - experience available to future South African expeditions who will hopefully build on and achieve success in their own chosen ventures.
Expedition Sponsors : MCSA Cencom Financial support (MCSA members)
Certec Hyperbaric Bag and Radios
MCSA Cape Town Section Financial support (MCSA members)
MCSA Jhb Section Financial support (MCSA members)
MCSA KZN Section Financial support (MCSA members)
NKBV Financial support (Dutch members)
Cape Storm Clothing and Equipment
RAM (Black Diamond) Equipment
Nestle Beverages
Bokomo Food
PVM Energy bars
Adventure Food Freeze Dried Food
Van Dyk Pharmaceuticals Sun Protection
H2O Water Water purification chemicals
North Face Equipment (Dutch members)