afghanistan reopens

m o u n ta i n
by lindsay griffin
In 2010 the high hindu kush and pamir mountains of northeast afganistan wERE visited by 6 teams, 3 of them
british. climb looks at why afghanistan has returned to the forefront of exploratory mountaineering.
afghanistan reopens
This remote area is gradually being re-visited by climbers, who report meeting
nothing but kindness, respect, and incredible hospitality from the local people, in
a wild region worlds apart from the on-going war with the Taliban.
Peaks in the Wakhan were hugely popular in the 1960s and ‘70s, particularly
amongst Europeans, who would often reach the area overland - via the ‘hippy
trail’. They were enticed by generally easier access than found in other parts of
the Himalaya-Karakoram, more stable weather than the Karakoram (which
was closed until 1974), and the ability to climb unhampered, free from a
restrictive permit system. Many notable British alpinists, such as Pete Boardman,
Alex MacIntyre, Doug Scott and Stephen Venables, would make their first
‘Himalayan’ expeditions in the mountains of Afghanistan. But after the Coup
d’Etat in 1978 and the Soviet invasion in December 1979, climbing in the
Afghan Hindu Kush became strictly off-limits.
So why Afghanistan today? The answer lies in the incredible wealth of
unclimbed peaks below 6,000m and the opportunity to penetrate glaciated
valleys that no climbers have previously visited. Many of these peaks can be
ascended by routes of modest difficulty, making them suitable for small teams
of less technically driven mountaineers, with pioneering spirits, operating in a
very lightweight style. Just the sort of thing that appeals to adventurous and
exploratory UK alpinists. And now there is improved access.
Historically, climbers approached the area via a long drive from Kabul to the
south. More or less impractical (and unwise) today, this has been replaced by a
safe route from the north, starting at the international airport at Dushanbe in
Tajikistan. From here a road leads south to the village of Ishkashim alongside the
Amu Darya River, still better known by its ‘former’ name Oxus, which separates
the former Soviet Union from Afghanistan. At Ishkashim the Aga Khan
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this page, top: The Slovenian alpinist Irena Mrak at circa 6,500m on the West Ridge of Noshaq. Immediately
behind her are ridges and peaks of the Aspe Safed Group, while the two higher snowy tops visible in the left
middle distance are Ghul-Lasht Zom (6,665m: on the right) and Ghul-Lasht Zom East (6,611m: on the left),
on the border with Pakistan. Afghanistan’s Central Hindu Kush can be seen receding into the far distance,
while on the horizon the high pyramid towards the right is Koh-e-Bandaka (6,843m), well-known for its cutting
edge first ascent of the North East Face in 1977 by Kurtyka, MacIntyre and Porter. FRANCOIS CARREL
this page, bottom: A typical river crossing in the Wakhan Corridor. BARTEK TOFEL WWW.TOFEL.EU
Development Network (AKDN) has helped
finance the building of a 135m suspension
footbridge over the river to... another Ishkashim
(confusingly, the two villages on opposite sides
of the Oxus have the same name), the gateway
to the Corridor and where all arrangements for
onward travel are made. David James, a former
British soldier who served in Afghanistan, has
set up Mountain Unity, a social enterprise to
provide economic opportunities to the deprived
inhabitants of the Wakhan. The non-profit
organization provides marketing, media and
communications support for anyone planning
a climbing or trekking trip to the region. He
will facilitate permits and logistics (www.
mountainunity.org), in conjunction with the
locally-based Wakhan Tourism.
Moving east from Ishkashim into the
Wakhan, the first settlement encountered is
Qaz-i-Deh, mud-walled dwellings alongside the
Oxus. The highest mountain in Afghanistan
lies immediately south. The multi-summited
Noshaq (Nine Horns, 7,492m), second only
in the Hindu Kush to Tirich Mir in Pakistan,
was ascended regularly until 1978. Thereafter,
it would not be climbed for another 25 years.
Noshaq was first climbed in 1960 by Goro
Iwatsubo and Toshiaski Sakai from a Japanese
expedition, which moved south up the Qazi-Deh Glacier, passed below the West Ridge,
and climbed up to the crest of the long South
Ridge, which forms the frontier with Pakistan.
They avoided the West Summit by traversing
below it to the final section of the West Ridge
and followed this to the main top. Ten days
later, seven Poles followed a similar line to make
the second ascent. The technical ease of the
West Ridge was obviously not apparent at the
time, as the South Ridge is a much harder and
longer enterprise. The West Ridge remained
unattempted until 1963 when, independently,
Gerard Gruber’s five-man expedition and
Gerhard Werner’s four-man team, both from
Austria, arrived at the base of the mountain
and, understandably, joined forces to make
the third overall ascent. From then on the
West Ridge would form the Standard Route
to the summit and were it not for the Afghan
war, would now be one of the World’s most
popular objectives for commercially-organized
expeditions attempting a high but technically
straightforward ascent.
It was the West Ridge that the doyen of
Polish mountaineering, Andrezj Zawada,
chose in 1973 to make the first winter ascent
of any peak over 7,000m. Despite the severe
conditions, the expedition operated like a
well-oiled machine and on the 13th February
Tadeusz Piotrwski and Zawada stood on
the summit in temperatures of -47°C; and
that’s excluding wind chill. With this ascent
the Poles began a total domination of winter
mountaineering in the Himalaya that would
span the next two decades.
Alison Chadwick made the first British ascent
in 1972 as a member of a Polish expedition.
This page: Neil Gwynne during the first ascent of Koh-e-Khar. ALAN HALEWOOD
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It was the highest altitude, and highest summit, reached by a British female at that
time, and Chadwick would go on to be indisputably the finest female high altitude
mountaineer in the history of British climbing until her death on Annapurna I in
1978. The most outstanding contribution made by Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz (after her
marriage to top Polish mountaineer Janusz Onyszkiewicz) was the 1976 first ascent
of Gasherbrum III, the highest virgin summit ever climbed by any women and, after
Kangchenjunga, the highest ever to receive a first British ascent.
But Noshaq forms the first of a two-part saga that has firmly established Jean
Bourgeois in mountaineering legend. In 1966 as part of a primarily Polish expedition,
Belgian Bourgeois made the fourth overall ascent of Noshaq via the West Ridge. With
two other climbers he later attempted an adjacent summit, Shingeik Zom (7,291m) by
traversing across the North Face of Noshaq from the high camp on the West Ridge.
On the return, after an unsuccessful effort, an avalanche caught all three. One Pole
was killed and the second managed to climb back to the high camp, where he was
much later rescued. Of Bourgeois there was no sign and the expedition gave him up
for dead. So, there was naturally great surprise when some days later, he wandered
into an almost deserted base camp to raise the alarm. Dazed after the avalanche,
Bourgeois had decided to head straight down, accomplishing an extremely difficult
descent on uncharted ground, eventually reaching the valley by a circuitous route.
This would be remarkable in itself, but amazingly Bourgeois enacted a similar
scenario 16 years later. Now 40 years old, the Belgian was part of a team of French
and Swiss superstars who had a permit to attempt a winter ascent of the West Ridge
of Everest from Nepal but in fact made an illegal attempt on the North Col - North
Ridge (at that time the Tibetan side of Everest was off-limits to climbers). On the
27th December 1982 he was attempting to cross back over the frontier ridge to the
Nepalese base camp, alone and with increasing symptoms of cerebral odema, when he
fell, landing on the Upper Rongbuk Glacier on the Tibetan side of the mountain.
Slightly concussed, not having the strength to climb back up, and realizing his
condition dictated loosing height fairly rapidly was a must, he elected to descend to
the ruined Rongbuk Monastery and then on to the first village, where the Tibetans
initially mistook him for a Yeti, before giving him food and drink. There was more
walking before he was eventually taken to Shigatse, interrogated and then driven
to the border. After trekking down washed-out roads, he managed to find a bus to
Kathmandu, arriving ‘from the dead’ more than two weeks after the accident. In the
meantime his fellow team members had searched for six days before giving up hope,
abandoning the expedition, and returning to the Nepalese capital.
The first mountaineering team to gain official permission to visit the Wakhan
after the Soviet invasion took place in 2003. Italian Carlo Alberto Pinelli, Director
of Mountain Wilderness International, brought his expedition, dubbed Oxus,
Mountains for Peace in Afghanistan, to the Corridor specifically to climb Noshaq.
He followed the previously well-travelled route from Kabul, through Badakhshan,
and then along the river valley to Ishkashim, passing on route many old Soviet war
relics from the time of occupation. On reaching Qaz-i-Deh the group managed to hire
porters without problem, some of the people from this village, now of around 1,000
inhabitants, remembering names of climbers from ‘1960s-’70s expeditions. However,
immediate onward progress was brought to a sudden halt with the unexpected news
that lower part of the valley was mined.
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In 2000 Northern Alliance leader General Massoud ordered the planting of
640 anti-personnel mines at circa 3,000m south of the village, covering an area of
traditionally-used grazing pastures. At that stage in the civil war it was believed
the Taliban might use the Qaz-i-Deh Valley to cross from Pakistan to Badakhshan
(which they were doing via other more accessible passes), though this seems a highly
implausible given the mountaineering skills needed to cross the high snow/ice pass at
its southern head. Fortunately, the commander in charge of laying these mines was
still in the northeast of Afghanistan and could be contacted. With several local men
the expedition created a new approach that outflanked the mines by climbing high
up and then across scree-covered slopes on the east flank of the valley. To date, these
mines, the only fields in the Wakhan, have not been removed.
The main high altitude experience in Pinelli’s international team was the Italian
Fausto di Stefani, who that spring had been attempting Lhotse in his bid to complete
all 14 8,000m peaks. He acclimatized much faster than anyone else and reached
the summit alone in late July. Old fixed ropes were still visible on the rotten rocky
barrier at circa 6,800m that marks the only real point of the route that is not steep
snow plodding. Three other team members subsequently followed his footsteps.
Since then there have been several ascents. Two Iranians reached the top in 2007
and two years later, after undergoing a training program in Chamonix, two Afghans
from Wakhan, Amruddin and Malang, summited with French guides Jean Annequin
and Simon Destombes. In 2010 there were two successful expeditions. On the
first North Wales climbers James Bingham and Mark Wynne joined Alaskan Bill
this page, top left: Looking south east at (A) Noshaq Main Summit (7,492m: Japanese, 1960). (B)
Noshaq Central (7,400m: Japanese, 1960). (C) Noshaq West (7,250m: Austrian, 1963). (D) Noshaq Far West
Shoulder (c6,900m: Austrians, 1963). The broad West Ridge points directly towards the camera. (E) Asp-eSiyah (6,250m: Japanese, 1960). (F) The Asp-e-Safed Group: I (6,607m: Poles, 1960); II (6,400m: Austrians,
1969); III (6,380m: Austrians, 1970); IV (6,140m: Germans, 1972). (G) Asp-e-Safed South (6,450m Spanish
1969). The far right edge of the picture is the start of the Tirich Mir Group in Pakistan. LINDSAY GRIFFIN
page top right: East face of Peak 5,625m. (1) Ursa Major and (2) White Surf. Both routes were terminated
on the ridge just below the summit. TOMEK KLIMCZAKB/BARTEK TOFEL WWW.TOFEL.EU
this page, BOTTOM right: Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor, surrounded by Tajikistan, Pakistan and China.
(Ish) Ishkashim. (OR) Oxus River. (PKM) Pik Karl Marx (6,723m) in Tajik South West Pamir. (N) Noshaq.
(HHK) High Hindu Kush. (QH) Qala-i-Hurst. (S) Roadhead at -e-Boroghil, south of which lies Koh-eSuzAnna. (BP) Big Pamir. (LP) Little Pamir. (LC) Lake Chaqmaqtin (4,000m), reached by Madge and Torretta.
(KAS) Koh-e-Ak Su, the sector of the Little Pamir explored by the Poles. (KI) Koh-i-Iskander. Google maps
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Lyden for an ascent in July. Wynne, a heavy weapons specialist and Royal Marines
reservist who in 2008-09 served a term in Helmand with UN forces, had little
previous altitude experience, though Bingham, on the other hand, summited Everest
in 2007. This was the first British ascent of the main summit since 1974, but the
team was only allowed to approach the mountain provided they were accompanied
by four armed guards. A month after, Noshaq was climbed again by six Iranians.
All parties followed the West Ridge.
The majority of climbing in 2010, took place on peaks of relatively modest
altitude. British ski-mountaineer Suzy Madge and World Cup Ice Climbing
Champion, Anna Torretta from Italy made a long horse journey east along the
Wakhan, leaving behind the Hindu Kush, where on route they had made the first
ascent and ski descent of Koh-e-SuzAnna (4,660m), to enter the mountains of the
Pamir-i-Wakhan. Here, in the Little Pamir, they made two more first ascents of
4,760m and 4,800m. Scottish mountaineers Neil Gwynne and Alan Halewood also
climbed in the Pamir, making first ascents of Koh-e-Iskander (5,561m) and Koh-eKhar (5,327m), inspired by a simple Japanese map that Halewood had bought in a
Glasgow climbing shop 20 years ago. A small Dutch team made three first ascents
up to AD standard in the Qala-i-Hurst, a valley with fine alpine peaks towards
the eastern end of the Hindu Kush that has been partially explored by Italian and
British parties in the last few years. However, the most productive expedition was
Bartek Tofel’s 14-member Polish team (half of which drove to the Wakhan from
Poland), which made a total of eight first ascents up to 5,735m (and attempted
several others) in a previously unexplored valley of the Little Pamir. In 2009 Tofel
travelled the entire length of the Wakhan to the triple border point of Afghanistan,
Tajikistan and China, exploring the region and photographing mountains for future
expeditions.
This eastern sector of the Wakhan Corridor still has enormous potential for
first ascents. During the climbing boom of the 1960s and 70s it was too remote,
and access too difficult, to capture attention, particularly with much higher, virgin
peaks available near the entrance to the Corridor, just a few hours’ drive from
Ishkashim. Tofel estimates there are probably around 600 peaks that have never
been attempted. n
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EXPEDITIONS TO
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This page: Suzy Madge (left) and Anna Torretta near Sarad-e-Boroghil.
Behind and to the south is Koh-e-SuzAnna. SUZY MADGE
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