First ascent of Muchu Chhish in Karakoram by Jaroslav Bansky, Radoslav Groh, Zdeněk Hák

This year's expedition to the Hindu Kush Mountains in Afghanistan didn't work out, so our alternative destination were the Karakoram mountains in Pakistan. Radoslav Groh (Radar) came up with the idea 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 6th June, a trio of Czech Krkonošee mountaineers and good friends - myself, Radoslav "Radar" Groh and Jaroslav "Banana" Bansky left the Czech Republic and traveled to Alibad in Hunza via Islamabad. The acclimatisation climb of 6,000m didn't work out due to my illness and so after a short break we moved over the Muchuchar glacier to the base camp under Mucha Chhish itself. We would have to acclimatize right here.
Finally we decided to acclimatize for four days. We wanted to sleep at altitudes of 4,600, 5,400 and 6,100 metres. Except for the last camp, we followed the route of the expected ascent, which would lead along the south ridge up to 7,300 on the main ridge. The acclimatization went according to plans. We left base camp on June 25th and return after three nights on 28th June. It wasn’t ideal acclimatisation, but we don't have more time.

The weather was supposed to hold for about a week. On the first day (1st July) we hiked up the rocky couloir to the glacier at 4,800m, and followed it to 5,350m, where we built our first bivouac. We had ascended 1,400 metres of altitude. It was about 10:30 am and unbearably hot. The next day we finally climbed. The first pitches were mixed and rock climbing in the region of M4. After that we started climbing ice and this was endless. We climbed diagonally up to 6300m below a dominant serac, where we built C2.

The next day was marked by physical, hard work, past snow and ice up to 70°. The snow was so deep in places that we often used special snowshoes from Auftriib, which were inserted between the boot and the crampons. It was an invaluable tool, without which we wouldn't have move any further. We were glad for the hard-earned 500 vertical meters and we stopped to bivy at 6,750 metres. Another 500 metres of altitude awaited us the next day.

The terrain became less steep and endless at the same time. We had to be careful with the route finding. Snowshoes were back in action and Banana blazed the trail for most of the day. He was at his best. In the early evening we reached 7,250 metres just below the summit ridge and built our fourth and final bivouac, then it started to snow.

On the morning of the 5th July it cleared up and we start to climb to the summit. We want to go light, so we left our tent and bivouac gear at C4. The summit was about 1,500 meters west of us. First we had to climb about 150 metres, then the terrain started to steepen again. After a few false summits we reached a large rock tower below the headwall. About 150 vertical metres separated us from the summit. Once again Banana took the lead. Then suddenly, at 10:20 am local time , there was nowhere else to climb, we were on the summit! I leave a snow anchor there with our signatures and the inscription "Muchu Chhish- Krkonoše Expedition".

The descent was complicated by poor visibility and wind-blown tracks. Moreover, we often had to climb uphill again and there was not much strength left. We were lucky to arrive at the rock corner that we used to descend back to our tent. We didn't hang around too long and started descending again. The weather was about to turn bad. We couldn't see a step ahead of us and so we descended the glacier pretty much on autopilot. I had to take my goggles off to try to look for a route between the crevasses. Fortunately, I had often looked behind me as I climbed up, trying to remember exactly the terrain below me. This helped me a lot when descending in similar situations. Below 7,000m the visibility improved and we easily continued down to our third bivouac (6,750m).

The next day the weather was supposed to gradually deteriorate and so we got up early. We descended 1,500 vertical metres down to the glacier. Of this we rappelled only 100 metres. It was around noon and once again it was terribly hot. Avalanches kept falling around us and even the glacier route didn't looked safe. Nevertheless, we decided to continue on down. We were tied to the ropes and chose our descent route very carefully, taking into account the danger of avalanches and glacier crevasses. The descent took us a lot longer than planned. We didn’t reach base camp until late afternoon. In the morning we woke up to gloomy skies. The weather was definitely breaking. We descend the Muchuchar Glacier back to Aliabad accompanied by raindrops.

by Zdeněk Hák