New climb added to White Sapphine peak in Kishtwar Valley by Christian Black, Vitaliy Musiyenko, Hayden Wyatt

Over 3 days at the start of October an American team comprised of Christian Black, Vitaliy Musiyenko and Hayden Wyatt established a new free route up White Sapphire Peak (6040m) in India’s Kishtwar Valley. The route is called Brilliant Blue (850m, AI3, 80°, M7+), is only the 3rd ascent of the peak overall, and was climbed all free and in alpine style.

The team set off from Advanced base camp at 4800m on October 5th and proceeded to the start of the route proper at 5190m, where they began climbing via an increasingly steep snow and ice ramp up the north side of the peak. The snow and ice ended in M4-M6 climbing to a col below the direct north face of the White Sapphire where they bivied at the altitude of 5850m, having covered a vertical 600m of terrain the first day.

The following day, October 6th, they climbed the remaining 250m to the summit via sustained, difficult and sometimes tricky to protect M5-M7+ climbing. They summited in the dark at around 8pm in calm and cloudless skies before descending back to their camp at 5850m. They rappelled the rest of the route the following day, on October 7th and returned safely to base camp. No bolts were placed and each pitch was fully free climbed by both leader and followers.

Just two weeks earlier, the team had climbed to within 100m of the summit via the same line but was forced to retreat as a result of their stove failing due to an overheating safety feature.

The route name, Brilliant Blue is a reference to both the tone of the famous blue sapphires the Kashmir region of India is known for, as well as a celebration of the cloudless and clear blue skies the team had on their final summit day.