Brothers freeclimbing Trango Towers
Apr 28, 2004 13: 56 EST
Eneko and Iker Pou have announced their third project for the Seven Walls, Seven Continents; Freeclimbing the Trango Towers in the Pakistani Baltoro Glacier region located in the Karakorum Range. "Our objective is to scale Nameless Tower, one of the more famous and difficult rock needles of the world, with a wall of 1,000 meters", Eneko Pou explained.
Iker also mentioned "It is a mythical wall and we thought it appropriate to climb via the Eternal Flame route that was opened in 1989 by a group of German climbers. We will try a free climbing ascent between the months of July and of August ". This would be the first freeclimbed summit via the Eternal Flame route.
The east face of Great Trango Tower and Nameless Tower are among the largest vertical faces of the world. Nameless Tower was ascended for the first time by a British team on their second attempt in 1976. Not until 1987 did Nameless Tower see its second ascent by a new route by a Yugoslav team. Great Trango Tower's main summit (6286 m) was first climbed in 1977. In 1984, the 5000 foot Norwegian Buttress was the first route established on the massive East Face, which led to the first ascent of the East Summit (6231 meters).
The Eternal Flame route has only been climbed on three occasions, first by a German team in 1989, then by a Madrilenian team in 2000 and in 2003 by Juan Vallejo, although none of them made a free climb ascent. Most recently Miles Smart and Tim O'Neill made a couple of attempts at climbing Eternal Flame (Grade VI 5.12c) on Nameless Tower. On their second attempt, only nine pitches from the summit after just nine hours of climbing, O'Neill took a 120-foot whipper that left him badly bruised, but otherwise unhurt.
Not unlike the Big Wall the Russian Way team, 7Walls, 7 continents is attempting to freeclimb a representative big wall in each continent. As part of this idea, Eneko and Iker have freeclimbed ‘El Niño’, in El Capitán (Yosemite) and the exposed and technical ‘Zumbelzt’ route on Naranjo de Bulnes, the huge limestone big wall in northern Spain. The Pou brothers will soon start the third step of the project. The chosen route will be ‘Eternal Flame’ on the Trango Towers (Karakoram).
Image of Trango Towers courtesty of Hunza Guides Pakistan.
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