本 文：[转寄][转贴][删除][修改][回复][作者:xqyang][人气:159]
发信人: xqyang (山在那里), 信区: OutDoor
标 题: Kalaxong ridge
发信站: 瀚海星云 (2005年05月19日17:04:43 星期四), 站内信件
Kalaxong ridge, (first ascent route)
Type: Basic Snow/Glacier Climb
Difficulty: Russian 5a, Alpine AD/D-, UIAA III
Time Required: Expedition
Summit Elevation: 24757 ft
Submitted by Johan Heersink on Nov 05, 2003
Last edited on Nov 20, 2004
How fun/worthwhile is this climb?
Approach
Best starting point is the city of Kashgar in the extreme West of Xinjiang province. Here you find everything to supply your team, plenty of agencies who can help you with permits and so on, and transport to the foot of the mountain can be conveniently
arranged. A drive over the famed Karakoram Highway will bring you in about 6 to 7 hours to either Karakol Lakes, (Lodging in Yurts or rooms in main building), or Subashi, (camping out in the meadow).
From Subashi on you need transport camels to bring your gear to base camp, you have to make arrangement for hiring them beforehand, especially in high season. There are two possibilitie for base camp. The most beautifull and relaxed one is staying at
the village of Ak-Oui, (Kartamak) a very idyllic mudbrick hut and yurt settlement at the banks of Tergin torrent coming of Kalaxong glacier. Here you have the advantage of the possibility of all the time being supplied with fresh milk, yoghurt, sheep
& yak meat and bread, which the villagers will be glad to sell you for just a little price. But it has the disadvantage that it is still far from the start of the actual climb and it almost forces you to make an advanced base camp higher up. Second
possibility is using the base camp spot at 4550 meter, a few kilometer above the village.
To reach base camp you follow the trail that is also used to get to the camp for the West face route for a while. After crossing the kukwuyuk gully and its torrent, the trail to West face camp turns of left, but for Ak-Oui or the Kalaxong base camp
you go straight on the small trail towards the Tergin gully. Upon reaching the hill crest West of this gully you continue up on it until reaching the flat shelf to the right of the termination of Kartamak glacier, where you find base camp.
Route Description
It was only in the middle 1980's that the bulk of climbers shifted to the easier, easier to access and shorter West Face route. Before this date almost all attempts were mounted on the more complex Kalaxong route. From here the first ascent was made
by the Sino/Russian party of 1956, and also Galen Rowell's ski mountaineering team that did the second ascent in 1981 operated from here. Nowadays it is not very often climbed any more, but in 2003 season two teams succesfully did it, A small American
group and a large Russian expedition.
From Base camp up you tackle the gravelly ridge, a little to the right of its ridgecrest. It is steeper here than at the West face route, but still it is technically non difficult around 5000 meter altitude you reach the edge of the ice on which you
proceed going towards the ridge crest. No defined spot for Camp I has ever developed, but in principle it could be made at different places. Just below the wind exposed ridge crest, at about 5400 meter would be the best choice for digging level tent
platforms.
Upon reaching the ridgecrest above camp I you are rewarded with the awesome view into the deep Kalaxong couloir where the glacier with the same name is sitting. The jagged couloir walls seem to split the entire Muztagata Shan into two. From now on you
keep continuing on the broad ridgcrest, for a while turning left where a huge zone of seracs is hanging on its Southside. Just above the seracs at around 6400 meter there is a convenient site for a camp II, just below the ridgecrest to the right. All
the way there is some danger of hidden crevasses, so carefull navigation is necessary. Time to reach camp is between 6 and 8 hours.
Above camp two you keep continuing for 400 vertical meters on the ridge overlooking the Kalaxong couloir, It slowly is getting undeeper when you get higer up and here the steep glacier in it is utterly broken, with spectacular crevasse and serac
zones. Passing the height line of 6800 meter, you slowly start an upward traverse into the now undeep couloir. After you reach the bottom of the couloir keep proceeding a little up the other wall of easy angled snow and hack out platforms for your
Camp III at approximately 7000 meter. Do not camp down in the couloir, its somewhat avalanche dangerous. Total time needed is between 5.5 and 8 hours, depending on conditions and shape of the climber.
The short secondary ice ridge brings you up the summitdome of Muztagata. When you pass the small serac field to the right of you, for a short while the angle of the snowslope increases to over 40 degrees, but it quickly flattens out into the gentle
slopes of the summit ice fields. After little more than one kilometer in its often deep snows you reach the 7546 meter summit promitory of Muztagata.
A variant is to keep following the ridge up all the way to 7277 meter Kalaxong and so adding another 7000er to your list. But on the way up you have to pass through the left hand side of a heavily crevassed zone of seracs, not to nice. If you want to
score Kalaxong, this could also be done after summiting Muztagata,, going down the Southern slopes and up a short way again on the broad North ridge of Kalaxong. But the last 75 meters going down from Muztagata before reaching the col are very steep.
Essential Gear
This is an expedition style climb in a pretty cold mountain area and it needs sufficient equipment.
- Good set of three layered expedition clothing.
- Good quality pair of double layered mountaineering mittens
- Double plastic boots
- Snowshoes
- Crampoons might be handy later in summer when parts ice up
- Walking poles, (long axe for those used to it)
- Storm proof tents
- At least 4 days of food and fuel supplies
- Reliable high altitude stove
- Sleeping bag rated at least to minus 20 centigrade
- Snow goggles.
Miscellaneous Info
If you have information about this route that doesn't pertain to any of the other sections, please add it here.
Conversion of Russian grades
For all my mountain routes I am mainly using the Russian system of grading them, as I think it is the most convenient one for mountains of over 4000 meter where the effect of altitude plays a role in the difficulty. The Russian grading system is the
only one to include Altitude, Objective dangers, Previous climbs, Succes rate and so on in the rating. It is however very difficult to converse Russian ratings into the more commonly known ones "Alpine" and "UIAA" and ongoing discussions rage about
it. I think that the standard table that Robin Collomb and Andrej Wielochovski designed for their 1995 "Pamir-Trans Alai Mountains" map is the most accurate we have at hand. This table was devised for a mountain of around 5000 meter high, as mountains
have greater height the Alpine and UIAA grades become progressively lower than in the given example. If the mountain has lesser height than they become progressively higher:
RUSSIAN GRADE ALPINE GRADE UIAA GRADE
1A F I
1
B PD II
2A PD II
2B PD-PD+ III
3A PD+ 3
3B AD-D III-
IV
4A D IV
4B TD<
/td> V
5A TD V
5B
ED- VI
6A ED-
VI
6B ED VI and
upwards
6B Special ED VI and
upwards
RUSSIAN PASS GRADING;
To complicate things some more a different system of grading passes is used, of which it is even harder to make a conversion, so best is to just describe them;
NC (nog grade): Comfortable for pack animals, or even veh-
icle track.
1a ; Rough, possibly steep path, but often used
by pack animals.
1b ; Might require some scrambling or the use
of ice axe and crampons
2a ; Requires easy technical climbing and good
snow and ice technique
2b ; Requires moderately difficult technical
climbing.
3a ; Involves a variety of technical difficulties
and possible objective danger
3b ; Sustained technical difficulties and/or
serious objective dangers, (equivalent to
UIAA grade VI)
--
※ 来源:·瀚海星云 bbs.ustc.edu.cn·[FROM: 218.22.32.162]
|
|