Kunyang Chhish, East Summit, ca. 7,400 m
	The beautiful South Face with camp locations and elevations marked. Two nights were spent at camp 2 and camp 3. Once in ascent and once in descent. Base camp was at 4,250 meters. The pillar above camp 2 is absolutely stunning granite! It would be an incredible objective for future team of highly skilled alpine rock climbers. See a short slide show/movie about the tip here.

As you can see from the red line, we did not summit so Kunyang Chhish East is still virgin! Steve and I gave it a good effort though. The trip was difficult. From the beginning of the expedition, we encountered many obstacles including delayed luggage, numerous road blocks on the Karakoram Highway, porter problems, illness and bad weather. Foul weather throughout the month of August prevented us from properly acclimatizing. We were only able to reach 5,800 meters on one occasion and slept no higher than 5,600 meters for only four nights. Nonetheless, we decided to make an attempt in mid September with a slight improvement in the weather.

There was much new snow on the face when we started on Sept. 10. After a vertical mile of calf burning ice climbing on the lower face, we bivied in a nice cave formed by a bergschrund at nearly 6,000 meters. It snowed lightly that night and numerous spindrift avalanches poured over the cave. By morning, there was a slight improvement in the weather and we continued up. The weather quickly deteriorated that day and light snowfall began to fall. As the snow accumulated on the steep slopes and rock slabs above, spindrift avalanches came pouring down on us. Though none were of any serious consequences, they were frightening to watch pour down towards us from above. Feeling the need to continue moving, we did not take the time to properly break and rehydrate and refuel until just before reaching the level of camp 2. This took a toll on us and put us in an energy deficit from which it was difficult recooperate.

Camp 2 was in an incredible exposed spot on a very steep snow slope at the base of the incredible granite pillar that towered above. We spent a few hours chopping ice to get a small ledge that our tent barely fit upon. We stayed tied in at this bivy. The following day was mostly cloudy and cool but it did not snow. From camp 2 we traversed across the base of the pillar than did one rappel to gain access to a mixed gully leading up to the Southeast shoulder of the mountain. The best and most technical climbing of the ascent was found in this gully. The rock was sound, though it was covered in a thin veneer of snow/ice thus was difficult to find good dry tool placements and protection. The ice was usually pretty good and the mixed terrain eventually yielded to steep snow. In the upper snow gully another large spindrift avalanche over took me and gave me trouble maintaining my stance. Shaken by this, I quickly climbed to the safety of more rocky terrain.

Camp 3 was right on the shoulder of the mountain and offered incredible views of the Karakoram. Initially, we had thought that the ground from here would be much easier but looking up we knew it would not be so. After sleeping in a bit the next day (we were getting very tired) we headed out under clear but very cold skies. Some moderate mixed and ice climbing led us to beneath a large cornice guarding the upper ridge. We traversed left under this until we found a break. We had initially thought that from this point, it would be in the bag, but once again it proved not to be so. Above us lie steep, windslabbed slopes of deep snow. It was a little scary and slow going. One more ice pitch got us to the crest of the ridge from which we gained the summit ridgeline. We were well above our acclimatization altitude now and it was difficult to move very fast. We had not eaten or drank nearly enough as the safe break points were few and far between. It was getting later in the afternoon and the wind was picking up blowing snow in our faces and chilling us. We were so close at this point, just 300 meters from the untrodden summit. There was a very steep (almost vertical) looking section of corniced snow ridge to ascend very soon along the ridge. After that, it appeared to be much easier, though still very corniced and long way to the summit.

We headed out along the ridge and after an exhausting half hour to lead a pitch of traversing a dangerous section of the cornice with poor protection, we grudgingly decided to descend. The descent back to camp 3 was long and required a dozen or so rappels. It was getting windier and colder and we were both near exhaustion. Frozen and tired, we returned safely to camp 3 and did our best to warm up and refuel for the next day's descent. The weather appeared to be taking a turn for the worse.

Day 5 entered with numerous high clouds gathering above. After a foot freezing emergence from the tents, we descended the mixed gully via MANY rappels. The deep snow in the gully made finding ice for anchors a huge, time consuming chopping and digging effort. We reached camp 2 by mid day and took a break there. It had begun snowing. We almost left here headed for the bottom until it began to snow hard. We pitched the tent to get out of the weather and then big avalanches started pouring down the face. Soon, we fastened our tent to anchors and settled in for the night. As it continued to snow, small but frequent spindrift avalanches began to pour down from the rock pillar above the tent depositing much snow between our tent and the rock wall. As the snow load grew, it started pushing our tent away from the wall and off the tiny ledge. Though our tent was anchored, we feared that the small loops of fabric that the anchors were attached to might break. Every hour throughout the afternoon, evening and night we would get out and shovel the snow away from between the tent and the wall. Inside, the tent became filled with snow from the numerous excursions and we quickly became wet. We huddled together all night hoping that we would stay on our small ledge.

In the morning, it cleared and we left very early. It was really cold and I got a small bit of frost bite on my nose. Our feet were very cold and did not warm up for a while. My toes have been slightly numb for the past few weeks. The 20-25 rappels from there went well, though as expected, we encountered several small- large spindrift avalanches pouring down from above. A large serac avalanche also swept across part of our descent fortunately while we were still above it. It was scary and awesome, however, to walk through the deep chasm it carved in the lower glacier in its wake. We staggered back into a snowy base camp wasted and frazzled. After six weeks here, we were ready to leave.

See a short slide show/movie about the tip here.