In modern alpinism, traverses have become one of the dominant ways of getting your name in the history books.
That’s what happened in Kyrgyzstan last month when a three-person team completed the first-ever traverse of the “Aksay horseshoe,” enchaining 15 peaks in the Tien Shan Mountains in a single, massive push.
The achievement was announced on the Russian climbing site Mountain.ru. Climbers Tikhon von Stackelberg and Roman Abildaev, led by Egor Matveenko, completed the traverse between Feb. 17 and Feb. 26.
They started with the ascent of Box Peak (4,240m) on the Mikhailov route and finished with the peak of Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky (4,875m).
Little-known jewel
Details were scant this week, but a guiding website said that the Aksay Glacier and its surrounding mountains offer some of Kyrgyzstan’s best hiking and climbing.
According to Mountain.ru, the horseshoe traverse completed last month includes the following peaks. The numbers correspond to a panoramic photo posted on the site and visible in the above Facebook post. (Russian climbing grade scale and explanation available here.)
1 – The slopes of the highest point of the district: the peak of Semenov Tien-Shansky (4,875m, 67 meters higher than Mont Blanc), 7 routes from 3A to 5B.
2,3,4 – Crown, an array with six peaks from 4,750m to 4,860m. About 15 routes from 2A to 6A.
5 – Peak Seeker (4,400m), 3 routes from 2A to 3B.
6 – Cosmonauts Peak (4,200m), one route 3B.
7 – Baylyan-Bashi (4,700m), 3 routes from 2B to 5A.
8 – Simagina (4,400m), 3 routes from 4B to 5B.
9 – Free Korea (4,740m), about 20 routes from 4B to 6A+.
