Adam Bielecki and Louis Rousseau have decided to stop their summit push on the unclimbed and unnamed 6,000’er in Pakistan’s Hunza Valley.
According to Bielecki’s social media, he and Rousseau started up on October 9. The route to the peak was complicated, and the duo spent that night on a crevassed glacier. A promising weather forecast did not pan out.
“Heavy snow in some places, no visibility at all, and constant snowfall,” recalls Bielecki.
They spent a freezing night on the glacier. In the morning, Rousseau said that he was cold at night and didn’t get enough sleep.
At 9 am that morning, they reached the wall and climbed a couloir at an altitude of about 5,200m. From there, Bielecki and Rousseau started simul climbing, first on snow and then on ice. By the end of the day, they had reached 6,000m.
They searched for a bivouac spot but couldn’t find anywhere suitable. In the end, they decided to stay where they were, overnighting under a rock wall to avoid having to hang in their harnesses all night.
Retreat
At 4 am on October 11, numerous spindrift avalanches woke them up. The spindrift covered them repeatedly for the next four hours, but the sluffs had diminished by 8 am. It seemed that they would finally have a long-awaited day of good weather.
Rousseau had been lightly dressed and had not slept for two nights in the freezing temperatures. It was -20˚C.
“Unfortunately, at this stage, my partner…firmly decided to withdraw,” said a disappointed Bielecki.
They descended and reached base camp on the evening of October 11. The porters were scheduled to arrive yesterday, and the climbers may already have started the trek out.
Adam Bielecki and Louis Rousseau at the start of their Hunza expedition. Photo: Louis Rousseau
