The Polish team has started its climb up Trango’s Nameless Tower. Meanwhile, in Nepal, Topo Mena and Jonatan Garcia have set up Base Camp at the foot of Gangapurna’s South Face.
After two weatherbound days in Advanced Base Camp, Michal Krol, Janusz Golab, and Maciej Kimel have finally started up the unrepeated British route up Nameless Tower. They hope that good weather will let them climb for at least five days, Carlos Garranzo reports.
The Polish team’s location on Trango Towers, shared yesterday by Polski Himalaizm Sportowy.
The team needed three days to set up Advance Base Camp, which is right by the wall, 900 vertical metres higher than the regular base camp.
Gangapurna
Meanwhile, in Nepal, Topo Mena of Ecuador and Jonatan Garcia of Spain have reached Base Camp. In the end, they have chosen to climb Gangapurna’s south side.
Although the climbers have not publicly mentioned their position, Mena’s partner, Carla Perez, shared his tracker location and a message. Mena says that they have pitched a “safe” Base Camp at 4,700m.
The pair intends to climb the face in a single, alpine-style push. Gangapurna is usually tackled from its West and East ridges, while its North and South faces are largely terra incognita. Garcia told ExplorersWeb that they would choose their line according to conditions on the face at the time.
that south face of Gangapurna looks very intimidating. Sending luck.
There are two existing routes in the south face of Gangapurna, one by the Canadian John Lauchlan and others in 1981 and the other by the Korean Kim Chang-ho and his two friends in 2016. The latter earned a Piolet d’Or award the next year.
Yes, this article gives some useful and accurate history of Gangapurna:
http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/13201214165
When we were editing that article (at the AAJ) it became apparent in our research that the south face varies considerably from season to season (pre-monsoon/spring v. post-monsoon/autumn) and over the years. Some years/seasons it is very dry and others it has much more snow and ice.