On their second try, Yudai Suzuki, Kei Narita, and Yuu Nishida of Japan have made the first ascent of Ghamubar Zom V. The 6,400m peak lies in the Hindu Raj range in Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan.
They climbed alpine style via the northwest ridge, which stretches more than 2,000m. It leads to the previously unclimbed northwest summit, called Ghamubar V. It is independent from the other Ghamubar peaks.
The first ascent route up Ghamubar V. Photo: Yudai Suzuki
As we reported earlier, they had to retreat from 5,700m during their first attempt. They took a one-week rest in nearby Dalkot village, then returned to Ghamubar for their second, and successful, attempt.
On Sept. 17, the climbers set up Camp 1. On Sept. 19, after a rest day, Suzuki, Narita, and Nishida started the final push from 5,750m. They topped out that day, four days after leaving base camp.
The 2,000m northwest ridge was M5/5.9/70°/ VI.
After summiting, they started rappeling down and had a close call when a rock cut their rope. They stopped for a night at Camp 3 (6,090m), and then reached their base camp (3,380m) yesterday, September 22.
Suzuki says that he was in Pakistan three years ago when a mountain caught his attention, mainly because of its strange name. This was Ghamubar. Doing further research, he realized that the north side of the mountain behind Dalkot included several unclimbed summits.
According to Suzuki, the northwest ridge was extremely complicated and had over 100m of mixed climbing up to M5. Challenges included a long, steep snow ridge over 6,000m and lots of down-climbing on blue ice.
“I personally felt that this ridge was much harder than the north face of Ausangate or Hunter,” Suzuki said today from base camp. “We needed much more commitment to the mountain.”
Yudai Suzuki shows the rappel rope, cut by a rock. Photo: Kei Narita
