New Route on Barnaj II in India’s Kishtwar Himal

There were two interesting recent expeditions to the Himalaya that the climbers didn’t make public till they returned home. Here are a few initial details about them.

The spiky Barnaj peaks

The Barnaj peaks. Photo: Matt Glenn

 

New Route on Barnaj II East

Matt Glenn, Callum Johnson, and Tom Seccombe have returned from the Kishtwar Himalaya in India, where they climbed a new line on the north face of Barnaj II East (6,303m).

“We have been back from India for about two weeks now. It takes a little while for things to settle in my head after a trip, so I’ve not rushed to post anything,” Glenn wrote on social media. Their original objective was the main Barnaj II North (6,470m), but it remains unclimbed.

Moving into the icy pitches in the upper couloir, high on the face.

Icy pitches in the upper couloir, high on the face. Photo: Callum Johnson via Mountain Equipment

 

Seth Timpano and Sam Hennessey first climbed 6,370m Barnaj I in October 2017. Barnaj II (6,470m) has been attempted several times, and its south summit has already been climbed more than once.

This small sub-range of the Himalaya in India’s Kishtwar Himal has very steep 6,000m peaks. All require technical climbing, and most are world-class ice routes. Austrian climbers first visited the Kishtwar Himal in 1939.

Naisa Brakk, a spiky triangle

Naisa Brakk. Photo: Rizwan Saddique

 

Naisa Brakk and other peaks in Charakusa, Pakistan

Yusuke Sato, Kenji Sakamoto, and Satoru Tanaka of Japan spent a productive summer in Pakistan’s Charakusa Valley. They climbed the spectacular 5,200m Naisa Brakk, the “arrowhead tower”, and several unnamed peaks in the region.

 

Peaks in Charakusa, Pakistan.

Peaks in Charakusa, Pakistan. Photo: Katsutaka Yokoyama

 

Another Japanese pair, Katsutaka Yokoyama and Genki Narumi, shared base camp with Sato’s team. Their climbs were published in the Bulletin of the Himalaya Association of Japan in Japanese. More details later.

Photos of the Japanese team on Charakusa's peaks, shared by Katsutaka Yokoyama on the blog Akatsuki-Climbing.

The Japanese team in Charakusa, shared by Satoru Tanaka on the Akatsuki Climbing blog, via Hume.

Kris Annapurna

KrisAnnapurna is a writer with ExplorersWeb.

Kris has been writing about history and tales in alpinism, news, mountaineering, and news updates in the Himalaya, Karakoram, etc., for the past year with ExplorersWeb. Prior to that, Kris worked as a real estate agent, interpreter, and translator in criminal law. Now based in Madrid, Spain, she was born and raised in Hungary.