The Polish team has finished its expedition on the still-unclimbed Gasherbrum VI. They didn’t reach the summit, but expedition leader Pawel Czech has claimed a new route, despite the fact that they didn’t complete the first ascent, and it is unclear if the part they did climb is really new.
“They tried so hard to reach the summit but couldn’t,” outfitter Anwar Syed told ExplorersWeb after the team safely returned to Base Camp after a final push on September 12.
Retreat far from the summit
Yesterday, Czech wrote that, together with Szymon and Aleksandra Kita, he had opened a new route that he had named In Memory of Artur Hajzer as a tribute to the Polish winter pioneer who mentored many younger climbers, including Czech, until he perished in an accident on Gasherbrum I in 2013.
“The route runs up the left side of the prominent rock buttress to its summit — a gendarme at 6,200m — which is the final rock formation before the snow ridge descending from the east peak,” said Czech. The graphic artist Gorskie Mapie shows the area around Gasherbrum VI on a 3D map. The climbers set the summit at 6,979m.
Features on Gasherbrum VI. Graphic by Gorskie Mapie
Untouched terrain or not?
In addition, we need to check the exact line the Poles followed to determine whether they climbed untouched terrain or followed the previous attempts. After the first failed summit push, Czech said they would try another line further to the left, but according to the photographs the team provided, that is where previous teams launched their own failed attempts.
After a failed attempt via the line marked in blue, the Polish climbers said they would try a different line further to the left, which is where previous attempts, in red, took place. Photo: Pawel Czech
All previous expeditions on Gasherbrum VI have described their climbs as attempts rather than new routes.
We asked 14×8,000’er summiter Ralf Dujmovits and his partner, Nancy Hansen, who attempted Gasherbrum VI in 2016 and know the mountain well. This is what they said:
