The Polish team is back from a first attempt at a new route on Gasherbrum VI. Bad conditions forced them back after they had covered 650m in a nonstop 20-hour push. The three climbers have two weeks left on their permit to try another line.
“It was an awesome wall, although the rock was a bit too loose,” leader Jacek Pawel Czech wrote in a dispatch shared by the Jerzy Kukuczka Foundation for the Support of Polish Mountaineering. “Rocks fell down the gullies on both sides of our line.”
Szymon Kita, Aleksandra Kita, and leader Jacek Pawel Czech. Photo: Jacek Czech/Facebook
On their first try, they chose a solid section of the Southeast Face and reached the base of the wall at 1 pm — not exactly the best time to start climbing.
“In normal conditions, that first pitch should be nice, but at that time, it was a waterfall,” Czech said.
The team set up a semi-hanging bivouac beneath an overhang, carried their gear there, and waited until around 10 pm, when temperatures were colder.
Once they started the climb, they found the rock wet and loose. By the time they reached 5,500m, they were cold and soaked under a light snowfall.
Still, they kept progressing, with Czech usually taking the lead, Aleksandra Kita belaying, and Szymon Kita carrying up the gear.
“With two jumars, I reached 5,605m,” Czech recalled. “The last section was a pile of loose rocks on a sharp ridge. The terrain we thought would be the easiest turned out to be a skull crusher.
“Above us appeared more sections of steep slabs, which looked like rocky highways cut through with sharp, loose edges,” he explained.
At 5 pm the following day, they retreated.
Czech admits they were happy to reach Base Camp alive, but were still not ready to call off their Gasherbrum VI attempt. Feeling healthy and in good spirits, they are now eyeing a different line to the left (south) of the face. That means they may try to complete the climb via a route closer to the one that Czech chose on his 2019 attempt with a larger team. On that occasion, they retreated from about the same altitude due to the same bad conditions on the face.
The potential lines, marked in blue, that the Polish team is considering on unclimbed Gasherbrum VI. The route of their first attempt is in red. Photo: Jacek Czech
