Alaska’s Ethan Berkeland, recent Piolet d’Or recipient August Franzen, and Vitaliy Musiyenko will attempt a new route on Pakistan’s Baintha Brakk II, known as the Ogre II (6,960m).
While several have tried to open new routes up the higher Ogre I in the last few years, Ogre II is rarely visited. It has also never been summited in alpine style. A South Korean expedition made the only successful climb back in 1983, via the northwest buttress. The Koreans used heavy expedition style with fixed ropes and higher camps. Still, the climb was epic: Lim Deok-yong and Yoo Han-gyu reached the top after overnighting in an ice cave with no sleeping bags or down jackets. Another member of the team died during the expedition.
American Kyle Dempster and Scott Adamson died on the mountain while attempting (for the second consecutive year) the first ascent of the north face in alpine style in 2016. They went missing during a storm, and their bodies were never recovered. A social media post today by Vitaliy Musiyenko notes that they too will attempt the impressive north face:
Post on Instagram today by Vitaliy Musiyenko
A grant for working climbers
To help subsidize the climb, the Jess Roskelley Foundation and Lowa Sportswear gave Ethan Berkeland the first Legacy Grant. The foundation honors the legacy of Jess Roskelley, who perished with Hansjörg Auer and David Lama in an avalanche in the Canadian Rockies seven years ago. This is the first year they are funding a climb.
Their goal is to support “climbers who balance full-time work with bold, meaningful objectives in the mountains.” Ethan Berkeland combines his passion for climbing with his work as an engineer, maintaining seismic monitoring stations for the Alaska Earthquake Center.
Berkeland, Franzen, and Musiyenko will travel to the Choktoi Glacier in the Karakoram this summer.
The Latok and Ogre peaks rise over Pakistan’s Choktoi Valley. Photo: Thomas Huber
