Despite of gloomy weather forecasts this year two Kazakhstan climbers set off to summit one of the highest world mountains. I was very much honored to climb together with Sergey Samoilov. He is a sportsman of the Central Sports Club of Army of Republic Kazakhstan as well as I am. The aim of our expedition was Broad peak (8047 m), and we were exercising for that more than a year: trainings, ascents in the area near to Almaty - all of this is familiar to every citizen of Southern Capital.

We joined the Italian team that had planned to effect an ascent of Broad peak too. Our way laid through Pakistan in Karakorum Range. After some seemed endless weeks of our way by planes, buses, vehicles and a caravan of porters carrying the expeditionary luggage we got the head of a huge Baltoro glacier at 4700 meters. Base camp was fixed there. The first days of acclimatization did not affect Sergey and me comparably the other climbers as the mountains near to Almaty tower just on such height.

The first ascent Broad peak was in 1957 made by a small Austrian team. The climbers reached the highest point from the West on a way now called «the normal route». It goes via the not too difficult ridge leading to the summit. Some other routes are also paved on the mountain's North Face. From the West and East they leave on the North ridge and then trace on it up to the highest point of the massif. But nobody has managed to climb the Southern Face of the mountain yet in spite of repeated attempts to win through this magnificence of rocks and ice. The wall is very much in evidence at the way of uncountable expeditions moving to their eight-thousand giants through the head of Baltoro glacier.

A prompt reconnaissance of the route found it much more difficult and more dangerous than it was supposed. For this reason, as it was annoying, our Italian friends refused to try it. Well, only Sergey and I ventured upon this climb. The Wall seemed to hang out over the whole world. We started on July, 18 and for seven days became to be isolated from the civilization. Only high altitude and the route held sway over us. Snow cornices, difficult outcrops and ice fields were ahead. Above a head hung snow eaves, belts of rocks and ice shooting right up into the sky... Avalanches had blocked all the foot of the wall, so we had to develop strict tactics of our ascent tensely gaining altitude. Crossing abrupt rocky walls we climbed upwards day after day. Sometime we spent the night sitting on tiny ledges when the tent was just pitched on rocky pitons hardly covering us from bad weather. More than two kilometers of a vertical elongation was a long pull to the top of the mountain at the cost of full commitment and all-out effort.

Broad Peak. South-West Face. The route line.

Rocks reminded tile roofs of some old buildings in Europe, very smooth and abrupt, with a few edges. Frequently I had to climb only on hands, because my legs valiantly slipped on plates. I can imagine that being shown at a distance! Besides at times the towered bastions on our way became just cliffed. And then far below under our feet we could see our base camp. Our friends were observing our climb like over the TV.

All these days weather remained magnificent. But after spending the night at seven thousand meters the clouds that had formed a veil over the mountain from the West lightly powdered the slopes with fresh snow. In early morning having hardly left the bivouac we came very near to being drowned in deep snow that literally "stuck" to the abrupt rocky sites, and besides complex climbing at times we had to break a trench upwards. At 7400 meters after strewing all the morning sprinkle of snow the clouds at last burst into the strongest snow, avalanches started to collapse everywhere around. It was the good that rocky sites of such steepness did not allow to accumulate snow of large volume, but all the same it was somehow very uncomfortable, when with quiet rustle the pair tons of snow was thrown out from a couloir somewhere in close vicinity. To continue the ascent we followed our "doctrine" of all protruding sites of the relief: ridges, bastions, buttresses - all of that was fit for further climb. Let they were more difficult than gullies but less avalanche and stone-fall dangerous.

Having spent the night on a small ledge blotted out by the sea of brumous fog and continued snow in the morning we found out that had no choice but to continue our way to nowhere - through snowfall, wind, on slabby face. Only the next evening Sergey and I understood that reached the top of the Southwest wall of Broad peak. We were exhausted very much and only by fiat of will we forced our bodies to move upwards. It was the first day when we had nothing to eat. And the last day when we could heat a snow for drink.

Having reached a tiny sloping ledge at 7800 meters we hardly managed to fix a tent there and wearily threw ourselves in it right in our boots. This night we fell asleep not taking off our boots at all and not having satisfied thirst pieces of ice. The clouds, sprung by a strong gusty wind from the West, settled in valleys. Last spans before the summit ridge became visible, and in the morning we set off again obstinately breaking the snow made us tired for last week.

At the summit

And in such manner in the morning on July, 25, 2005 our two-man team summited Broad peak via a new route paved on the Southwest wall. Having reached the top, we could not regain our senses after hard climb. Oxygen deficit at this super unreal altitude distressed breathing and each move troubled. Especially under pressure and impacts of a rigid prickly wind from the West. And aside the far native land forget-me-not blue of the sky was running away. Like Memoria and the voice of the turtledove. But here a stick with patches of formerly colored flag stuck out of stiff rigid snow. The thinned locks were rustling and clapping, trembling above the void…

This ascent became a significant event not only in 2005. It falls into a gold galaxy of Himalaya routes climbed in the most sports style. Because similar ascents are rather infrequent in the sesquicentennial history of human aspirations to climb the highest mountains of our planet. Just enough to take four criteria reflecting complexity of extreme mountaineering:

1. Peak is higher than 8000 meters (the main top of a mountain massif).
2. New complex route.
3. Pure Alpine style.
4. Small team (2-4 climbers).

Sergey Samoiliv and Denis Urubko after their climb

It is a reminder that an ascent in Alpine style demands climbers to follow from the foot up to the summit of a mountain without a stop. Thus all needed gear they should take along. And they nave no right to mistake and no opportunity to repeat climb. It is normal in Alps.

But in Himalayas where high altitude and long distances make impossible achievement of an objective in one, climbers have to fix the ropes, organize high-altitude camps hauling all necessary things for life-support and having a rest at the bottom of a mountain - upwards and downwards.

The Kazakhstan climbers all the time have forcibly proved their skill in high-altitude ascents - by virtue of the climbing school developed traditionally, for the reasons of only geographical arrangement of Kazakhstan. The examples of this are B.Studenin's, V.Smirnov's, K.Valiev's, J.Moiseev's outstanding achievements and many others. This understanding of mountaineering is valuable for me as to a sportsman. When they aspired to overextend their selves, to lead in world mountaineering that means they aspired To Be instead of To Seem.

Following all of this lead we tried to lay a new route on Broad peak. We wanted that it would not be a shame to come back home, that we would answer fairly to ourselves that we did all our best, and among sixty climbers trying to summit the mountain this summer only we two have reached the aim of our aspirations.

Well, “we should spend our life in such way not to feel a painful hurt for the vain years” ("How the steel was tempered", Nikolay Ostrovsky). And we would like to trust that we did it.

Central Sports Club of Army of Kazakhstan
SALICE, La'Sportiva, CAMP, North Face
Electrolux
www.russianclimb.com

17.10.2005