Muzkol, Tajikistan Pamirs

Success and failure

by Simon Verspeak

This was it. The day we had come for. For some reason I had no nervousness, no apprehension. I was pretty certain it would just go.

Typical moraine terrain
Photos Simon Verspeak

We rose at 3am and, leaving camp by 4am, we soon reached the top of the col by 5am. We then traversed, descending slightly over some scree and round crazy ice sculptures across the glacier to the base of the West ridge. We had to pair up at the col, ropes coiled around our bodies and strung between in case we fell into a crevasse. From the camp to the col had been in total darkness then slowly lightening; by the time we were approaching the face our lights were no longer needed. Rhys and John were just ahead of Becs and I and so they crossed the bergschrund first. At the second bergschrund we stopped to belay. Initially we all started up the same diagonal line but, after a few pitches, John headed straight up heading towards a vague gully system. Becs and I slowly climbed diagonally right to reach the ridge at a col. The last few pitches weren't the easiest with snowy slabs, loose rock and little gear to use as runners or belays. The view from the col towards umpteen other mountains was super but the view of our intended line up the ridge was less so. The ridge consisted of poor rock exposed by the sun on the south side with snow patches weaving through it. The climbing was a mix of simple rock scrambling, snow patches and short low-angled ice pitches. After an hour of moving we stopped for a rest and Becs promptly dropped her camera. Watching it bounce down the ridge and then fall off the side I shouted ‘belowœ to warn the others. I was swearing but Becky seemed calm!

Carrying on, we reached a point where the ridge went up to form a rock tower. Reaching the base of this tower I traversed to the left hoping we could bypass on snow. It soon became apparent this steep snow was sugary and wasn’t going to lead back on to the ridge. Retreating to the base of the tower, a thin strip of snow weaved through the centre of the face in a vague gully. “OK,” I thought, “this would go”. I had now climbed 40m above my last gear and, reaching harder moves with poor snow and rock, upward progress was prevented. I decided enough was enough and climbed back down to Becs. She was happy with that decision and at 5900m our attempt was over.

Team shot on Kyrgyz Tajik Border

Rhys and John, meanwhile, had climbed a more direct line to reach the ridge slightly below our highpoint. This line was felt to be sustained at D&’43;/TD with poor snow at the top. Once the boys had reached us we all decided to retreat. John said their route had been fairly desperate and Rhys was feeling the effects of the altitude. The ridge proved fairly straightforward to down climb and we found several good patches of ice to fix abalakovs.

Once on the col we continued to retreat rapping down via abalakovs. At the bottom we split back into our roped pairs. Becs wanted to look for her camera while Rhys and John started to plod out of the bowl and back up to the col above our camp. Amazingly Becky's camera was found and, despite a 500m plummet down the face, was still in working order!

Pools near basecamp, Muzkol valley

We caught up with the boys at the col. Everyone was very quiet as a result of the long day but I felt quite happy with the result. Rule one, after all, was to come back in one piece. After our summit day we were all pretty shattered. The boys decided to go down the glacier but Becs fancied walking down the river. The river valley was far easier going than the moraine, but it was quite icy in places where the sun hadn't penetrated. Getting back to the valley below the glacier it was surprising to see that the valley was quite green. Now, if the food in the tents hadn’t been ravaged by snow leopards, we would be happy!

Reaching our base camp after 5 hours of walking it was a relief to see the tent unscathed. For the next few days we didn't wander more than a few hundred metres from our camp. Everyone applied some culinary creativity and we had all sorts of good food: pizzas, sausage, eggs and chips, stew and Becky had birthday semolina! We all even washed…

The following day we decided it was time to go for another look at some of the higher side valleys. We all wandered slowly up for a few hours seeing more signs of snow leopards (beheaded marmots, scat and prints!) and lots of Marco Polo sheep horns. The boys quickly got bored and decided to go bouldering but Becky and I wandered on for a few more hours, scoping out possibilities with binoculars. We saw lots of wildlife too; a stoat bounded across our path just a few metres away and we finally sighted some birds of prey which had been absent until this point. Most of the peaks in the valley we walked up had previously been climbed but we spotted one which looked good from the other side and we quickly decided to spend the next three or four days checking that out.

Becs and I left the boys in base camp and heavily laden with food for four days we headed back up the valley. The river early in the morning was much lower but also much colder. We crossed in our sandals and changed into our big boots. We meandered up a ramp between big boulders, watching the river froth far below us in a gorge and listening to the marmots whistling as we approached. A few hours from base camp we reached the point where the valley split. The left hand fork was a large grassy moraine slope above the gorge but our chosen way was to the right around a 90 degree bend and leading gently through endless moraine to the glacier. Right on the corner was a nice alpine meadow complete with springs. After our time in the valley we felt rested and acclimatised so it was really pleasant to sit in the shade and drink soup. The following few hours weren't as pleasant as we slogged our way in the heat over moraine to the start of the glacier.

Walking on the ice was far easier than the loose rocks and we quickly found a flat area to set up the tent for the night. Sadly, from this vantage point it was becoming rapidly obvious that our intended objective and the peaks in the valley in general were lacking in snow and suffering from glacier retreat and leading to barring seracs! We chatted through our options but decided that, without more information, we couldn't make a summit attempt from where we were. The next day I woke up feeling very dispirited and resigned to the fact that our objective would look worse from close up. Sadly this was the case but we had a nice walk and took some good photos of crazy ice formations. Only having a few days left and no time to seriously attempt anything, we decided to enjoy the walk back to base camp and spend a night at the springs. Becky had been desperate to see some more of the wildlife, especially the elusive Marco Polo sheep and snow leopards. So we got up early and were rewarded by seeing a flock of 20 Marco Polo sheep! Sadly the snow leopards stayed elusive although we saw plenty of signs that they were all around us.

Getting back to base camp we found the boys had quickly got bored of bouldering and had made an attempt at the peak the other side of the river which had been taunting us since we arrived. This was ended by a rather scary retreat through a cliff band they had used as an approach. On the descent they spotted a better line and we turned up at base camp as they were debating another go. Leaving at 4am they crossed the river and when we got up we spotted them starting up the snow around 9am. We had taken two small walkie talkies and it was really thrilling to hear John's voice crackling through at midday that they were on the summit!

The small team that went to the remote Muzkol valley, Tajikistan Pamirs in July 2014 consisted of Simon Verspeak, Rebecca Coles, Rhys Huws and John Vincent. The expedition was kindly supported by the Austrian Alpine Club (UK), Lowe Alpine, the Mount Everest Foundation, the BMC, the Chris Walker Memorial Trust and the Alpine Club.

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