|
|
|
|
shahid
Dec 23, 2003, 4:41 PM
Post #1 of 2
(3153 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Dec 19, 2003
Posts: 8
|
TRANGO TOWERS
The east face of Great Trango Tower and Nameless Tower (AKA: "Trango Tower") are among the largest vertical faces of the world. It wasn't until 1975 that the area opened for climbing after being closed for many years and Nameless Tower was ascended for the first time by a strong British team on their second attempt in 1976. Not until 1987 did Nameless Tower see its second ascent by a new route by a Yugoslav team. Great Trango Tower's main summit (6286 m) was first climbed in 1977 by Galen Rowell, John Roskelly, Kim Schmitz, and Dennis Hennek by the easiest route up the western side. Great Trango is rather a large peak with three main summits, all over 6000 meters. In 1984, the 5000 foot Norwegian Buttress was the first route established on the massive East Face, which led to the first ascent of the East Summit (6231 meters). See Appendix A for a complete list of ascents on Great Trango and Trango Towers. To date, Nameless has 8 routes to its summit, all on its Southeast and Southwest faces. Great Trango has 2 big-wall routes (and one variation) up its East/Northeast Face. Several alpine routes go up the Northwest and West sides of Great Trango. The wall routes are on good quality granite which resembles a cross between the clean compact granite of Yosemite and the coarse granular granite of City of Rocks. Nameless Tower is more featured than Great Trango with more cracks and possible lines. Routes on Nameless are approached from either the Trango or Dungee Glaciers, while Great Trango's wall routes are appoached from the Dungee Glacier. Great Trango's approach is more serious and dangerous than the Nameless approaches..It never got excessively windy and the storms were generally mild, though at times they got fierce. Later in the season is also considered fine (August, September), but the frequency of avalanches increases later in the season making some of the approaches too dangerous. This area of the Himalaya sees very little monsoon action.Many of the routes have been established with siege tactics (i.e. large quantities of fixed ropes) which is a more cautious method of ascent but cumbersome and time consuming. The Norwegian Buttress was established in the purest of pure form, with only six ropes used for the entire climb. The Grand Voyage was also established in this style (known as "Capsule Style"). This summer, two teams of Spanish climbers repeated routes in fast time on Nameless Tower with minimal fixed ropes and gear. FOR MORE DETAILS shahidfsd@hotmail.com
|
|
|
|
|
epic_ed
Dec 24, 2003, 3:51 PM
Post #2 of 2
(3153 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Jun 17, 2002
Posts: 4724
|
What's up, Shahid! Hope you'll post more about the Trango Tower ascents. We prefer to see first hand accounts, but well written reports are always welcomed. I'm not sure if you were part of either team, or if you were in the region for other purposes, but it sounds like you have some good information about the summer climbing season in the Karakorum. I've been fascinated with Trango Tower since Jared Ogden, Mark Synott, and Alex Lowe climbed it in '99 and their ascent was covered on-line by mountainzone.com and I'd love to hear more about the climbs from this summer.
Ed
|
|
|
|
|
|
