Asia, Pakistan, Baintha Brakk Attempt

Publication Year: 1991.

Baintha Brakk Attempt. Hans-Christian Hocke, Malte Roeper, Anton Schu hegger, Jürgen Wittmann and I as leader hoped to climb the southwest buttress of Baintha Brakk (Ogre), which the French attempted in 1983 (AAJ, 1984, page 299). We placed Base Camp in a meadow directly at the foot of the west face of the Ogre Stump. On August 1, Wittmann and I set out. We climbed the easy first 150 meters using the Netherlanders’ fixed ropes. We continued on the buttress alpine-style (UIAA VI+, A2). The weather was bad, but our portaledges with Goretex covers were invaluable. In the whole wall we had only hanging bivouacs. Haul bags were not well suited as they frequently hung up. On the twelfth day we got to the top of the buttress and onto the séracs, where we dug a snow cave. On the 13th, we headed for the summit in good weather. In the afternoon, the weather turned bad. We had to retreat from the upper part of the summit wall, just below the top, because of avalanche danger, because we were out of ice gear and because the weather was getting even worse. We rappelled off on August 14. The other three had started up the wall on August 7 and on the 13th got to within two pitches of the top of the buttress. We all rappelled off together and were back in Base Camp on August 15. We regret that we had to leave much gear on the face since one of us was injured during the rappel and we had to descend as fast as possible in ever deteriorating weather. We apologize to those who follow us.

Michael Lentrodt, Deutscher Alpenverein