Khan Tengri, North Face, Variation. We were a team of five: Denis Urubko (leader), Sergey Samoylov, Vasiliy Pivtsov, Alexandr Rudakov, and Damir Molgatchev. We started up the Myslovskiy route on August 2. The north face of Khan Tengri is 2800 meters high. The bottom part of the wall—that is, up to Camp VI at 6150 meters—is black rock. Where the rock changes to red (marble), we climbed a new variation to the summit. The Myslovskiy route goes to the right, while the Studenin route climbs to the left. We were interested in an unclimbed couloir that rises between them. This variation took two days; we reached the top on August 9. The weather was bad for the first two days and the final day of the climb. There was too much snow this year, and the route was in very bad condition. On the sixth day of the climb we celebrated Alex’s birthday. Avalanches fell across the face during the entire time of our ascent.

Denis Urubko, Kazakhstan