Biacherahi Central Tower, south face, first ascent. Voytek Kurtyka (Poland), Taeko Yamanoi, and I (Japan) visited the Choktoi Glacier. Voytek and I planned to try the north face of Latok I but the weather was so bad, we couldn’t do it. Instead, the three of us climbed the South Face of Biacherahi Central Tower (ca 5700m). We completed the 450-meter route at 5.10 and A2 over six days in August. We spent four days fixing seven pitches above the col and on the fifth day jumared those pitches, then climbed the last four pitches to the summit. We spent no nights on the wall, only at the col, which was five hours above base camp. Half the route was loose, sometimes with large flakes of unstable rock.

Yasushi Yamanoi, Japan