Pik Eight Women Climbers, west face; Pik Bayancol, southeast ridge; Pik Kazakhstan, southeast ridge. Boris Dedeshko, Gennady Durov, and Denis Urubko made the second ascent of Pik Eight Women Climbers (Pik Vosni Alpinistok or Mramornaya Stena Yuzhnaya, 6,110m) via the west face. The only previous ascent of the mountain, indeed the only previous attempt, took place on September 6, 1974, when Kazakhs Yevgeniy Ilyinskiy, N. Ivanov, N. Shevchenko, Vadim Smirnov, and Boris Solomatov (leader) climbed the south ridge during a traverse from Pik 6,261m to Mramomaya Stena. On August 19 Dedeshko, Durov, and Urubko left a camp at 4,700m on the glacier below the face, climbed snow, ice, and mixed ground on the lower wall to a bivouac at 5,250m and the next day climbed through a difficult rocky barrier to reach a snow/ice ramp leading up left toward the summit. They bivouacked at 5,750m and reached the top on the 22nd (33 pitches, 6A; F6a+ M5). Prior to this ascent the climbers acclimatized by climbing two new routes. On August 12, Dedeshko and Durov made the first ascent of the elegant southeast ridge (5A) of Bayancol (5,681m), while on the following day Urubko and Kolbin climbed the southeast ridge of Pik Kazakhstan (5,600m) at 4B. Bayancol, Kazakhstan, and Eight Women Climbers lie on the northern rim of the North Inylchek Glacier (north of Khan Tengri), on the ridge running west from Mramor- naya Stena (Marble Wall, 6,400m). This area of the North Inylchek is popular for the normal route up Khan Tengri, but almost no one tries routes on neighboring mountains. Eight Women Climbers Peak was named as a tribute to a Soviet female expedition, members of which were caught in a storm and died high on Pik Lenin’s Lipkin route in August 1974.

From notes provided by Denis Urubko, Kazakhstan