Virjerab Muztagh, Khushrui Sar (5,900m), north ridge

Pakistan, West Karakoram
Author: Janusz Majer, Poland. Climb Year: 2013. Publication Year: 2014.

Led by Krzysztof Wielicki, Maciej Dachowski, Wojciech Dzik, Wojciech Kapturkiewicz, Marian Krakowski, Anita Parys, Jerzy Urbanski, Katarzyna Karwecka-Wielicka, and I visited the Virjerab Glacier in July 2012. We were the first to explore this glacier since 1925. The expedition was organized in Pakistan by Karim Hayat, manager of Mountains Expert Pakistan, who also organized our 2011 expedition to Koksil Valley (AAJ 2012). Hayat accompanied us, and we also had four base camp staff, three from Hunza and one from Shimshal.

The Virjerab Glacier was "discovered" by George Cockerill during his 1892-’93 expedition, and then visited for a second time, in 1925, by the Dutch couple, Jenny Visser-Hooft and Philip Visser. Colonel R.C.F. Schomberg’s book Unknown Karakorum, published in 1936, has a map of the "Shingshal Mustagh Area,” which includes the Virjerab Glacier. Nearly 80 years later, the Virjerab remains an attractive goal for exploration.

Difficulties in moving up the glacier due to lack of lateral moraines kept our expedition to the lower reaches, and we established our base camp at 4,058m, on the south bank (36°18.203' N, 75°35.993' E), three days’ walk from Shimshal. On July 12, having several days previously put an advanced base at 4,700m in the Spregh Yaz Valley to the south, Dachowski, Hayat, Karwecka-Wielicka, and Wielicki climbed onto the eastern rim of the Spregh Yaz Glacier and bivouacked at 5,100m. Next day all four continued south up a ridge to the summit of a 5,900m snow and ice peak, which they named Khushrui Sar (“Beautiful Peak” in Wakhi).

Krakowski, Urba?ski, and I, together with two base camp staff, Farman and Noor Alam, moved southeast up the main glacier to the entrance to the First West Virjerab Glacier (as designated on Jerzy Wala’s 2013 sketch map). Due to bad weather, we were unable to follow the Vissers’ footsteps any farther toward the confluence of Second West and East Virjerab glaciers.

On the 17th, Hayat, Kapturkiewicz, Noor Alam, and Parys crossed from base camp to the north side of the glacier and bivouacked, their aim to climb a 6,570m peak in the Chot Pert group. On the 18th, Hayat and Parys climbed up to a bivouac at 4,800m, but on the following day the weather took a turn for the worse and they retreated. 

Janusz Majer, Poland 



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