In 1991, I was part of a French team visiting the Ak-su and Karavshin valleys. We established a number of routes, the most popular today being Perestroika Crack on Russian Tower (a.k.a. Peak Slesov, 4,240m). In September and October, Christophe Moulin and I returned with a young French team, and we climbed several rock routes and one mixed line. Two of these, we believe, might be new.

From September 20–23, Sylvain di Giacomo and I put up a new route on the east face of Zhioltaya Stena (a.k.a. Yellow Wall, 3,800m), a beautiful route with many nice cracks. We put bolts on the belays and slab sections, and climbed 13 long pitches (60m ropes necessary) up to 7b. There is an easy walk-off down the south face, so no rappel anchors were established. We named the route Sourire Kyrgyz (600m, ED). [This line begins at the base of the classic Diagonal (500m, 5.10) and then climbs between Everything is Normal (ca 350m, 5.10b A2, Harkness- Matthiesen-Zemach, 2004) and Meresjev (500m, 14 pitches, IX-/IX A3, Zakora, solo, 2002)]. 

Robin Coullet, Tiphaine Duperier, Jonathan Isoard, and Moulin climbed a line on the north face of Pik Piramidalny (5,509m), starting 500m right of Russian Roulette (AAJ 2003). They are unsure whether it is new because they found fixed nuts in the middle of the route, but this point easily could have been reached via the pillar to the left. The group climbed in two teams and made different starts. They reached the east ridge at 5,000m and continued toward the top until they were stopped by bad weather. They sat this out for one day, and on the next day, their fourth on the mountain, they decided to escape down the east ridge, a complex process, to a col at 4,000m, from which they descended to the glacier and their high camp. If the 1,300m route is new, they would like to call it La Banane (ED- M5 WI5). 

Frédéric Gentet, France