Little Trango, Eid Mubarak
Pakistan, Karakoram, Baltoro Muztagh
“Are you going to climb on the Trango Towers under the supervision of some Western climber?” This was the usual opening question. This would be followed by a barrage of inquiries about our skills, gear, past accidents, and everything that pointed toward the Towers not being made for Pakistani rock climbers. Owais Khattak, Usman Tariq, and I spent three days transporting gear from a high camp at 4,800m to the base of Little Trango (ca 5,445m).
Over the festival of Eid, July 29–30, Usman and I started up a prominent corner system on the southwest side of the formation until reaching the top of a pedestal, where we traversed down and right to join the American route (PM Wall, McMahon-Wharton, 2000) on the south face, then followed this to the summit. On the first day we climbed 190m before bivouacking. In total we climbed 250m at 5.10d A0. I led all nine pitches, and we named our line Eid Mubarak (Merry Eid).
Imran Junaidi, Pakistan