Alik Berg and I left Calgary on June 30. On July 14, after many flights, jeep drives, and three days of trekking with porters, we arrived at our 4,500m base camp on the Yutmaru Glacier. As often happens on expeditions, neither the final team nor the final objective were what we had originally planned. At the start, four of us had hoped to explore the largely untouched peaks of the Kondus Valley, but over the winter two team members pulled out and then, just a couple of months before departure, military authorities refused us a permit for our primary objective, unclimbed K13 (6,666m). We scrambled to find another goal and settled on unclimbed Pumari Chhish East (6,850m Polish map; 6,836m Soviet map) in the Hispar. I was familiar with this peak, having attempted it previously (AAJ 2010)—I knew it to be both a difficult and inspiring objective.

After arrival at base camp we spent the ensuing three weeks systematically acclimatizing, starting with day trips and culminating with an ascent of Rasool Sar (5,980m GPS; 5,890m Soviet map). This lies on the north side of the East Yatmaru Glacier, at the end of the long ridge running west-southwest from Khani Basa Sar (6,441m). It was first climbed in 2009 by Eammon Walsh, Ian Welsted, and me. Alik and I repeated the same route, a steep snow slope on the south flank to reach the east-northeast ridge, and then easy mixed ground and a corniced crest to the summit. We spent two nights on top to complete our acclimatization.

We now turned to the south face of our main objective, Pumari Chhish East. The shattered glacier below looked impassible, but we were able to find an alternative approach by climbing over a rock spur. From its crest we got our first close look at the face. The upper half still looked in good mixed climbing shape. However, it was now late summer, and the snow and ice fields on the lower half had degenerated into wet rock slabs strafed by rockfall. It was difficult to let go of our ambitions, but in current conditions we had to discount the south face as simply too dangerous.

We next examined the eastern aspect of the mountain for an alternative route, but found it guarded by batteries of seracs. With just over a week remaining of our scheduled stay at base camp, we cast around for other options and settled on an unclimbed and unnamed peak of 5,980m (GPS) across the Yutmaru Glacier from base camp. [This summit lies north-northwest of Emily Peak; the Russian map gives it an altitude of 5,936m.]

There was an obvious snow and ice rib on the northeast face leading directly to the summit, but this had severe serac hazard. Instead we moved much farther left, to where a long snow gully rises to the upper south ridge of Emily Peak. We scrambled up rock to the left of the gully, turned right, and continued up the ridge to the summit of Emily Peak, where we bivouacked at around 5,700m. Next day we spent 16 hours negotiating the complex ridge to and from Peak 5,980m, arriving back at our bivouac at midnight. We slept in the following morning before descending south to the Hispar Glacier and walking back around the mountain to base camp. We decided to call the peak Gus Zrakun Sar, after the donkeys that did most of the hard work to get us to base camp (gus zrakun is donkey in the local Burushashki dialect).

Two days later, in cold rain, we left the meadow where we had spent half the summer. We did not come back successful, but we came back safe and came back friends. Thanks to the John Lauchlan Memorial Award and MEC Expedition Support Grant for their financial assistance.

Raphael Slawinski, Canada, AAC