Between August 7 and 14, 2024, Russian climbers Oksana Kochubey, Nadezhda Muzhikina, Olga Paducheva, and Nadezhda Pilshchikova (all from St. Petersburg) completed the first all-women’s ascent of the Myshlyaev Route on the southwest face of Ushba South (4,710m), the higher of the two Ushba peaks. 

This route (1,700m, Russian 6A or ED+), first climbed in 1960 by Oleg Kosmachev and Lev Myshlyaev, follows the left side of Ushba’s southwest wall, mostly on steep rock. The 2024 team reached the bivouac atop the characteristic pillar that defines the face after three days of climbing. Above here, the line traverses toward the Red Corner, the original route up Ushba South. After fixing ropes to just below the summit ridge on day four, the women were forced to retreat to their bivouac atop the pillar to wait out a violent storm.

On August 11, they packed for a lightweight push and climbed to the summit, reaching it just before 7 p.m., but as they started down, another storm trapped them in an open bivouac on the summit ridge, with temperatures down to around -7°C (19°F). Restarting in the morning, they continued down snow-covered rock to regain the bivouac on the pillar, rested and warmed up there, then rappelled for another one and a half days to the bottom.

This is believed to be the first all-women’s team to climb any of Ushba’s difficult wall routes. The first all-female team on Ushba was led by Elvira Shataeva in 1973; her group of Soviet climbers completed a traverse (5A) of the mountain’s two summits. A year later, Shataeva and seven teammates died during a storm on Lenin Peak in the Pamirs

—Anna Piunova, AAJ