While researching a trip to India we discovered a Flickr Image folder from Martin Moran, which documented his trek over the Poat La and down the ZK Glacier, past unclimbed mountains he called Zanskar Matterhorn and Badile. Our goal was now clear, and at the start of August Michael Groher, Thomas Holler, Timo Moser, Babsi Vigl, and I, all from the Alpinkader Naturfreunde Österreich (a selected group of alpine climbers that undergo a three-year coaching scheme), arrived in Leh.

We traveled by road to Padum, where we enjoyed our last beers and high-speed Internet. Our plan next day was to meet 25 porters and begin our trek over the Poat La. But only 10 porters arrived. The day, after a few more came with yaks, but to cut a long story short we took a whole day to travel what should have been possible in two hours. It simply wasn't going to work: With this unreliability we couldn't be sure that enough porters would arrive at the end of the trip to carry our gear back to Padum.

Fortunately, we had seen alternatives during the drive. Not far west of Padum, above Sani Village, is the valley of Rangtik Tokpo, in which we had seen a stunning monolith we dubbed Zanskar Cerro Torre. We didn't know that this peak had been climbed on August 5 by a Slovenian team who named it Jamyang Ri (5,800m), after consultation with locals. There was a small monastery, where we set up base camp. Hiking a few hours up valley to 4,900m, we saw many more huge granite walls.

On August 10, after acclimatization, Babsi and Thomas climbed an ice gully up the west face of a tower on the northwest face of Jamyang Ri, naming it Inshallah, Maybe (350m, M6 5c+ 60°), and the tower itself Torre Fanni (ca 5,600m). The same day, Michael, Timo, and I climbed a new route up the southeast face of Remalaye (H5 on the Sakamoto map, 6,278m). The difficulties of our 1,000m climb were 4a 55°.

Our next goal was to reach the top of Jamyang Ri. We spied a line on the southwest face, which offered cracks, corners, and ramps of amazing, solid, Chamonix-type granite. We climbed to the headwall by sunset. Above, things looked difficult, so we rappelled to a ledge, bivouacked, and next day, August 16, found a way up hidden corner cracks until finally a slab led to the top. Locals had told us this peak was unclimbed, but on discovering a brand-new sling we knew this to be false, and later we’d learn about the Slovenian ascent. We named our route Dust–From Dusk till Dawn (500m, 6a A1).

With seven days left, we decided to move to the Suru Valley, home to the famous Shafat Fortress (ca 5,900m). Reaching it involved crossing a large river, over which we built a Tyrolean traverse.

For their final goal of the expedition, Thomas and Timo climbed the northwest face of the west summit (5,700m) of Shafat Fortress over August 21–22, later realizing this was more or less a repeat of the 2015 route Estética Goulotte (900m, V/5+ M5, Baró- Pellissa, AAJ 2017). They made one bivouac during the ascent at 5,600m.

Babsi, Michael, and I added another route to the 4,700m slabby formation directly opposite camp, climbed in 2007 by a group of Italians via a 1,200m-long route, described as having great character and named the Chessboard (UIAA V+). This face sits below Peak Giorgio and the Golden Sentinel. On the 21st we climbed cracks and flakes to a point halfway up the face, then rappelled to the base and finished the climb next day, a little after sunset. Located well to the right of the Chessboard, the climb is named My Local River is a Nightmare (18 pitches, 6a+). We think that the face is 500m high.

– Lorin Etzel, dalorin@gmx.de, Germany