In late July and August, Ivan Shilnikov, Pavel Tkachenko, and I spent two weeks exploring the area west of Muisky Giant (also spelled Muiski or Muysky, 3,067m), the second-highest peak of Transbaikalia. This area of the South Muya Range (South Muiski Range) is far from populated areas and extremely difficult to reach. We hiked about 30km to reach our camp by Lake Geologov, with cumulative vertical gain of 1,500m. (We walked about 100km total during the expedition.) During two weeks in the mountains, we did not meet a single person. We carried all of our own loads, starting with about 40kg per person.

On August 7, we climbed an unnamed summit marked on the map as Peak 2,745m. We climbed this by the west ridge, starting from Mataika Pass, with about five pitches of easy climbing, descending by the same route. We named the peak in honor of Katya Repina, a girl who hiked and climbed with us, and who had died that summer in the Sayan Mountains.

Our main objective was the first ascent of Muisky Giant’s unclimbed south peak (3,040m). Leaving our camp by Lake Geologov at 5 a.m. on August 8, we approached the southwest face in about 2.5 hours and started up the steep face. I led all day, and we climbed 16 pitches, using no bolts. We spent the night on the south-southwest ridge. This was an open bivouac, with just one sleeping bag for the three of us, but we found snow and ice to melt for water and we slept well.

The next day we continued up the long ridge to the summit tower. Five difficult pitches brought us to the top, where we left a cairn and a note. We descended the summit tower by rappel and downclimbed easy terrain on the northwest side of the ridge into a valley, then crossed through a pass to return to our camp by the lake by evening.

In all, our route was 1,300m (climbing distance) and had 24 pitches; we called it Team of Our Youth (Russian 6A).

To leave the mountains, we hiked to the Muya River and assembled an inflatable catamaran, on which we rafted about 70km downstream, a journey complicated by rapids.

There are many objectives for new lines in this area; many peaks have not even been climbed. [Several years earlier, Glazunov and Tkachenko, with various other partners, climbed many new routes in an area of dramatic granite peaks about 125km southwest of Muisky Giant; see AAJs 2020 and 2021. Tragically, in February 2024, Glazunov died while descending from Ak-Su in Kyrgyzstan after completing a solo winter ascent of the Chaplinksy Route (Russian 6B, 1988) on the north face.]

— Evgeny Glazunov, Russia