direct southwest pillar, Stairway to Heaven. From the summit of ...
G arhw al
Bhagirathi III (6,454m), direct southwest pillar, Stairway to Heaven. From the sum m it o f Shivling in 1996 I saw the challenge: to find a direct ro u te on the ridge o f B hagirathi III, because the southw est pillar route by th e Scottish team o f 1982 d id n ’t follow the actual ridgeline of the southw est pillar. I w anted to m aster the route w ith free clim bing and in alpine style. I w anted the route to be difficult and challenging, b u t Jörg Pflugm acher and I, b o th from Bavaria, also w anted to exclude any unpredictable risks to o u r lives. This is why we used bolts at belay sta tions and at dangerous points in free clim bing— the style was sim ilar to W olfgang Güllich’s on Nameless Tower in Pakistan. O n my 2001 expedition w ith R obert Jasper we started from th e west face basin. T he conditions were very bad: considerable snow and ice. The difficulty from the start to the pillar’s ridge (10 pitches) was M 7+. In th e 2004 ex pedition we started from the foot o f th e direct
southw est pillar and free-climbed m ore than 30 pitches o f 5a to 7b (French scale), with the exception of two pitches that might be a real chal lenge to any clim ber who repeats our route. D ue to a snow storm in the upper region we couldn’t climb higher on the iced slabs and had to move to another crack system with the help o f a pendulum traverse. More inform ation can be found (in G erm an) at www.expeditionsbergsteigen.de. Please see “Berichte” (reports) for photographs o f the 2001 and 2004 expeditions. [Additional details also in Lindsay Griffin’s sum mary, below— Ed.] Walter Hölzler, Germany
Bhagirathi III (6,454m), direct southwest pillar, Stairway to Heaven. From the sum m it o f Shivling in 1996 I saw the challenge: to find a direct ro u te on the ridge o f B hagirathi III, because the southw est pillar route by th e Scottish team o f 1982 d id n ’t follow the actual ridgeline of the southw est pillar. I w anted to m aster the route w ith free clim bing and in alpine style. I w anted the route to be difficult and challenging, b u t Jörg Pflugm acher and I, b o th from Bavaria, also w anted to exclude any unpredictable risks to o u r lives. This is why we used bolts at belay sta tions and at dangerous points in free clim bing— the style was sim ilar to W olfgang Güllich’s on Nameless Tower in Pakistan. O n my 2001 expedition w ith R obert Jasper we started from th e west face basin. T he conditions were very bad: considerable snow and ice. The difficulty from the start to the pillar’s ridge (10 pitches) was M 7+. In th e 2004 ex pedition we started from the foot o f th e direct
southw est pillar and free-climbed m ore than 30 pitches o f 5a to 7b (French scale), with the exception of two pitches that might be a real chal lenge to any clim ber who repeats our route. D ue to a snow storm in the upper region we couldn’t climb higher on the iced slabs and had to move to another crack system with the help o f a pendulum traverse. More inform ation can be found (in G erm an) at www.expeditionsbergsteigen.de. Please see “Berichte” (reports) for photographs o f the 2001 and 2004 expeditions. [Additional details also in Lindsay Griffin’s sum mary, below— Ed.] Walter Hölzler, Germany
