Azzardo estremo

Pakistan 2024

Bericht von Matteo de Zaiacomo (Go Vertical Athlet)

Each of us has a dream drawer, mine is overflowing with images of walls scattered all over the world. Sometimes it happens that you take out one of those images, hang it on the wall and set out to turn a dream into a goal. Nangma Valley was like this, an idea parked for years waiting for the right moment. With Chiara I have climbed a lot in the last year and after the experience in Patagonia which took us to the top of Fitz Roy we had the impression that our team was ready to face a real expedition.

We left on August 4th, we had some doubts it was too late for the season, we feared that the monsoons would ruin our plans. But for work reasons it was the only good time. When we arrived in Skardu we met the Italian group returning from K2 and we felt out of place, as if I had calculated wrong the ideal time to climb in Pakistan. I prayed that the beautiful days would continue and that we too would have our chance to climb. We left Skardu early in the morning aboard a beige 1984 Toyota landcruiser, a car that costs an exaggeration in our country due to its retro design. While in Skardu, as if in a bubble pierced by time, it is still the most versatile and inflated for traveling on steep and quenching mountain roads. We arrive in Kande in the late morning. One at a time our 18 porters leave towards the Nangma Valley weighed down by the load of our material and food for the base camp. In India the porters were stronger, porters from Nepal arrived in Gangotri for the season and loaded up to 50kg to get double pay. Here the boys climb calmly, they are men and boys from the village who lend themselves to this activity in a selfless manner, a different day than usual.

The march towards base camp is tiring, the sun beats down on our heads like a blacksmith. We had forgotten to fill a bottle of water and along the entire approach we can’t even find a stream where we can quench our thirst. Everything around us is dry. There isn’t a green bush, we go up and down scree, we cross sandy plains and the wind fills our eyes and nostrils with dust raised by the steps of those in front of us. It’s all dry! Beige, gray and suffocating. The higher we climb, the more the shapes of the mountains, which until then we have only seen in photographs, become clear. We are thrilled and happy! The day is beautiful! We pass the last moraine and now the Green Tower is in front of us, the Shingu Charpa above us. And there is a mountain that immediately catches our attention but of which we knew nothing at the bottom of the valley. The Skem Braq!

A few more meters of gravel and as if by magic a green and lush plateau opens up! With trees and a perfect green lawn, grazing cows and the gaze of the porters analysing our expressions, our amazement is a source of pride in their eyes, it signifies how much they care about sharing the beauty of their mountains. They don’t say anything but thex are delighted by our amazement at this beauty. We hurry to prepare the base camp, the cooks prepare us dinner from a restaurant and we retire to the tent, satisfied by the context that surrounds us. It will be a fantastic three weeks if the weather allows us to climb these walls.

The first week passes quickly, between a headache due to the altitude and some classic intestinal problems, we walk around the base camp, through the lenses of the binoculars we study the different walls in search of a new line to confront. A lifetime wouldn’t be enough to climb all the mountains within a three-hour walk from base camp. You’re spoiled for choice! But right at the beginning the paradies, this oasis of beauty hidden in the middle of the forbidding Karakoram mountains, shows its wildest and cruelest side. Many rocks fall from the various walls, making everything absolutely incomprehensible and we are forced to cross off some of our projects from the wish list for this valid reason. I imagine myself in a landslide of those proportions. The dust in your nose, the smell of sulphur and the hell of stones coming at you. The first big stones that brush against you, the time when you realize that sooner or later, or in a few seconds, one will come straight to hit you. These are the dangers that go beyond technical errors, risks that you take almost every time you go to the mountains but that no one can truly predict. We are scared and decide to turn our attention to what appears to be the most compact wall in the entire valley. The skem braq!

Let’s make a first attempt, the climb is exciting! We climb as fast as possible convinced that we will be able to get off the wall in just two days. We climb carrying friends from belay to belay because the cracks are all the same size. When you turn around to see the ropes coming towards you for 20 meters without without any other protection, you’re a little perplexed, but it’s the only way. We reach a point where the cracks are superficial and have patches of grass, I try to make my way by clearing the cracks as much as possible with the hammer but it’s all in vain, we’re too slow. We get off and return to base camp dejected.

We take a couple of days to decide what to do, but this attempt is the wall in a mix of regret, desire and ambition that calls us back for a second attempt. We leave more charged, with the intention of staying on the mountain for 5 days. I bring a small ice axe to clear the cracks in the grassy sections. We are ready for anything. And we will only go down when the porters come to collect us at base camp. We climb the part we know less quickly than on our first attempt, we are heavier and it is much colder. After the first two days of work we enjoy a rest on the large ledge, also forced by the bad weather. The next two days we climb, we proceed in artif, where the crack stops us from having to do some gardening. Complicated pirches now lead us late in the evening to a bivouac pitch. Little more than sitting we spend the night and the next day we start climbing again in a small snowstorm.

We arrive at the top around 9 in the morning and the day turns out to be splendid, a fantastic landscape all around us! Then we descend like splinters towards the base, finding on our path all the material on the ledge destroyed by a landslide. We think about how lucky we were and accelerate towards base camp. We have a feeling that this paradise could turn into hell. Only at base camp with a glass of coke in our hands do we realize that we have made it!

AZZARDO ESTREMO is the name of our new route on the skem braq. 900 meters of altitude difference and even more development. Climbing up to 7a and A3. Chiara and I couldn’t be more satisfied.

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