18/08/2008Trango 08 - The Free Dream

In a week's time, DMM Climbing Team member Gaz Parry, will be leaving for Pakistan as part of a small international group of climbers with the main objective of free climbing Eternal Flame on Trango's Nameless Tower (6239m). British climbing has had a long association with this 1000 metre spire. It was first climbed by a big-name British party comprising of Martin Boysen, Mo Anthoine, Malcolm Howells and Joe Brown in 1976. In 1995 Adam Wainwright and Paul Pritchard repeated the Yugoslav route despite the ice-filled cracks.

Eternal Flame (Albert-Gullich-Stiegler-Sykora, 1989) takes a line to the left of the Yugoslav route on the South-East face. This isn't the first time an attempt has been made to free climb the VI, 7b+, A2 route. Denis Burdet writing in Alpinist (Dec 2003) described Eternal Flame as: "Take all of the best granite climbs you have done and put them all on one route!" Burdet and team-mates free climbed the route apart from a blank wall with bolts on pitch 10. He reported that: "There are no possibilities of free climbing this." Although he added: "One possibility will be to open two new pitches to the right, but you may need some bolts, and the crack system is often full of ice."

In autumn 2006, a team of Slovenian women (Btista, Voglar, Grmovsek) repeated Eternal Flame alpine style at VI, 6c, A2, M5 to make the first all female ascent of Trango Tower. Silvo Karo and Andrej Grmovsek on the same expedition made the first one day ascent (20hrs from the south col to the top) of the 35 pitch Eternal Flame at a grade of VI, 7b, A2, M5. Climbandmore.com and Alpinist.com have details of these ascents.

Gaz is planning to update the expedition blog using a satellite phone they are taking with them. Further details of the trip can also be found on their website. Gaz has been getting in some unusual training for the trip and said: "Lately, I've been cutting lots of wood to fit out my Dutch barge. It's been really hard work so I hope its kept me in-shape." He continued: "And a couple of days after coming back I hope I'll be able to tell the Prime Minister about our success as I'm off to Downing Street as part of the 'Celebration of British Mountaineering' at No. 10."

Photos:

top: Trango Towers from the Dunge Glacier. Trango or Nameless Tower is the tall peak on the right with Eternal Flame taking the skyline on the left. © Adam Wainwright

middle: Hopefully Gaz will not face conditions like these. Paul Pritchard without crampons making the best of iced-up cracks on the Yugoslav Route. © Adam Wainwright

bottom: Eternal Flame takes a crack line up the left side of the face. © Adam Wainwright