Trango - The Free Dream

Trango 2008 - The Free Dream

The Trango Group lies above the Baltoro Glacier in the heart of the Karakorum

On the 26th of August a truly European team of climbers will leave the UK with one aim on their minds, to free climb The Eternal Flame route on Trango Tower. Also known as the Nameless Tower, the 6,239m high east face is home to some of the best and most challenging multi pitch routes on the planet. Our objective takes the left hand skyline!

The Team

The team of six has been assembled by Jerry Gore, who has led numerous expeditions to climb big walls and alpine routes all over the world. As one of the UK’s leading expedition climbers, Jerry has led expeditions to make first ascents of high altitude peaks up to 8000m in the Himalaya, alpine walls in Patagonia, the Pamirs, the Bugaboos, Baffin Island and Greenland. In 2000 he led the first successful ascent of Lows Gully Wall, which was also the first expedition to be streamed live onto the web.

The second member of the team from the UK is North Face Athlete Gaz Parry. 35 year old Gaz has been a professional climber since 2000 and has been involved with most styles of climbing, usually at the highest levels. Gaz is more commonly known as a competition climber and as a long serving member of the British team has held all UK titles, placed 3rd at the World Cup in Birmingham and is the current Arco Rockmaster. With numerous E7 and E8 first ascents to his name Gaz has also excelled in the world of adventure climbing, a trip to Madagascar resulted in the first on-sight ascent of Always the Sun and in 2003 he made the first ascent of the Worlds Highest Sea Cliff, The 4490ft “Devils Thumbnail” in Greenland.

The second pair of climbers are from France. Denis Roy and Pierre Muller have been operating as a strong team for a number of years now and have traveled the world together. They met the English pair in Madagascar in 2006, and from that meeting came the Trango adventure. Denis has numerous first ascents to his name, from free routes up to 7c in Morocco to the first on-sight ascent of Gonwanaland in Madagascar. Denis is now also a talented cameraman with two films, Madagasikara and Sahara Vertical to his name. He will be in Pakistan with his camera and will be filming the expedition for a DVD release in 2009.

Pierre Muller has taken expeditions to India, Jordan, Burma, Kirghizstan as well as excelling with winter ascents of the Matterhorn and The Eiger.  Whilst in Kirghizstan he visited the Ak Su valley and made a rare repeat of The Missing Mountain. Pierre in his spare time is a I.F.M.G.A Mountain Guide and Medical Doctor.

The final two of climbers are David Kaslikowski and Eliza Kubaska from Poland. David works as a professional mountain photographer and was born in Warsaw in 1973. His main objective is exploration of big walls in remote mountain areas, combining this with climbing up to 8b+ and M10+. David has had many successful trips and first ascents. Barracuda 7c+, 600m and Fantasia 750m were climbed in the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco; Lotos Peak, a 750 m high tower in Miyar, Himalaya; The 300m 8a Subinedo El Arcoiris in Mexico; the 1150 m long Last Cry of The Butterfly was climbed over two weeks to create one of the hardest Alaskan routes. In Greenland, following in Gaz’s footsteps, he climbed a new route on the world's highest sea cliff. The 2000m route allowed David and Eliza to become only the second team to stand on the summit of Maujit Qaqarssuasia. 

The extremely talented Eliza is one of the best Polish female climbers and one of the few women who open big wall routes in remote places. As an avid sport climber, she onsights 7c and redpoints 8a, and was Polish speed champion in her youth.                                                                            

Her most important expeditions include new routes in Greenland, Mexico, Mali, Morocco and Jordan where she opened new multi-pitch routes with David Kaszlikowski. The couple's Greenland expedition received the prestigious alpinist award, Jedynka, for the most important polish ascent of the year. When back in Warsaw she runs her climbing school “Only For Girls”.

The Aim
There are three objectives for the 2008 Trango expedition. A free ascent of The Eternal Flame, a Free Ascent of the Slovenian Route, and a new route on Trango Monk. The main aim will be to free climb the 35 pitch 800m Eternal Flame route on Trango Tower. The route was originally climbed in 1989 by the legendary team of Wolfgang Gullich and Kurt Albert along with Stiegler and Sykora and takes a line left of the Yugoslav route on the South-East Face.

Jerry met Kurt and Wolfgang at the K2 Motel in Skardu at the start of their 1989 adventure. Jerry was leading an expedition to climb some other rock pillars above the nearby Biafo Glacier. Ever since this chance encounter, Jerry has vowed to return. The amount of aid on The Eternal Flame has been slowly reduced to two unfree pitches. Denis Burdet wrote about the Eternal Flame in the Dec 2003 issue of Alpinist Magazine (www.alpinist.com). “Take all of the best granite climbs you have done and put them all on one route and that is the Eternal Flame". Denis and his team reduced the aid to two pitches.

A lower pendulum pitch will require a new variation line to be climbed if it is to go free. The other, higher pitch remaining to be free climbed was almost freed in 2005 by the talented Pou brothers. They managed to climb the hardest section of the 'Pou Variation' pitch at around F8a or E8 6c, but failed on the easy crack due to extremely poor conditions. Whether these pitches will go free is one of the biggest unanswered questions of big wall free climbing. If the team are able to complete their goal it will fulfill the original dream of Gullich and Albert to establish the greatest big-wall free climb on earth.

British climbing has had a long association with this 1000m spire. The first ascent was made by, Martin Boysen, Mo Anthoine, Malcolm Howells and Joe Brown back in 1976. In 1995 Adam Wainright and Paul Pritchard repeated the Yugoslav route despite the poor conditions they encountered.

The expedition is supported by the following sponsors: The North Face, Millet, La Spotiva, DMM, Metolius, High 5, Les Arts De La Grimpe, Mammut and Petzl.

You can follow the story at www.trango08.com and www.trango08.blogspot.com and share in the completion of the Free Dream. Check out the website for lecture dates and the release date of our DVD telling the story of our adventures.

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PlanetFear wishes Jerry, Gaz, Denis, Pierre, Eliza and David a successful trip to Trango. News of The Free Dream will be published on planetFear as it emerges.