Supported by William Newsom
YOUNG ALPINIST GROUP
Pakistan, Oct 2025
The YAG Pakistan expedition took place from the end of September to the end of October 2025, and consisted of Sinead Thin, Gemma Robertson, Anna Soligo, James Price and George Ponsonby. A few days were spent in Hostel Nomads in Aliabad to sort food for the next month and transportation up to our base camp, then Sinead, Gemma and Anna hopped into a 1960s Jeep along with Hassan, a local climber and friend of James, who was the notional ‘cook’ for the expedition (but in more of a head-chef way, and we were all the sous-chefs), to head up into the Baltar Valley and get settled. George arrived a few days later than the rest so James waited for him in Aliabad, and they then joined the girls along with another two local climbers, Adnan and Najeeb (the notional ‘guides’ for the expedition).
With everyone settled into basecamp, spirits were high and anticipation building for…..a week and a half of bad weather. There was beautiful weather in the four days before the lads arrived, during which the girls had managed to go for an acclimation trip to the toe of the glacier below their chosen route on a mountain called Munocho, and had spent an unpleasant night (some vomiting, raging headaches etc) at altitude before stashing some equipment, a tent and their boots. They had also bought a goat from the local shepherds, which made its way into each dinner for the next week. Once James, George, Adnan and Najeeb arrived, the whole group fully settled into shepherd life for the next while. Akbar, one of the head Shepherds, had lent us a hut to use and we got well acquainted with making chapatis, fittis, pressure cooking meat and beans, and carving spoons. Some forays into the mountains were made over the next week and a half, with James and George checking out possible lines to climb, the whole group making an overnight trek to Batura base camp, and a couple of acclimation hikes by the lads (as the girls had left their boots in a gear stash, that was getting steadily buried by ever more worrying amounts of snow, they were a bit more bound to base camp). However, excitement was building for a big weather window that was slowly creeping up on us.
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Once the window arrived, everyone waited for a day to let the mountains clean up a bit – a fair amount of snow had fallen over the past while. Anna, Sinead and Gemma left first to attempt their route. Hassan and Adnan left next, they went to the top of a 5100m pass at the head of our valley, which they named ‘Tur Galum’ (Broken Horn). George and James left in the evening, to go bivy at the base of their chosen route.
Gemma, Sinead and Anna:
On the first day, we made our way back to find our gear stash. Despite some worries (and a lot of teasing) over the previous days, it was easily findable under the snow, and everything was still dry. So after doubling the size of our bags, we continued onto the glacier and camped there for the night.
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On the second day, with lots of wading in the snow, progress was slow. It took 6 hours for us to cross the glacier. We then navigated our way through the rock band via a gulley (more wading), some ice and some M3 sections at the end. With Gemma putting in a big effort leading multiple mixed pitches in the dark. We reached the ridge at midnight, quite exhausted.
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We had planned for a 4 day ascent, so the next day was a push for the summit. So after sleeping for a few hours we left the tent and continued along the ridge. The ridge was mainly not too complicated, just some crevasses, some ice and a lot of steep snow swimming. With of course some gravitating to the rock in the hope of wading less. As each hour passed we were slowing down. A quick lunch break and a check on progress showed we were only around half way along the ridge to the summit, which meant if we continued it was certain benightment. With an intimidating steep section ahead, exhaustion, benightment and altitude all at play, a decision was made to turn back at 5632m (inreach). The shuffle back towards the tent began, and after some abseiling and lots of wading we returned to our tent a few hours before sunset. Then we decided to continue abseiling down the rock band so we could sleep a little lower (so breathing was easier and so it was warmer!). Gemma led the abseils beautifully and after only 4 abseils, we were back on the glacier. Then it was bed time just an hour or two after sunset.
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On the fourth day we walked much faster down the glacier following the old tracks. Then we picked up the last of the stashes and walked back down the basecamp quite tired!
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Sinead gives her thoughts: as this was our first time trying an unclimbed peak, I think we chose a quite achievable aim and worked well as a team: Anna did the snow swimming, Gemma did the mixed and I (Sinead) did the ice! It was a fun challenge, but as always you wonder what we should have done differently. I believe aiming to do the peak over 6 days would have left us with more success, but with Anna’s flight only days after we were on a tight schedule. Another factor that would have helped is acclimatising more, that was our own fault with stashing our boots, leaving us slightly more basecamp bound during the week of snow. So in conclusion don’t stash your boots, don’t stash your tent..
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James and George:
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We had selected a buttress/ridgeline going to the summit of Aikache Chhok¹ 6673m a couple kilometers to the south west of Hachindar Chhish. The first day we left in the evening to cross the glacier and bivvy at the base of the route. James pulled out some impressive repairs of our bags, both of which broke. The first day of climbing started out strong, we made good progress up a main gully, then left into a side gully, before reaching about 6 pitches of mixed climbing up to M5/M6 to connect small snowfields further and further up a face to try and reach the ridgeline. One memorable pitch involved the leader needing to be lowered into a small mixed/thin ice couloir, with the second needing to make a tensioned jump into it. The day ended three pitches below the ridgeline.
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Day two took all day to climb three pitches of mixed and aid up to M7/A2+. James put in a very good effort on pitch two in particular, which involved an overhanging aid crack on rock that got looser and looser. Then I finished off the climbing on a pitch that started out as steep mixed, to slabbier mixed buried in powder that finally led to the ridge. Exhausted, we moved to the south side of the ridge and set up camp in the first bit of sunlight we had seen in a couple of days.
On day three we left the ridgeline, due to steep, compact rock we were unable to climb with the equipment we had, and moved up a steep, broken glacier and snow ledges, before moving back up to the ridge on mixed ground, reaching a bivy site just before what we dubbed the ‘second rock step’.
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Day four and five required navigating the second rock step, with the only possible option being to climb it via ice slopes on the north side. After abseiling into the ice slopes and climbing a few pitches, we climbed into a dead end – with daylight fading, a retreat was made back to the bivy to try again the next day. We made it through after climbing 8 long pitches up to AI5, and a vertical snow pitch to exit back to the ridge in the dark. Casualties included two partially broken ice screws and a chipped pick from the rock-solid glacial ice.
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Day six we continued along further black ice up the ridge, with some chossy rock steps thrown in. In the evening, with no good bivy spots in sight, we traversed to the glacier on the right and found a bivy spot in a crevasse at 6150m, again after dark.
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Day seven continued up the face with some snow simul climbing, an overhanging ice step and one and a half pitches of steep black ice to the ridge between the mini-summit and the main summit. Just as we reached the ridge, and daylight, the summit ridge was encased in clouds/wind and visibility dropped. Ploughing through endless snow, we reached a point just below the summit at 4pm. Completely unwilling to do any more climbing, battered by the winds and with terrible visibility, we quickly threw up the bivy tent and jumped inside it to wait out the bad weather overnight. James fixed a pitch up the summit cornice that evening.
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Day 8 arrived with clear, calm weather. After we both touched the summit with the safety of a belay (measured at 6673m on a garmin), thoughts turned to getting off the mountain. Very little of our planned descent route had been visible from the valley in the previous weeks, and bad weather had meant that recce missions to scope out the descent were of limited utility. After getting as much information as possible from the summit ridge, we started to abseil, first off rock then off endless v threads. After some complex glacial crossings, abseiling over seracs and more rock, the team eventually reached a bivy spot just as the sun set, in time to see the headtorches shining up at them from base camp.
Day 9 we continued down to a large rock rib/ridge between two glaciers that converged at the base of the mountain. Seeing no good way through either glacier, we started abseiling down the rib, aiming for the convergence point of the glaciers. At the end of the rock, we climbed onto the glacier on the climber’s left, did two speed abseils, leaving screws behind, reached the base of the glacier, walked 200m to the right behind a rock rib and we were done! Before reaching base camp we were greeted by a rowdy, chanting group consisting of Adnan, Hassan, Gemma and the shepherds firing off rifles. They didn’t have a name for the mountain in this valley (the mountains are referred to by different colloquial names in each valley) , and wanted to name the mountain ‘James Chhok’ (James mountain), as James had done such a good job at international relations - he convinced them to call it ‘Akbar Chhok’ instead, in honor of our host.
The next day everyone left base camp and returned to Aliabad by 10pm to a fire and a bottle of Pakistan poitin/moonshine. A few days in Aliabad taking in the sights, eating Yak burgers and relaxing in the hostel, and the team started the staggered return to Islamabad and home.
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There are many people to thank for this trip – Mountain Equipment, Petzl and La Sportiva for gear supplied, the Alpine Club, the Mount Everest Foundation (MEF), the British Mountaineering Club (BMC) and the Scottish Mountaineering Club (SMC) for assisting with funding, Tom Livingstone for setting up the YAG and bringing us all together, James for the wealth of experience he brought to Pakistan, Hassan, Adnan and Najeeb for allowing us to stay in Hostel Nomads and for joining us for the trip, and most of all Akbar and the rest of the Shepherds who kindly let us stay with them for our duration in the mountains, provided us with food and shelter, and kept an eye out for us while we were in the mountains.
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¹ First climbed in 1983 by an Italian expedition consisting of ​​Enrico De Luca, Giorgio Malucci und Gianpiero Di Federico. They climbed from the Shilinbar glacier to the South. No recorded ascents since. The summit is also referred to as Akbar Chhok in the Baltar Valley and Sia Chhish from the Shilinbar side.