Batura Muztagh Expedition 1959

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The 1959 Batura Muztagh Expedition took place in the summer of 1959 in the Pakistani mountain range of Batura Muztagh . Its aim was to conduct scientific research on the subject of glaciology and geology as well as the first mountaineering of the main summit Batura Sar ( 7795  m ). It is unclear whether the first ascent was successful, as five of the six expedition participants disappeared without a trace during a storm.

The Batura wall with the Batura Sar

Mountains

The Batura Muztagh is the westernmost hills of Karakorum , an up to 8611  m high mountains in Central Asia in which, inter alia, the K2 , the Broad Peak , the Gasherbrum I and Gasherbrum II is located. The Batura Muztagh is located in the Gilgit-Baltistan region , a Pakistani special territory in the disputed Kashmir region in the far north of the country. It is the only part of the main Karakoram range that lies west of the Hunza Valley.

The almost 58 km long Batura Glacier runs centrally in the mountain group. To the south of it rises the so-called Batura Wall, a mountain ridge about 40 km long and nowhere below 6000 m with the most important peaks of the Batura Muztagh. The highest point is the Batura Sar or "Batura I" with 7795 m.

Explorations

In the summer of 1925, a Dutch expedition led by Philips Visser explored the Batura glacier for the first time and also studied the summit of the Batura wall. In 1933 the Briton Reginald Schomberg explored the Bola Das Valley, south of the main Batura ridge. In 1947 the Bola Das Valley was explored again by an international expedition with the participation of members from Switzerland, England and Canada.

In the summer of 1954 a German-Austrian expedition started to explore, map and research the Batura Muztagh. The scientific director was Wolfgang Pillewizer , other researchers including Hans-Jochen Schneider and Martin Schliessler . Mathias Rebitsch was in charge of the mountaineering, and Anderl Heckmair was another well-known mountaineer on the expedition . They set up their base camp on the southern edge of the Batura Glacier and within a week they reached an altitude of about 6,700 m. Due to a sudden fall in the weather and the enormous risk of avalanches, the expedition members gave up on climbing the Batura Sar and instead climbed a 6,784 m high secondary peak.

Expedition 1959

Aerial view of part of the Batura Muztagh

In the summer of 1959 a British expedition to Batura Muztagh took place. Keith Warburton (31) was the director and doctor of the company. Participants were the surveyor and glaciologist John Edwards (26), as well as the English climbers Richard Knight (25) and Harry Stephenson (23). Other participants were the German mountaineer and geologist Martin Günnel (28) and the German mountaineer of Austrian origin Albert Hirschbichler (27). The mountaineers on the expedition were considered extremely experienced. Hirschbichler had already climbed the Civetta Northwest Face, the Piz Badile Northeast Face, the Great Zinne North Face and the Eiger North Face , among others . Günnel was able to look back on demanding mountain trips, among others in the Silvretta and the Dolomites . The two Englishmen Knight and Stephenson have already climbed the Peuterey ridge of Mont Blanc , the longest combined ridge climb in the Alps. There they met Hirschbichler, who had stood by them during a sudden fall in the weather.

On April 11th they all sailed together from Liverpool to Karachi . During the crossing they met Jamil Sherjan (21), the son of a Pakistani general who had served in the British Army for a while. He then accompanied the expedition as a supporter with the surveying work and investigations.

From Karachi they took the train to Rawalpindi , where they had to wait 17 days for their onward flight to Gilgit due to bad weather . This then took place with a Douglas DC-3 from Pakistan Airways. After having to wait four days again because of bad weather, they drove to Karimabad for around five hours in nine off-road vehicles . There the equipment was loaded onto carrying horses, with which they then went on to Passu for three days .

From there, yaks crossed the Batura Glacier, the fourth largest glacier in the world outside the polar region , for six days . With a delay of 18 days, the base camp was finally established on June 4, 1959 at the foot of the mighty Batura Icefall, which stretches from the glacier to the summit. The British roughly stuck to the 1954 camp and route. Three high mountain porters were supposed to stay with the expedition, but were released due to disagreement. As it turned out later, one of them was a wanted deserter of the army.

As early as 1954, the climbers had warned of the mighty and strongly fissured icefall. The ice there moves between three and six meters a day, which means that the ascent route is constantly being rediscovered and great dangers from collapsing ice towers and newly breaking crevasses . The whole area is also at great risk from avalanches , which, due to the huge area of ​​the western flank, reach unimagined dimensions. After 1959 an expedition never tried again at this point.

In the following weeks, the participants explored the lower part of the icefall and set up the first two high camps at 4000 m and 4900 m. John Edwards and Jamil Sherjan began surveying the glacier and lower icefall, also checking the flow rate. Except for a few rainy days in mid-June, the weather was extremely good. As early as June 23, Warburton, Günnel, Hirschbichler, Knight and Stephenson were in camp 3 at 5500 m, which was well equipped with supplies. The participants expected three more camps to reach the summit and a return time to base camp of 15 days. It was also certain that in an emergency, high camps 1 and 2 would no longer be able to be used due to the lower ice fall, which changes almost daily.

Edwards and Sherjan were in the base camp area when the bad weather hit on July 2nd. Due to heavy rain and snowfall, they were trapped in their tent for four days and had to dig themselves up again. Then they continued their surveying activities on the glacier and recovered the equipment from camp 1 that the climbers could no longer need after this long time. At the base camp they were visited by a local hunter who brought them fresh meat and told them that on June 28 he had seen two people ascending about 500 m below the summit of Batura Sar. This coincided with the plans that a two-person summit team should set up camp 6 at 7300 m and set off from there to the summit. Since four days passed from this observation until the onset of bad weather, Edwards thought that the climbers were already on their way down and had sought shelter from the storm in one of the high camps.

When no one had returned on July 19, Edwards first became concerned. Because up to this point in time their supplies had sufficed. However, since he was still observing snowfall at Camp 3, he suspected that the climbers were still waiting for the weather to improve. On July 26th the weather cleared the view up to the summit area, but Edwards could still see no movement. Now he was convinced of an accident and got off to Passu to get help. There he met members of a Swiss Distaghil Sar expedition, who gave him a tent and some of their high-mountain equipment. Edwards also contacted the Pakistani authorities, who, however, did not promise any support due to the politically controversial area.

On July 30, Edwards and Sherjan tried to ascend to camp 3, but failed at around 4500 m due to the difficult conditions in the icefall. On July 4th, they broke up their base camp and started their return journey. On their way through the Hunza Valley, they suddenly met three German mountaineers who agreed to help and then marched back to the base camp area with Edwards. Due to health problems that have arisen in the meantime, Edwards could no longer participate in a renewed ascent. The Germans reached a point from where they could see the location of Camp 3 indicated by Edwards, but saw nothing but snow. On August 15, Edwards left base camp with the Germans and made his way home to Liverpool.

Keith Warburton, Richard Knight, Harry Stephenson, Martin Günnel and Albert Hirschbichler are still missing today, and it is unclear whether any of them reached the summit. It is considered likely that they were hit by an ice avalanche that fell several times a day during the bad weather phase.

First ascent

The official first ascent of Batura Sar was finally achieved by a German expedition led by Alexander Schlee in the summer of 1976. The Germans had decided to climb via the southwest side, with Hubert Bleicher and Herbert Oberhofer reaching the summit on June 30th in bad weather and thick fog.

literature

  • Chronicle of the development of the Karakoram, part 1 by Wolfgang Heichel

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