SAMAYA x SYMON WELFRINGER
OPENING ON THE SOUTH FACE OF BAINTHA KABATA
In June 2023, Symon Welfringer, Matteo Della Bordella and Silvan Schupbach embarked on a project to open a route on the Ogre in Pakistan, months in the planning. Weather conditions made the operation too dangerous, so the three climbers adapted and turned to the unexplored south face of Baintha Kabata.
It's a place where there have been expeditions before, but no one had been there for 15 or 20 years. We left at the end of June for Pakistan to reach the Toy Glacier. We spent four or five days with mules and porters to bring all our gear for the 40-day base camp. We had planned to stay quite a long time because there was an initial phase of acclimatization, of getting to know the area, so that we could then make several attempts at our project.
It was a pretty wild place, we were surrounded by some pretty crazy mountains, with impressive 7,000-meter peaks practically all around us.
For acclimatization, we took the skis, climbed the glacier and spent several nights on summits up to 6000 meters, from where we could ski back down. We took advantage of the opportunity to pass by the foot of the south-east face of the Ogre to drop off some equipment, with the idea of returning the following week to give it a try.
After this phase, there was a lot of bad weather. We had to wait a good week at base camp. It wasn't so bad, because we had access to small boulders and routes. We'd brought spits with us, so we were able to equip bits of wall and even open a 400-meter long route with François Cazanelli.
We finally had our first weather window. We set off up the face and on the second day of climbing, the weather turned really nasty overnight. It really wasn't in the cards. The window of good weather was supposed to last at least 5 days, and we ended up with 30 centimetres of snow overnight.
We tried to wait it out, but realized that it was getting much too dangerous. If we kept going, there would be no turning back. So we headed back, leaving all our gear behind, with the idea of going back in mind.
For the next two weeks, we found ourselves in a kind of monsoon blocked over Pakistan, which brought a lot of snow.
We did make a second attempt, with a bit of a slot, although we knew it was a bit shaky. At the end of the first day, we had to turn back. We went back up to get our equipment, but it wasn't working.
From the Ogre, we could see the Baintha Kabata at 6290 metres. Much lower than the one we were on, but with a wall that looked extremely interesting to climb. With Silvan and Matteo, we wanted to try a route on its south face.
A two-and-a-half-day window was opening up, so we went for it. We skied 16 kilometers to reach the bottom of the glacier, at the foot of the face. We first slept at the foot of the face, then bivouacked at around 6000 metres, two-thirds of the way up, before tackling the steepest part. We then made 25 abseils down to the finish. We managed to open the route in two days. It's 1,000 meters long, with some really cool pitches, hyper-technical climbing, in slippers or mixed.
We called this route "The Alien Wall", because one bad-weather evening at base camp, we saw some sort of headlamps, lights in the distance, even though there were no climbers there and it was impossible to climb. We thought they were aliens.
