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The first ascent of the North-West Face of Gorky Peak (6010m)
Tien Shan, 23 july- 8 August, 2002

Members:
Yuri Ermachek, the leader
Vadim Popovich
Alexander Korobkov
Alexander Mikhailov, the coach of the team

route

The ascent was the part of the 2001 All Russia Mountaineering Championship in technical class. Usually there are ascents to the tops high up to the 5500m in that class, but this year up to the 6500m

ermachel popovich Korobkov Mikhailov

The team won the silver medals. ( there were 24 pretendents in the technical class, the teams climbed in the different regions around the World.) The golden medals won the Moscow team for the 5th ascent of the El Capitan via the famous "Reticent Wall" (USA)

Gorky: 5100m

The route data:
High difference -1500m
the length of the route -about 2000m, about 350m 6b
route class - 6b (russian classification) (appr. ED2)

Dates:

  • 23-25 July - prepation
  • 25 July - start
  • 6 August - summit
  • 8 August - BC

The Ural's team ascent to Peak Gorky (6010m) in August 2001 became the very important event in the history of the Russian Mountaineering

Soviet and russian climbers conqured about 5000 routes of the different difficulty classes during 100-years history of the motherland mountaineering. All of them are included in the official Catalogue - classification routes.

And only 51 routes are in the EXTRA GROUP or "superextrem" in that Catalogue - 6b by the Russian Classification There are 4 routes, climbed by Ural's teams in that list: two among them was climbed by Efimov's team in 1974 and 1982, Ostanin - in 1986 and the last - Kljonov route in 1993.

Gorky: 5500m at the top

Since that our mountaineers realized the famous climbs, mentioned in the foreign media: Baruntse (Nepal), Thalay Sagar (India), Macalu (Nepal)- Piolet d'Or for the best ascent in 1997, Khan Tengri (Kazakhstan), Spantik (Pakistan) and , finally, the Lhotse Middle (Nepal) - the last unclimbed 8000-peak of the World. But those ascents haven't included in Extra Group of Classification Catalogue by the RMF. The only new route, made by Russian climbers, which was added last year to the Extra Group, became Ural's team route - the first ascent of the North-West Face of Gorky Peak (6010m), central Tien Shan ( Big Wall class)

panorama

This mountain region is far away from the civilization, has the very high peaks (till 6995m) and relief peculliarities, the hard climate, and, finally there are a lot of avalanches all year around - all of that provides high difficulties for climbers.

 

1959 - the first unsuccessful attempt of ascent this peak by climbers from Kazakhs Republic Alp Club
1962 - ascent Peak Gorky via the South Ridge by the "Trud" team (Vladimir Krilov, Sergey Sogrin, Boris Slobtsov, Vladimir Igosgkin)
1970 - ascent Peak Gorky via the same ridge (variant) by Ukrainian team (leader -Naugolny)

The time of the "Big Walls" began through the 40 years, in XXI century...

From the A. Mikhailov's article "In the shade of Khan Tengri":

" ...The North-West Face of Gorky Peak can compete with the famous Walls of Grang Jorasse and Petit Dru (French Alps) in its beautifullness and difficulty plus it is higher than them about 2 kilometers. But here, in Central Tien Shan, it is in the shade of Khan Tengri, the Empire of the Sky, the most northern 7000-peak at the World, which is near the Peak Gorky in the same mountain range. We have climbed the North Wall of Gorky Peak via one of the hardest routes, and I now can say that it's more extrem than that walls..."

 

Club of climbers (Ural, Russia)

 

 

 

 

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