Great Trango New Route
He achieved worldwide recognition in the climbing world in 1992 when he climbed the East Face of Great Trango Tower (6286 m a.s.l.) in Karakoram, Pakistan, with Xaver Bongard. As a lightweight, two man team, they were the first to climb about 5000-feet vertical rock face of Great Trango to the summit (in fact, to the lower, East Summit of Great Trango, 6231 m) and make it down alive. (The East Face of Great Trango was climbed in 1984 via neighbor route, Norwegian Pillar, by the team of best Norwegian climbers, but the summiters died on the descent; next two ascents of this route not reached the true top of the wall, the East Summit of Great Trango.)
The Grand Voyage, 4400 feet high, along with the slightly higher Norwegian Pillar on the same face, have been noted as "perhaps the hardest big-wall climbs in the world" (see Trango Towers). The 1992 new route required 15 days and nights to climb and three days to descend, using portaledges designed and constructed by Middendorf in his outdoor equipment company (A5 Adventures, Inc.)
Read more about this topic: John Middendorf
Famous quotes containing the word route:
“no arranged terror: no forcing of image, plan,
or thought:
no propaganda, no humbling of reality to precept:
terror pervades but is not arranged, all possibilities
of escape open: no route shut,”
—Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926)