Pik Kommunizma/Ismoil Somoni (24,590ft), Tajikjstan Highpoint

Pik Kommunizma/Ismoil Somoni (24,590ft/7495m)

Highest Peak in Tajikistan

Aug 14-17, 2023

Eric, Andreas, Ian, Reuben, Paul

Aug 14 – climb from basecamp to plateau (5900m)
Aug 15 – move to peak dushanbe camp (7000m)
Aug 16 – summit (7495m), return to plateau 
Aug 17 – descend to basecamp 

There are five 7000m peaks in the former soviet union and they are collectively known as the snow leopard peaks. Since soviet times mountaineers have worked on the peakbagging objective to climb all five peaks. If you climb all five you are recognized as a snow leopard, which was a great honor in soviet times and is still so today. 

The names of the peaks have changed over the years but the most commonly used names by mountaineers are Lenin, Khan Tengri, Pobeda, Korzhenevskaya, and Kommunizma. Pobeda is by far the hardest, even harder than K2, and mountaineers joke that becoming a snow leopard is 60% climbing Pobeda and 10% climbing each other peak. 

While there are only five peaks on the list, climbing all five is still very difficult. To date around 550 people have completed the list of all five peaks. 

Note: there are officially around 700 snow leopard mountaineers, but many of these finished during a period in the 1980s during a border dispute with china when Pobeda was removed from the list. Pobeda is by far the hardest peak on the list, so a distinction is made between completers with or without Pobeda. The official up-to-date list of completers is found at http://www.russianclimb.com/snowleopard/table.htm

Three of the peaks – Lenin, Khan Tengri, and Pobeda – are on country borders and are generally climbed from Kyrgyzstan, and the other two – korzhenevskaya and kommunisma – are completely within Tajikistan. 

Andreas and I had previously in 2021 climbed the three snow leopard peaks in Kyrgyzstan – Lenin, Khan Tengri and Pobeda – but had to cancel plans for the remaining two that summer after I got frostbite descending from Pobeda. 

In 2022 we planned to finish the list and use broad peak in pakistan for acclimation in advance. But at the last minute after climbing broad peak we decided instead to stick around and climb K2. That meant we missed the helicopter into basecamp in Tajikistan. 

In 2023 we decided to finally finish off our remaining two peaks in Tajikjstan.

The standard way to climb Korzhenevskaya and Kommunizma is to helicopter from the town of Jirgital to Moskvina Glade basecamp located at 4300m between the two peaks. However, over the previous few years the helicopters have been very unreliable. 

A company called Pamir Peaks used to run the basecamp. Generally there are a handful of days in july and august when helicopter shuttles are scheduled to and from basecamp. In 2017 the helicopter schedule was altered at the last minute, though. Rumor has it there was only one helicopter in the country then and the president decided to use it for a personal hunting trip. 

In 2018 the helicopter crashed in bad weather while transporting climbers out of basecamp, killing several climbers and pilots. Soon after that Pamir Peaks went out of business and a new company Tajik Peaks took over. 

In 2019 just before the mountaineering season started all helicopter flights were abruptly cancelled for unknown reasons. Some climbers had already flown to Dushanbe, Tajikistan and had to fly back home.

In 2020 the mountaineering season was closed due to covid. 

In 2021 ak sai started taking care of logistics coordinating with Tajik Peaks as a new basecamp building was constructed. Supposedly helicopters would be running every few days to bring in supplies. However, by August only a few trips were scheduled for the whole month. 

In 2022 the helicopters were more reliable, but near the end of the season several mountaineers got frostbite on communisma and needed evacuated. So the season was cut short by a few weeks and all climbers flown out early. 

Based on all these data points I reached the conclusion that the helicopter shuttle in 2023 would likely be unreliable. I still wanted to try for the peaks, so decided a backup plan would be to hike in and out of basecamp. That would take about a week each way and likely require hiring porters, but would be possible as a last resort. Other mountaineers have done that to save money over the helicopter shuttle. 

The schedule for 2023 published by ak sai was four helicopters to moskvina glade basecamp – july 13, 29, aug 8, and aug 26. If all went well both peaks could usually be done in 4 weeks. The most conservative option would be to go in on the first helicopter to maximize time on the peaks. 

However, I had just gotten back from an expedition to Nepal climbing Everest and kangchenjunga in early june, so wanted a bit more buffer time between expeditions. So the plan was to go in on the july 29 helicopter and out on aug 26. 

Andreas, Ian and Reuben would join. Paul would fly in on the first helicopter and we’d meet him there. It was important to have a big group to help with trail breaking. I’d heard in some previous years there were no successful summits on communisma in part because of tough trailbreaking conditions.

One potential problem with the plan was that moskvina glade basecamp is at around 4300m. That is very high to fly to unacclimated and is a bit risky for getting altitude sickness. It would be much safer to pre acclimate first on a lower peak. 

Andreas noticed that the cheapest way for most of us to fly to Tajikistan was with a connection in Azerbaijan. The country highpoint of Azerbaijan – Bazarduzu – is 4466m. That would be a perfect height to pre acclimate on, plus it would get me a new country highpoint I needed. 

Andreas, Ian and I met up in Baku, Azerbaijan on July 24 and did a two day climb of Bazarduzu. We slept at 3000m the first night, then the next day climbed the peak and returned to Baku.

The next day we flew to Dushanbe, Tajikistan. There we met representatives from ak sai and paid cash for the helicopter rides and basecamp services.

Ak sai has three options of service. The small package includes just the helicopter rides with no basecamp service and you are limited in the amount of gear to bring, paying extra per kg. The optimal and full packages include helicopter and basecamp services like meals each day and a high allowance of gear weight to bring in. 

Most people choose the full or optimal packages. It’s nice if you are spending a lot of time in basecamp resting or waiting for a weather window to have meals cooked for you. We chose the optimal package which meant we would sleep outside in ak sai tents instead of inside the basecamp building in bunks. Outside would likely be much quieter and we could save some money.

Amazingly, the helicopter was flying in as scheduled. We spent one night in Dushanbe then the next evening our team and a dozen other climbers from around the world crammed into a small bus and drove 8 hours through the night to the town of Jirgital. That is the closest major town to the peaks and is the staging area for helicopter shuttles.

We started loading our gear onto the helicopter, then all got on. There was a bit of confusion though as the pilots told two climbers to get off since the load was too heavy. 

There was some debate and eventually the pilots let everyone stay on. The helicopter was huge, probably big enough to drive a car into, and it fit 15 climbers and gear. 

The flight was amazing over the Pamir mountains, and within 45 minutes we landed at Moskvina glade. Climbers quickly ran over and helped us unload while some people got on to fly out. 

The helicopter stayed running and soon took off. We then carried our gear inside and checked in with Zlastov, the basecamp manager. 

Our plan over the next days to acclimate for Kommunizma involved first climbing two intermediate peaks: Chetyrekh (6300m) and Korzhenevskaya (7105m).

To plan our ascents we had professional meteorologist Chris Tomer sending daily weather forecasts by satellite text to my inreach. Our schedule:

July 29 Hike to 4800m on Chetyrekh, return to BC

July 30 Carry load to 5100m, return to BC

July 31 Hike to 5200m, sleep at 5100m

Aug 1 Attempt Chetyrekh, turn around at 5500m when conditions too icy on upper peak. Return to BC

Aug 2 Rest at BC

Aug 3 Rest at BC

Aug 4 Carry load to 6100m on Korzhenevskaya, camp at 5600m

Aug 5 Move to 6100m

Aug 6 Summit (7105m), return to basecamp

After climbing korzhenevskaya we wanted at least three rest days, which is what I typically take between high altitude peaks. I was actually very tired after deep trail breaking on korzhenevskaya, so suspected I might need a few more days. Luckily for us there was a big guided group of 20 people climbing Kommunizma, so there was a good chance the trail would be broken and ropes fixed in key areas. 

The general timeframe for climbing kommunisma is 6-8 days basecamp to basecamp. The route is long, going up and over Grudi peak to a large plateau, then up and over Peak Dushanbe, then finally reaching the summit. The return involves climbing up and over Peak Dushanbe and Grudi Peak again. 

The problem with such a long timeframe is that a weather forecast more than about 3 days out is not always reliable on big peaks like that. It’s likely you could get up to the plateau but by then the forecast changes and you have to either retreat or ride out the storm. 

Our strategy was to do a faster ascent so we could be likely to summit in a forecasted weather window. With expert meteorologist Chris Tomer giving us daily forecasts we could be quite confident in a window three days out. All other mountaineers were using mountain-forecast.com weather forecasts from the satellite wifi in basecamp, but I’ve found those to not be particularly reliable. 

Our plan was thus to summit on day three from basecamp when the forecast was still reliable. We would climb to the plateau on day one, then to peak dushanbe on day two, summit day three, then descend day four. Other climbers told us that was ambitious, but it seemed comparable to or easier than other itineraries on other peaks we’d climbed like Pobeda and K2 where we’d come acclimated and skipped camps on the way up.

For most of our rest days Kommunizma was completely clear all day, but the main problem was wind. My general cutoff for big peaks is the wind should be less then 25mph on the summit. 

There was a brief window aug 10/11 but that was too early for us. The big 20 person group summitted in early august and a seven-person russian group summitted Aug 11. 

Eventually it looked like Aug 16 would be the next window. Paul and Ian decided to head up a day early to spread out the ascent while Andreas, Reuben and I would wait until the last minute to ensure the forecast didn’t change. We told guide Pavel and his client Olga our forecast and they also decided to start a day early and likely summit with us or the next day when winds were supposed to be only slightly higher. It would be nice having so many people up on the mountain to help with trail breaking if needed. 

By the night of Aug 13 after Chris’s evening forecast we decided we were good to go. Winds were forecast for 15-20mph in the morning increasing to 20-25mph in the afternoon of aug 16. Temperatures were -7F low and 5F high. That was surprisingly warm, much warmer than we had on korzhenevskaya, and it looked like it would be about the best summit weather we could hope for. 

We planned to start early the next morning. The normal route up the borodkin spur requires traversing a snow ramp on the lower mountain below some hanging seracs. Empirically we had observed just two large serac releases over the past three weeks and they were each around sunset. 

This could possibly be because during the day in the sun the ice starts melting, then around sunset it starts refreezing. Water expands when it freezes and if this happens in cracks it could cause ice chunks to become dislodged. This is what some people theorize happened in the 2008 k2 disaster when the hanging glacier above the bottleneck released large seracs. 

So we definitely didn’t want to cross late in the day. But we’d also observed occasional small releases during the middle of the day. These were probably caused by the sun melting the ice and snow. 

The best time to cross seemed to be at night or early morning before the sun hit, so that’s what we planned to do. 

I’ve heard sometimes people climb a direct rock route that avoids the ramp completely. But nobody was doing that this year and that would require us pitching out a lot of rock climbing. I’d heard the rock was very chossy and loose and it was questionable if that route was actually safer. So we decided to take the standard ramp route.

Aug 14 

We were up at 230 am and ate some boiled eggs, cheese, and meat that the BC staff had left out for us. By 3am we were up and moving. Our packs were filled to the max and mine weighed in at 50lbs. 

For the first hour we hiked in hiking boots on a good dirt trail to the helipad location, the last flat rocky area where a rescue helicopter could land. Ak sai had left a tent there and we stopped to switch into our big mountaineering boots and stash our lighter shoes in the tent.

We had timed this so we could have a bit of daylight to cross the lower glacier to the ramp but still cross the ramp before the sun hit the seracs above. 

The glacier crossing was surprisingly easy. The flags in the rocks and ice had fallen over but we had no problem navigating to the left end of the ramp in the morning twilight. 

At the base we put on crampons and started up. We decided to go unroped since the glacier was melted down to ice exposing all crevasses and we thought speed up the ramp was critical for safety. Being roped together would slow us down. 

We wove around a few crevasses down low and generally tried to stay on the right side of the ramp where we would be out of reach of smaller serac releases. We moved quickly over old ice and snow debris and were soon across. We spent around 10 minutes in the danger zone, so not too bad.

 

On the other side we reached a scree slope with a handful of old fixed lines that seemed unnecessary. We took off crampons then walked up to the crest of the rocky ridge. I think this is where the direct rock variation would have met our ramp route. 

We followed the ridge up which involved a bit of fun 3rd class scrambling including one short tunnel section. Then we hit a scree trail and a longer steep chossy slope with a fixed line that was helpful. 

At the top of the rocky slope and the base of the glacier on the borodkin spur we encountered a handful of rocky tent platforms that was the official camp 1 at around 5300m. 

Here we put crampons on and jugged up fixed lines on the icy slopes above. The abalokov anchors were starting to melt out but were still holding. 

As the slope eased the lines ended and we reached an intermediate camp location where paul, ian, pavel, and Olga had spent the night. It was 8am by then and all four had just recently started up. 

We caught up to paul and Ian at a steeper section above camp with fixed lines. We continued together up the fixed lines and then encountered a party descending. 

It was the seven-person “tourist” group. This is what they called themselves though the English translation I think has a different connotation than in russian. In reality they were way more hardcore than us. They had hiked all the way in from Jirgital, climbed korzhenevskaya and kommunisma, and were planning to finish a big traverse hiking out to another village over 35 days total.

 I think it’s kind if like ski touring in the US but this is a separate category of mountaineering in russia where passes are categorized by difficulty and the overall traverse is categorized on a 1-6 scale based on overall difficulty. I think their trip was at the upper end of the scale. They said heading up from moskvina the girls carried 28kg packs and the guys 40kg. One guy even carried up a watermelon!

Unfortunately one of them had slipped descending from kommunisma and got pretty banged up and frostbitten. So they decided to descend back to moskvina and call a helicopter evacuation. 

They soon all made it past and we continued up. Around 5800m we passed a flat spot below a serac that serves as another intermediate camp. Above that we jugged up a steep set of fixed lines on a snow slope and caught up to pavel and Olga taking a smoke break. 

We continued above them alternating  between low angle slopes and slightly steeper slopes with fixed lines and eventually topped out on Grudi Peak, the top of the Borodkin Spur. 

From there we could see the plateau below us and kommunisma and peak dushanbe on the other side. The plateau was surprisingly large and flat. I’ve heard years ago Russians helicoptered snowmobiles up there and used them for surveying trips. 

We had to descend about 300m to the plateau, which unfortunately meant we would have to ascend that on the way back. It appeared the tourist group had camped near the summit the previous night. 

The start of the descent was easy on gentle snow slopes but it soon got steeper and icier. We soon downclimbed facing in but then it turned to steep glacier ice with only a dusting of snow on top. It was exposed and too risky to descend without a rope. 

Andreas and I waited for Ian and Reuben to catch up with our two 30m ropes. Meanwhile pavel and Olga caught up. Pavel just tied Olga to him on a 5m piece of cord and they started down climbing together. It looked risky to me – if either slipped they’d pull the other down. I guess the strategy is by short roping a client you make them more confident and less likely to slip. Though it seems like a false sense of security to me.

They made it down ok. Once ian and Reuben caught up I built an ice screw anchor, tied the rope in, then diagonal rappelled down and fixed the other end at another ice anchor. It barely reached the end of the sketchy section and we decided to keep the other 30m rope in case we needed it somewhere else. We would leave that rope fixed for use by other friends coming up and for our own use on our return.

We all rapped the line, then hit safer snow and descended to the plateau. We found a nice place to pitch our tents, and soon paul caught up to join us for the night. 

Aug 15

We had a relatively short day upcoming so slept in till sunrise and then started up. We roped up to cross the plateau then ascended the steep ridge of peak dushanbe. 

Progress was slow with our huge packs but luckily it hadn’t snowed in the past week and we could easily follow the descent tracks from the tourist team. The snow was also very well consolidated and we hardly sunk in at all. 

We climbed steep snow slopes to the base of rocks and found a few tent platforms halfway up around 6400m. This is another typical intermediate camp though we planned to skip it.

Eventually by late afternoon we crested peak Dushanbe, officially at 7007m. On the map this just looks like a ridge coming down from kommunisma but from the plateau and from basecamp it is obviously prominent enough to be a separate peak. 

We soon reached the campsite just below the summit on a large flat bench. Three climbers were there – Dima, Constantine, and their guide (I can’t remember his name). They had started up four days before us and ridden out some nasty wind a few days before successfully reaching the summit that morning. 

They gave us valuable beta about the route. They had left camp at 3am, summitted 11am, and just returned at 5pm shortly before we had arrived. They would spend another night there before descending.

Andreas and I pitched our tent near there’s and soon Ian, Reuben, and Paul caught up. Pavel and Olga would camp at the intermediate camp below and summit the day after us. 

Based on Constantine’s advice we decided to start in the daylight to make navigation easier. It was only a 500m ascent to the summit and the weather was supposed to be good all day, so it didn’t seem necessary to start super early when it was colder. 

Aug 16

We were up at sunrise and Andreas and I were moving by 6am. The rest of the crew started about an hour later.

We first followed the ridge out of camp then descended 50m or so to the col. From there we followed the boot track traversing left below the rocky north face of kommunisma to the base of the broad snow slope. 

From there we continued following the boot track steeply up the right side of the face. The conditions were very firm and icy and it seemed like it would be impossible to self arrest. Indeed, I believe this is where one of the Russians slipped and got badly banged up. It would have been really nice to have fixed lines there but there weren’t any. 

I had two tools (my hybrid ice ax and whippet) so was reasonably secure but still not super happy about conditions. 

I recalled looking through the telescope at the 20 person team in early august and they had traversed left farther and zig zagged up the face to gain the summit ridge farther left. The face looked much lower angle to the left and much safer.

So about a third of the way up we cut left and started traversing across the face. I later heard that people in basecamp watching through the telescope were concerned and wanted to contact us to tell us we were off route. But we were intentionally seeking a safer route and we succeeded. 

The snow on that side of the face was softer and the slope lower angle so that self arresting would actually be possible. We took turns breaking trail up and eventually reached the ridge at the col two left of the summit. 

From there we followed the snow and rock ridge over to the main col and met up with the boot track. The detour had cost us a bit of time and we could see paul, ian, and reuben nearing the notch on the boot track. 

The final ridge to the summit was a steep icy knife edge ridge that was very exposed with apparently no ropes. I was again happy to have two tools. 

We proceeded carefully in the boot track on the right side of the ridge. At times I faced the ridge traversing sideways so I could get my tools in the icy snow. 

Halfway up we encountered a steep icy step and there was a short fixed rope there. We jugged up, then followed a bit more ridge to finally reach the rocky summit at 1130am. 

This was our final snow leopard peak and it felt great to be nearly finished (I considered us finished when we safely reached basecamp). We took a bunch of pictures and admired the view. It was a bit windy but not too bad, probably the best conditions that could be hoped for on that peak. There was an interesting metal pole and a metal sign in russian I took pictures of.

We soon started down, passing ian and Reuben as they ascended. It would have been great to all be on the top together but was a bit too cold and windy for us to hang out there waiting. 

They said there were now good steps kicked up the direct route, so we decided to descend that way. 

I passed Paul at the notch and then started down. For the most part I downclimbed facing in so I could always have one tool in the mountain. It was pretty secure that way. Partway down i had to downclimb a 5m ice section and was happy to have my hybrid tool to swing into the ice. 

Finally at the traverse I could face out again. The climb back up peak dushanbe was tough, but by 2pm we reached camp for a short break. 

Pavel and Olga had just arrived and we drank some tea together. They would summit the next morning, which was forecast to be slightly windier but still doable. 

We packed up and started heading out just as Ian arrived. He would take a break waiting for reuben and paul and catch up later. 

The descent went by fast and we reached the plateau a few hours later just as a snow squall rolled in. Visibility dropped but we were able to follow our tracks all the way to our previous campsite by 5pm. 

Coincidentally our friends thomas and martin were just skiing down Grudi peak then and met up with us at our campsite. They had previously skied korzhenevskaya and would go on to ski kommunisma from nearly the summit all the way to the rocky ridge.

After dinner ian messaged on the inreach that he and Reuben were on there way down late and paul planned to sleep at peak dushanbe another night. We went to bed early that night around 7pm.

Aug 17

We started moving at sunrise the next morning. Ian and Reuben had set up camp early at the base of Dushanbe and planned to sleep in a bit more. 

The climb back up Grudi was tough but luckily we had our fixed rope to get through the icy section. Above that was easier snow climbing back up Grudi. 

The descent was fast, rapping the fixed lines and booting down the lower angle sections.

Halfway down around 1130am we witnessed a massive serac release onto the ramp below. That was surprising given the time of day, and I later heard from Zlasko the BC manager that it was the biggest release of the season. We knew Constantine, Dima, and their guide were somewhere below us and we hoped they were ok. 

 Around 5300m at the bottom of the Borodkin spur we passed a guided team coming up with three clients and two guides. I later learned one guide and one client would later summit and the others would turn around.

We arm wrap rappelled the last icy ropes, which were too tight to rappel, then scrambled down the rocky ridge to the edge of the ramp. 

Debris covered the entire ramp with no tracks visible. I later learned our friends had crossed 2 hours before the serac release and were safe. 

I was nervous so after we put crampons on we raced across as quickly as possible. I think we were only in the danger zone for 5 minutes, so not too bad.

Safely on the other side we descended to the rocky glacier then crossed back to the heli pad. It felt great to change back into our light hiking boots stashed there, though our packs got a lot heavier with the mountaineering boots strapped on. 

Within an hour we made the hike back to basecamp, just in time to catch the tail end of lunch. Ian and Reuben caught up a few hours later in time for dinner. 

Paul ended up taking his time down, returning two days later. Pavel and Olga summitted aug 17 and returned a few days later. 

The tourist team ended up arranging a helicopter to come aug 19 for medical evacuation. Luckily there was enough extra space that they let Andreas and I catch a ride out with them directly to Dushanbe! (We still had to bribe the pilot to agree even though insurance from the climbers covered the full cost of the helicopter ride). That saved us a week of waiting around for the scheduled aug 26 helicopter. 

With the extra week we were able to move on to our bonus objective – making the first ascent and survey of Alpomish (4668m, 7 pitch 5.8), the true highpoint of Uzbekistan. 

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