Pik Korzhenevskaya (23,310ft)

Pik Korzhenevskaya (7,105m)

Aug 6, 2023
Eric, Andreas, Reuben, Ian

Aug 4 – BC to 6100m, drop cache, sleep 5600m
Aug 5 – move to 6100m camp
Aug 6 – summit, return to BC

My goal for the summer was to finish climbing the snow leopard peaks, the 7000m peaks of the former Soviet union, and I had two peaks remaining – Korzhenevskaya and Kommunizma. Both are accessed from the moskvina glade basecamp in Tajikistan.

In late July we pre acclimated by climbing Bazarduzu, the Azerbaijan highpoint, then flew to moskvina basecamp. We did more acclimation with an attempt on Chetyrekh peak to 5500m, then rested a few days in basecamp waiting for a weather window to start up korzhenevskaya.

It finally looked like Aug 6 would be a window of low wind in the morning. We decided to take three days up to summit to help with acclimation for our end goal peak, kommunizma. By sleeping at a few intermediate camps we would ensure thorough acclimation for the future.

Aug 4

We got up at 530am on Aug 4 and were treated to an omelette each for breakfast. This special treat appears to only be available for early breakfast. The usual breakfast was bread, meat and cheese slices and gritz.

By 630am we loaded up our huge packs with 7000m boots strapped on the outside and started up in light hiking boots or trail runners.

The route soon crossed the icefall at the toe of the Moskvina glacier. It was well wanded but complicated winding around huge ice walls. Some parts were tricky without crampons but it worked.

Ian led the way since he was familiar with the route, having already climbed korzhenevskaya in 2018.

On the other side we ascended a trail up a scree slope, then traversed across a small creek. The next section got steeper and involved a bit of fun scrambling. Higher up a few sections even had short fixed lines with knotted rope.

 

We then dropped down to cross what climbers refer to as the shooting gallery. This is a creek at the outflow of a melting glacier. The toe of the glacier has rocks and boulders balanced on it at the edge of an ice cliff. At any moment a rock can get dislodged, careening down the steep gully and bringing more with it.

We lowered ourselves down into the gully on a fixed rope and quickly crossed the creek. Interestingly there was a climber coming out that had a big pack but no large mountaineering boots on the pack or on his feet. I couldn’t understand his plan unless he had only hiked to camp 1 and hadn’t planned on summitting.

On the other side we had trouble finding the trail so kept climbing the gully higher and higher. Finally we found an exit and escaped just before a big rock let loose. We soon picked up the trail and headed up.

A group of climbers was descending and we later learned they had summitted the previous day. They were a group on a month long hike starting from a road near jirgital. They would go on to climb communisma and planned to hike back out without using the helicopter.

We took a break at camp 1 at 5100m and deposited our hiking boots in an ak sai tent. Just above camp the glacier started.

We walked 10 minutes out of camp then encountered some battered fixed ropes between a cliff on the left and the toe of the glacier on the right. They were hanging in a torrent of water. We each put on crampons and pulled ourselves up.

From there some of us took the rock option which was to jug up fixed ropes in a steep rock gully on the left. I went to the right on a gentler rock and ice gully.

The routes converged on some muddy scree slopes and then leved out to an area referred to as camp 1.5.

Ian noticed the glacier above here had melted out considerably in the past 5 years. Above us we could see our friend Sultan continuing up solo on the left side.

We got to the start of the glacier and roped up all four on a 30m rope. Travelling unroped on that glacier in the heat of the afternoon seemed risky.

As we got higher we traversed right and caught up to sultan waiting just before a crevasse. He wanted to be on a rope so we had him tie in.

Shortly later we reached camp 2 at 5600m in a big flat basin at the base of the summit ridge cliffs. Each camp on korzhenevskaya is stocked with many ak sai tents that we were free to use. We talked to the camp manager and picked out a few open tents to throw gear in.

Our original plan had been to stop there. But on our first acclimation hike a week earlier we hadn’t reached 6000m on chetyrekh peak as intended, only 5500m. We really wanted to have tagged at least 6000m before sleeping at 6100m the next night.

So to do this we packed up our own tents and half our load and at 3pm started hiking up towards the 6100m notch.

Soon out of camp we reached steep icy slopes with many fixed lines. I put my ascender on and jugged up until the slope eased and the lines ended. We then all tied on to our 30m rope and continued to the base of a steep bergschrund with more fixed lines.

We jugged up those, then made a rising traverse and reached the notch at 6100m by 6pm.

The notch was small and luckily there were no tents there. But there were three tent platforms. That was perfect since we had three tents.

Andreas and I started improving the biggest one for our two-man tent while Reuben and Ian improved the smaller ones for their single-man tents.

By 630pm we finished and headed down, reaching camp just before sunset.

Aug 5

The next day would be short, just moving to 6100m camp, so we slept in. We waited until the sun hit our tents around 10am and then started packing. A handful of people were coming down and I’d assumed they’d summitted but I later learned they had just gone up to sleep at camp 3 for acclimation.

We were moving up by 11am and made good time, reaching camp by early afternoon. We spent the rest of the afternoon melting snow, eating, and resting.

Our forecast was for light winds the next morning getting very strong in the afternoon. So we wanted to summit around sunrise and get down off the ridge by noon if possible.

Aug 6

We were up and moving by just after midnight. I brought my down jacket, down pants, and overboots to be prepared for the predicted -13f and 25mph winds on the summit.

Directly out of camp we jugged up fixed lines on a rock step then kicked steps steeply up a snowy ridge. We soon reached a flat spot with ak sai tents at 6300m that is the official camp 3.

The camp manager got out and gave us some beta on the route. Unfortunately nobody had been up there to the summit in a while and we would have to break trail.

Andreas and I took off while reuben stayed to chat with the camp manager longer. Ian was feeling the altitude more and had to turn around at the camp.

The trail breaking was strenuous with generally shin to knee deep snow. We generally followed the ridge crest and could usually see faint perturbations in the snow surface indicating where the old track had been. It was a bit easier going if we could walk in those areas.

Andreas and I took turns breaking trail for the next few hours, at times kicking steps up steep slopes and sometimes following broad flat ridges.

As sunrise neared Reuben caught up and we reached a big ice wall where the tracks appeared to end. The camp manager had said there was a rock step with fixed lines near the summit and that seemed consistent with the rock step on the left.

Reuben went to inspect it and indeed found a fixed line. We took turns jugging up and then saw the summit in the morning light.

The slopes were more gradual above and we all three took turns breaking trail. We rotated leaders about every 10 minutes since it was very tough work at that altitude.

We made a rising traverse to the right skyline ridge then followed the ridge left to the summit. We were all on top by 7am. Luckily there were no false summits.

We had great views of communisma peak to the south and chetyrekh to the east. Moskvina glade wasn’t quite visible though. We took a bunch of pictures and I radioed basecamp we were on the summit.

After about 10 minutes we started down. Progress was much faster, though unfortunately the wind had drifted over our up tracks. This meant we had to re-break trail and a few places were flat and up. Andreas was fastest so broke all the trail on the way down.

By 9am we reached camp 3 and stopped to rest. It had taken us 7 hours up and only 2 down. We chatted with the camp manager a bit then descended back to our tents. We then packed up and hiked down to camp 2 at 5600m.

We had beaten the afternoon wind and were successfully off the ridge before noon as planned. However, the trail breaking had taken a lot of energy out of me and I was much more wiped out than anyone else. Perhaps my body still hadn’t fully recovered from trying Mt Everest without oxygen a few months earlier.

I rested a full hour trying to force down food and then we all decided to continue down. We carefully descended the snow slopes off the glacier then rapped the rock gully and lowered ourselves down the rotten ropes in the waterfall to camp 1.

We purified water there then made the long hike back to basecamp by 5pm.

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