Re­port on the first as­cent of the route to Pik Boks via the north­ern wall (ice gul­ly).

As­cent Data

1. Tian-Shan, Kyr­gyz Range, Ala-Ar­cha val­ley.

Pik Boks, 4240 m, via the ice gul­ly of the north­ern wall. Pro­posed cat­egory 4A, first as­cent. Na­ture of the route — com­bined. El­e­va­tion gain 600 m. Route length 850 m.

2. Sec­tion lengths: II cat. — 300 m, III — 350 m, IV — 200 m.
3. Av­er­age steep­ness: main sec­tion — 50°

O­ver­all steep­ness — 45°

4. Pitons left: to­tal — 0;
5. Used on the route: ice screws — 45, rock pitons — 7, nut pro­tec­tion — 13.
6. Used ar­ti­fi­cial pro­tec­tion (AID) — 0 pcs.
7. Team's du­ra­tion: 14 h, 1 day (no over­nights)
8. Team:

Se­li­ver­stov Ser­gey (team lead), Alek­see­va E­lena.

9. Coach — Popov Fyo­dor E­fi­mo­vich
10. Start of the as­cent: 7:00, Feb­ru­ary 5, 2012.

Reach­ing the sum­mit: 19:00, Feb­ru­ary 5, 2012. Re­turn to Base Camp: 21:00, Feb­ru­ary 5, 2012. Gen­eral view of the sum­mit

Route scheme

Route de­scrip­tion

• De­par­ture from "Ra­tsek" camp at 7:00
• Ap­proach to the route at 9:00
• Sum­mit — 19:00
• Camp un­der Ko­ro­na sum­mit — 21:00

Ap­proach via the lower part of Ak­-Say gla­cier, un­der the north­ern wall of Pik Boks, past Mikhailovsky biv­ouac, cat. 5 "B". Then along the in­clined ledges to the start of the route.

Highly ava­lanche-pri­ne with large amounts of snow.

Mov­ing along the ledges with si­mul­ta­neous pro­tec­tion till the be­gin­ning of the gul­ly. Then — al­ter­nate pro­tec­tion.

• R0–R1. Si­mul­ta­neous move­ment along the snow­cov­ered in­clined ledges. 25–30°, 150 m, II.
• R1–R2. En­ter­ing the gul­ly. Tran­si­tion from snow to ice. Al­ter­nate pro­tec­tion via ice screws. The ice gul­ly is nar­row in plac­es. 40–45°, 150 m, III.
• R2­–R3. The ice be­comes steep­er. At the top we hit a rock out­crop. Sta­tion un­der the rock on ice screws. 50­–55°, 100 m, IV.
• R3­–R4. From the ice we move to the rock belt. In­clined snow­cov­ered slabs. The slabs are smooth, climb­ing is quite dif­fi­cult, un­re­li­able. Pro­tec­tion — nor­mal an­chors, cams. On the sec­ond rope we move to the ice, on the left part of Boks "Hat". 50­–55°, 100 m, IV.
• R4­–R5. Up along the "Hat". The ice grad­u­al­ly flat­tens. 40–45°, 200 m, III.
• R5. Along the snow-ice slope we move di­rect­ly to the sum­mit. Switch to si­mul­ta­neous pro­tec­tion. 25–30°, 150 m, II.

De­scent via route 1B. De­scend to the camp un­der Ko­ro­na sum­mit.

Ap­proach

Sec­tion R0–R1

Sec­tion R1–R2

Sec­tion R2–R3

Sec­tion R3–R4

Sec­tion R4–R5

Sec­tion R5–sum­mit

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