01 Oct New route on Nafees Cap K7 Karakorum
Thanks to a recent grant from SPARC, the NZAC and the MEF an Australian/Kiwi team of Adrian Laing, Scott Standen, Bruce Dowrick and Jon Sedon travel to the Charakusa Valley, Karakorum, Pakistan. They climbed a new route – Naughty daddies – on a huge buttress on the west side of K7 called Nafees Cap, 1000m of golden granite.
The base of the new route was at 5000m and led on to 620 metres of new climbing, joining the original route, Ledgeway to Heaven established on 2007 by Nico Favresse, Sean Villanueva, Olivier Favresse and Adam Pustelnik. (1300m 7c 5.12+, 28 pitches up to 6.000 meters). On that occasion Favresse & c.called the pillar in honor of their brilliant Pakistani guide, Nafees.
Unfortunately snow conditions on the upper low angle sections turned the team around before the summit proper.
They spent nine nights on the wall and placed two lead bolts.
The mostly wide crack systems provided excellent protection and a constant supply of water. Unfortunately Bruce and Scott suffered from altitude sickness beyond camp one and turned around, leaving Jon and Adrian to continue on to the the top of the route.
Naughty Daddies is 630m long 19 pitches 7b.
The team used quick protection (except two bolts) and climbed on sight redpoint 16 pitches.
source: mojozone.co.nz
ms