AUSTRIAN HINDU KUSH EXPEDITION, 1969—SECTION AUSTRIAN ALPINE CLUB TO NOSHAQ (7,492 M.)

(Translated by Verena Bolinder)

WOLFGANG AXT

THE Austrian Alpine Club, 1969, sent an expedition of six members to the Afghanistan Hindu Kush. The members were:

The journey

On 7 July the six of us started in a VW bus and a VW car. The 8,000-km. long journey through Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Persia to Afghanistan passed off without any trouble. In spite of the mostly asphalted main road we had to proceed slowly as the bus was heavily overloaded. Due to this reason we reached Kabul on 20 July. We soon found accommodation and could, therefore, concentrate on despatching the comprehensive formalities of the Afghanian authorities. We needed a letter or recommendation by the Austrian Embassy, an extension of the visa, a permission to stay and an entrance permit for the Wakhan. It took a whole week to get everything settled. Our zoologist took advantage of this and went off hunting birds and scorpions in the asht Nawar. In Kabul, Udo Ertl joined us—his two-member expedition had got bust because of his partner's serious illness—so our group now consisted of seven members.

Over the Salang Pass an extremely well-built asphalt road led us to Kunduz in the North of Afghanistan, where the world's best honey melons are said to grow. But the last 400 km. from there into the assigned mountain region were disastrous. For this part alone we needed a whole week, and therefore lost precious time. The past winter had been particularly severe in Asia and the floods in the following spring had almost washed away all bridges, many villages had been destroyed and the road damaged or washed away at innumerable places. At the end of July this ‘road' was still in such a bad condition that we would never have been able to pass through with our vehicles. So we left them with an Austrian family in Kunduz, made a deep dive into the expedition s purse and hired a four-wheel drive Russian lorry. Even with this cross-country vehicle we had to wait a whole day in front of a landslide and were stuck in a ford where the rushing water threatened to wash away our whole equipment from the loading area. Another ear, which by chance passed by, then took us along. Another day was lost for the visit to the police commander in Faziabad, the ‘capital' of the region Badakhshan, whom we could not lend a suitable pair of spectacles for reading the permit's date of stamp. He would have loved to send us back!

 

[BLOCK KINDLY PROVIDED BY EDITOR, ALPINE JOURNAL]

From the village Qaz-i-Deh on the river Ab-i-Panch (Amu- Darja), which forms the border between Afghanistan and Soviet Russia, it took us three days to reach the base at the foot of Noshaq, at about 4,550 m. altitude. At Base Camp we found the tents of an American expedition under the leadership of Dr. Hechtel which had arrived on the spot two weeks ago. They planned to climb Noshaq over the ⁶ Austrian Spur' with three high camps.

Due to delays we only had 20 days for the mountains instead of the planned five weeks. It is somewhat of a little miracle that we could gain all our climbing goals, considering that the period for acclimatization for altitudes above 7,000 m. is normally two weeks.

Climbing results*

 

* [The heights mentioned in H.J., Vol. XXIX, 1969, pages 183-184, stand corrected as above—EDITOR. 1

 

Arrival at Base Camp on 4 August, departure on 25 August 1969. Sojourn in the mountains, precisely three weeks.

Asp-e-Safed II—A long ridge extends from Asp-e-Safed I (Main summit) towards the west with three more summits higher than 6,000 m. Originally we had planned to climb all four summits in one go. But due to the lack of acclimatization we only suc¬ceeded in reaching the nearest Western summit (Asp-e-Safed II).

Asp-e-Safed South—A. Aichhorn alone reached the summit from Asp-e-Safed I—the summit was climbed 10 days earlier by a Spanish expedition, from Pakistan. Therefore it was not a first ascent as we originally presumed, but only a first traverse of the North ridge.

Gumbaz-e-Safed—Ascent over the 2,000-m. high NW. wall in a direct line with the summit and descent over the W. ridge and the South flank with three bivouacs. The first ascent of this wall was carried out by the Poles.

Noshaq—Contrary to all former expeditions we had only put up two high camps on the Western Spur ('Austrian Spur'), Camp I (5,500 m.) and Camp II (6,600 m.). From this the summit of the highest mountain of Afghanistan was reached by us in one day and that was actually some days after the Americans amongst whom was a woman climber. The difficulties of this route are small. A rock belt at about 6,800 m. altitude is the critical part of the route, it offers light climbing on brittle rock.

Shingeik-Zom II and III—These last two—up to now unclimbed seven-thousanders of the Noshaq massif—lie East of Noshaq, already in Pakistan and it was very complicated to reach them. We provisionally called these two nameless and not yet measured summits Shingeik-Zom II and III after Shingeik-Zom rising to the east of them. They are anyhow independent summits. The given altitudes are from an aneroid. The Aichhorn brothers climbed on Noshaq W. Spur almost up to 7,000 m. and then traversed the dangerous area below the northern precipices of Noshaq—some years ago the Polish climber Potocki perished when traversing here—and arrived in the summit basin of the Darban glacier which runs towards Pakistan, where they established a bivouac in an ice grotto. From there they climbed in one day both the virgin peaks. A great achievement considering that they worked without tents. The weather was quite fair during our three weeks' stay in the mountains and it only snowed a bit at higher altitudes. Due to this the neves were dissolved in disagreeable penitente- snow, especially on the southern slopes.

On 8 August we experienced a bad earthquake by which stone- and ice-avalanches were released all around us. Only by chance we were saved from disaster.

Oswald Kollreider as the expedition's cook and ‘maid-for-every- thing' deserves to be mentioned especially. The experiment to enlist one member only as cook and camp administrator proved to be excellent.

Scientific results

Herbert Miiller, our geologist, has for the first time made a geologic examination in the Noshaq region and brought back a lot of rock samples, whose evaluation is not yet finished.

Ambros Aichhorn (zoologist) was mainly interested in birds of the Noshaq region. He discovered among others a new specimen of snow-finches. For the University of Innsbruck he collected beetles, spiders, scorpions, rock jumpers and plants. The evalua¬tions of his works will still require some time.

Climbing possibilities in the Noshaq region

This mountain region is—in spite of the bad road in the Wakhan —quickly reached and, therefore, favourably situated for climbing groups who do not have much time.

Geologically seen, the region is built up very non-uniformly. Noshaq itself consists partly (to the West) of black, in all direc¬tion folded, leaf-like slate, and partly of firm, red-brown granite. The borderline between the two is exactly at the highest point. Due to this, there are the most various mountain forms in a narrow area.

 

The following interesting possibilities are recommended:

1. On Noshaq, the first traverse from East to West or the approximately 800-m. high North wall which does not offer too many difficulties. Ascent from the Pakistan side over the upper Darban glacier ; from the Afghan side over the descending traverse from the Western Spur.
2. On Gumbaz-e-Safed, the complete traverse of the W. ridge and the bold Southern ridge are not yet made (it might be compared with a giant Bianco ridge).
3. The M6 (c. 6,200 m.) in the upper Mandaras valley is to my knowledge still unclimbed.
4. The first traverse of the Asp-e-Safed summits IV to I would be especially worth while but not easy. On the same occasion two summits (Asp-e-Safed III and IV) would be passed for the first time, both are more than 6,000 m. high. On the ridge from Asp-e-Safed towards North lie more unclimbed high five- thousanders, which anyhow would be difficult and dangerous to climb because of their slaty structure.
5. A special task would be towards the North extending to the Sad-Istragh group, which to the main part consists of red-brown, Mont Blanc-like granite and promises wonderful rock-climbing. Here are four summits over 5,800 m., of which to my knowledge only one has been climbed by the Poles. As the position of some side ridges is not yet precisely known, there would also be some geographical problems to resolve.

Return

After the climbing enterprises we enjoyed some days of relaxa¬tion.

During this time we visited the main objects of interest in Afghanistan, among them the only roofed bazar in Taschkurgan, the Ali Mosque in Mazar Sharif, the birthplace of Zarathustra— Balch, Bamyan with their giant Buddhas and the greatest natural miracle: the seven different coloured lakes of Band-i-Amir.

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