Ultar Sar's Hidden Pillar

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At the start of August, 2007 Jed Brown and I flew to Islamabad and soon were bumping along the Karakorum Highway towards the famous Hunza Valley, on the west end of the Karakorum Range. From the bustling tourist attractions of Karimabad, a short jeep ride took us to the town of Ahmatabad. From there a two-day hike brought us to our basecamp to attempt the SE Pillar of Ultar Sar (7,388m). We had some difficulty hiring porters since Hunza is relatively wealthy and most people have better jobs. Most of the porters we hired were college students on summer break, which prevented us from establishing basecamp in the correct location. The porters were not experienced enough to take loads across steep terrain, so our basecamp was separated from the correct basecamp by a half-day's hike across steep, loose scree and three 4,500m cols. Subsequently, we had to hike across this terrain many times between our basecamp and the true "Hidden Valley" ("Kunoso" to the locals) our first logistical problem. 

We spent a few days hiking among 5,000m rock spires around our basecamp, and a few days carrying gear to the correct valley (Kunoso). While carrying gear to Kunoso we caught our first glimpse of the SE Pillar (well, actually just the bottom part — I only saw the whole route one time during the entire trip!), and another problem was immediately evident — the lower buttress was much more melted out than any photos we had seen, and generally in poor condition. Steve Swenson had warned me earlier that snowpack was meager this year. We hoped that maybe it would snow enough and melt/freeze enough by the time we were finished acclimating to be in better condition, but by the time we left basecamp it looked basically the same. 

On our first acclimitazion foray we spent several nights at 5,300m and climbed a short but fun mixed ridge to the summit of a 5,600m peak. After resting in basecamp we made another acclimatization trip, this time on the far eastern edge of Ultar's east ridge. We spent a couple nights at 6,000m, and then descended in a storm. After this acclimatization venture we went to check out the approach from Kunoso to the base of the Pillar — it was significantly broken-up bare glacier — doable, but it would be slow.