Marc Toralles and Bru Busom have repeated the route in alpine style to the northwest secondary summit of Saraghrar, about 7,200 meters, in Pakistan, which Enric Lucas, Nil Bohigas and Juan López opened in 1982, as confirmed this morning to La Vanguardia from the town of Chitral Oriol Baró, who together with Guillem Sancho has been part of this expedition. Toralles and Busom reached the summit on Monday. "There are 2,000 meters of technical climbing; in the first thousand you have to carry all the material and food you will need for the upper section on your back," Toralles commented this afternoon.
The one in 1982 was the third attempt by a Catalan team on this remote mountain, near the border with Afghanistan, after the failed attempts in 1975 and 1977 for the southwest pillar.
The four climbers left for Pakistan on June 19 with the idea of exploring the Saraghrar, the Hindu Kush massif with four main peaks, the highest at 7,340 meters, but without a clear objective, Baró said. What they had planned is to face the ascent in alpine style.
"We tried a complicated pillar, to the left of the Georgians' (Archil Badriashvili, Giorgi Tepnadze and Bakar Gelashvili) route of 2021, but we went down due to bad weather, we reached just over 6,000 meters. We were there for five days and then we went to the Catalan route of 82. Marc and Bru reached the top and Guillem and I turned around at about 6,800 meters due to a bad weather warning that was not fulfilled in the end. We had a great time, we climbed a lot and we have cleaned the route of the ropes that we have found", says Baró.
The main summit achieved by the Georgians on this same mountain, at 7,340 meters, earned them a golden ice ax last year.
Given the mediocrity that in recent times has colonized the iconic mountains for the general public, especially the eight-thousanders with more hook, the commitment of the four Catalan expedition members who seek to combine the most demanding mountaineering with a certain dose of exploration stands out.
