Trek and Climb with RAJA

An alpine style attempt on Peak Lenin 7134m Text and Photos: Athol Jake Preston and Anindya Mukherjee Summary: In August 2016, two friends, Athol Jake Preston (Australia) and Anindya Mukherjee (India) decided to rope up and climb the 7134m high Pik/Peak Lenin [1] by its north-west ridge (Razdelnaya route) in the Pamir Mountains of Central Asia in carry-camp and climb style, unsupported by porters or guides. They had to turn back from their summit camp (6148m) due to a heavy snow storm. Peak Lenin from Base Camp Achik Tash  “All big mountains are potentially dangerous; like fast cars they must be treated with respect. Yet if one uses common sense they can be traversed and enjoyed with impunity. The two popular ranges ...the Caucasus and the Pamir, are high and subject to violent storms. Also being marooned in a vast land mass they can be grippingly cold.”-Hamish Macinnes   “In 1974 the objectives were ambitious-nothing less than an alpine-style cli...

It took me more than a year to realize that I have not posted anything in my blog since Jan 2, 2016! Really? No posts, no updates, no reports whatsoever. It was such an active year! An year full of climbs, explorations and adventure. Yet, what was I thinking? Facebook of course. I was busy posting almost daily updates on that monstrous social network and getting sucked up in the process. Now, finally I have been able to ( at least I would like to think that I have) distance myself from Facebook a bit. It is now time for me to write down in brief about the things that happened in my life in 2016 ( as if that matters to someone). The first big adventure of 2016 for me was climbing the north face of Batian (Mt Kenya). Together with my good friend Martin Boner we gave big Batian a try. Here is a photo of the North face of Batian from near Shipton's Camp. We followed the standard route. Chris, our Kenyan friend also joined us in the climb at the last moment. Thus it was a party of 3 a...