Spitzer-Funded Team Climbs Huge Indian Wall
September 2007Micah Dash, left, and Jonny Copp below the Shafat Fortress, with the line of their first-ascent route marked.
A recent AAC ad in the climbing magazines featured a photograph of a stunning granite wall with the caption “Unnamed, Unclimbed.” Now, with the help of the AAC’s Lyman Spitzer Cutting-Edge Award, two Coloradans have climbed and named the striking peak: the Shafat Fortress in the Zanskar Montains of northwestern India.
Jonny Copp and Micah Dash summited the 19,000-foot-plus peak in pure alpine style. The Colorado Route (VI 5.11 A1 M6) required four days to climb, including nearly two days without moving due to poor weather and conditions.
The adventure began when one of their bags was stolen in Delhi, leaving them with only two ropes—not an insurmountable problem, as they hadn’t planned to fix lines anyway. During the approach, Copp survived a dangerous swim of the surging Suru River in order to fix a Tyrolean traverse across the torrent.
Once on the mountain, the climb was a mix of the sublime and the horrifying. Fine granite cracks and corners were followed by scary ice and mixed ground on the first day, leading to an extremely uncomfortable bivouac halfway up the face, “like sitting on a camel’s back made of ice all night,” according to Copp. Storms during the next day limited their progress to two pitches, but at least they reached a better ledge.
On the third day, Dash overcame the Shaft, a terrifying three-hour lead culminating in a run-out, rotten offwidth, with hands and feet frozen by melt-water. Fortunately, the summit day was beautiful, and the two reached the top after a total of 21 pitches of climbing.
A first-person Trip Report will be posted at this website soon.