Gipped Magazine article, Feb / Mar 2002

Climbing Against the Grain.

Soloing a new big wall in the Karakorams became an obsession of mine over the winter of 2001. I learned of Nangma Valley with it's massive Amin Brakk, 1300m of vertical granite. It was here that I found a path to that dream. When I arrived in the town of Kande far into the Himalayas last July, I hired seven porters to help get my pigs to base camp. Constant stone fall kept me away from Amin so I chose the overhanging golden granite of Debour's central tower.

The first five pitches were overhanging, requiring beaks and heads with some funky traverses. Climbing capsule style added to the exposure. On day five I woke up on my ledge to find one of my ropes had hung itself up 30m to the right. The entire day was spent drilling sideways around several blank corners to retrieve it while more snow puked down. A couple of days later a swing of my hammer caught my ear-phone cord and sent my tape deck plunging into space. Its shrapnel spooked a mountain bull as it hit a talus slope far below.

After eleven days on the tower I left Camp Three and committed to a summit push. The last pitch was unexpectedly difficult and with the addition of the altitude I became severely dehydrated. I made it to a nook 10m from the summit and saw that there wasn't any protection on the final block. Since I gave my single leather boots to a porter who had fallen in a river and lost his shoes, I was climbing in my plastic boots. I took them off and heel hooked my way up the summit block. After straddling the top and feeling the infinite exposure of soloing in the mountains I started for home. I named the route Against the Grain (VI V2 A4), a line that was a challenge every step of the way.

Story Matt Maddaloni