First ascent of Lalung I completed by Slovenian all-famale team

A Slovenian women’s team Anja Petek and Patricija Verdev has climbed the first ascent of 6,243m Lalung I above the Lalung Valley in the Indian Himalayas in pure alpine style (5 climbing days).

In late August, Anja Petek, Patricija Verdev, Ana Baumgartner, and Ursa Kesar headed to the remote Lalung Valley in Ladakh. This region had been closed for many years because of political reasons, but a few years ago, it again opened for climbers. The Lalung Valley has many difficult, unclimbed peaks and remains poorly explored.

First ascent of Lalung I completed by Slovenian all-famale team. “Steel Angel”: women’s climbing award

Patricija Verde, Anja Petek, Ana Baumgartner and Ursa Kesar

First ascent of Lalung I (6,243 m, Ladakh), by East ridge, “Here Comes The Sun” route

• Difficult: ED, M6+, AI5+
• Total length: 2000 m
• Autonomy: All three weeks of the expedition were autonomous; only the Slovenian women team of 4 girls was in this area for three weeks. Рorters helped only up to the base camp. Support people in the Base Camp: cook, liaison officer.

Lalung-I (6 107m/20 036ft a.s.l.) is a mountain in the Himalayas in India. The prominence is 617m/2 024ft. By elevation Lalung-I is # 5 out of 57 in Marwah and # 13 out of 596 in Jammu and Kashmir.

Patricija Verdev:

So with Anya and also with Ana and Ursha we know each other for a few years now from different climbing camps that were organized by Alpine Association of Slovenia. With Anja we climbed for the first time together this February: there we saw that we can work together very well, that we complement each other. It was an interesting experience.

I think, maybe one month after this climb Anya called me, and the main question was if I wanna go on an expedition. And my answer was “Of course!” This has been my dream for many years.

So, we started to plan the main goal for the expedition, and also a few climbs to the summer. This helped a lot to get to know each other better, and of course, for good environment on expedition and also on the ridge. Yeah, it was very helpful. After we decided and planned all these things, we started looking for other members of this expedition, which was planned to be the first Slovenian woman mountaineering expedition to the Indian Himalaya. And we found Ana and Ursha. So, we were a team of four.

Anja Petek:

Hello, my name is Anya Bitek and I come from Slovenia. I will tell you about our idea for a visit to the Indian Himalaya this year with Patricia Verdev.

This year, in February, we climbed one complex long Slovenian winter route. After this climbing we started thinking and talking about a woman expedition to Indian Himalaya. First of all, we were not sure about which location and which continent, because… because… yeah, just because! We wanted to just climb one virgin 6000 high peak, but it didn’t matter where.

After talking and looking we said “OK, let’s choose the location”. And we started talking about Indian Himalaya, but we didn’t know, which peak yet. So, it took us maybe two months to find one virgin peak, because we wanted to find a virgin peak, more than 6000 m high and also an aesthetic one. When we first saw Lalung I on the Internet, me and Patricia, we were like “OK! OK, we know, this is the one!” This peak was beautiful. The North face was… wow! And we were very surprised and happy to find this virgin 6100 peak in Himalaya.

Patricija Verdev:

Now about the climb, about the route ‘Here comes the sun’ on the East ridge of the Lalung I. It took us six days; five climbing days. This difference is because of a snowstorm on the second day. From the ABC we assumed that the terrain on the ridge would be easier, so we could move faster. In reality the snowy terrain was black ice coated with snow, and there was a lot more mixed terrain, difficult technically terrain than we had assumed from the ABC. It took us a lot more than we had expected. Two days that I can expose, this was the second day, the snowstorm… it was like Christmas, if you know what I mean. It was snowing until the next day evening, and the second thing is that a hundred meters below the top wind blew away our tent sticks, so we had to make there a BV.

Everything about the difficulties on the ridge Anya will tell you.

Anja Petek:

The next question is what was the most difficult. Phew! It’s a hard question, because all this experience on Lalung I wasn’t easy. First of all, we had to reach one maybe almost 10 km long glacier to come under the peak. This glacier wasn’t friendly, wasn’t nice, but… yeah, this one was hard. And after we started climbing this ridge you can see on the photos.

Every day… we climbed for five days, and every day we climbed, like, very interesting. But it was also steep, mixed pitches. This route is very long and complex, the hardest pitch is m6+. Maybe even harder, but it depends on the climber, and situation, and conditions, and so on.

To come up, to come down… nothing was easy, but for me personally, I think, the most difficult thing in this experience, Lalung I was the weather situation. On the second day, on the ridge, it started snowing, and with Patricia we were in a tent, we went into a tent and stayed there for two days, because the snow didn’t stop. And this situation of being in a tent with your climbing friend and being not sure which time, which day this situation will end, when the snow stops, psychologically it’s very hard. But OK, after two days the snow stopped and we started to climb up again, to the top.

There was still a long descent ahead along the western ridge and then onto the glacier. First, the girls traversed the entire ridge, then made five rappels down the north face, and by 6:30 PM, they descended onto the glacier. It took another eight hours to return to ABC. “The next day, we reached the base camp, and before leaving the moraine, the sight of three silhouettes—Ana, Urša, and Freni—brought smiles to our tired faces, ” the girls shared their emotions. “Not knowing each other’s whereabouts in the last few days, we finally met, and joy overwhelmed us.”

By the time they returned to base camp, the bear situation had improved, but everyone agreed that it would be better for both the animals and themselves if they left this place as soon as possible.