A view of Link Sar which Jon Griffith and Andy Houseman climbed.

ISLAMABAD: Two British climbers managed to summit the Link Sar, a mountain which few have attempted to climb in the past.

While Jon Griffith and Andy Houseman climbed the 7,041 metres high mountain in Charakusa valley, in July the news was confirmed by the Alpine Club of Pakistan (ACP) on Saturday.

“The two climbers could not make it to the Main Summit, but managed to reach the Link Sar West Summit at 6,938 metres,” said ACP Press Secretary Karrar Haidri.

Mr Haidri explained that illness, lack of food and unfavourable weather conditions prevented the climbers from reaching the main summit. He said that it took the duo five days to climb the Northwest Face of the mountain and another day to descend.

This was the same route that Jon Griffith and Kevin Mahoney followed, while attempting to climb the peak in 2014. Mr Haidri said that this beautiful mountain is one of the most difficult to climb.

“The peak has seen few attempts,” the ACP official said.

Karrar Haidri explained that 2015 has been an unusually tough year for climbers. Excessive heat in the Karakorum Range caused several wide crevasses to form, which coupled with avalanches thwarted the efforts of many mountaineers.

According to Karrar Haidri, Jon Griffith and Andy Houseman made a summit push on July 14 and reached as high as 6,100 metres. More snow fell while the climbers recuperated and on July 15, the duo climbed for 17 hours before they reached 6,800 metres. That evening Jon Griffith fell ill with a fever.

Mr Haidri narrated that the two climbers were forced to rest for two days and on July 17, climbed to the West Summit at 6,938 metres.

The Main Summit is one kilometre from the West Summit, but the ridge connecting the two summits is very challenging and the team decided not to attempt to climb any higher.

Karrar Haidri quoted Jon Griffith as saying, “I feel our expedition was a success. It was a shame that we could not reach the Main Summit but we had run out of supplies and lost the window of favourable weather. We came down just as the bad weather began rolling in and it is not a mountain you can risk coming down in unfavourable weather conditions.”

The mountaineer said that their attempt would have turned into a serious fight for survival, had they descended in worse weather.

“If I had not fallen sick, we would have given it a shot. We had a tight weather window and we used it the best we could,” he said.

According to ACP, this was Jon Griffith’s fourth attempt on the mountain and Andy Houseman’s second.

In 2014, Kevin Mahoney and Jon Griffith were forced to abandon their summit push just 300 metres below the peak, due to bad weather and dangerous climbing conditions. The two had been just half a kilometre away from West Summit.

Two years ago, rain and bad weather prevented Jon Griffith and Andy Houseman from becoming acclimatised and they were forced to cancel their final summit bid when Andy Housemen fell ill.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2015

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