Trango Towers, Pakistan

The Trango Towers is family of world tallest rock towers situated in Gilgit-Baltistan, an autonomous territory in the North ofPakistan. Every year, a number of expeditions from all over the world visit Karakoram to climb the most challenging granite cliffs. They are located in the north of Baltoro Glacier, in Baltistan, a region of the Gilgit-Baltistan territory in northern Pakistan. They are part of the Baltoro Muztagh, a sub-range of the Karakoram range. The Towers offer some of the largest cliffs and most challenging rock climbing in the world. The highest point in the group is the summit of Great Trango Tower at 6,286 m (20,608 ft). The east face of the Great Trango Tower features the world's greatest nearly vertical drop.

Structure of the Group

All of the Trango Towers lie on a ridge, trending northwest-southeast, between the Trango Glacier on the west and the Dunge Glacier on the east. Great Trango itself is a large massif, with four identifiable summits: Main (6,286 m), South or Southwest (circa 6,250 m), East (6,231 m), and West (6,223 m). It is a complex combination of steep snow/ice gullies, steeper rock faces, and vertical to overhanging headwalls, topped by a snowy ridge system.

Just northwest of Great Trango is the Trango Tower (6,239 m), often called "Nameless Tower". This is a very large, pointed, rather symmetrical spire which juts 1000 m out of the ridgeline. North of Trango Tower is a smaller rock spire known as "Trango Monk." To the north of this feature, the ridge becomes less rocky and loses the large granite walls that distinguish the Trango Towers group and make them so attractive to climbers; however the summits do get higher. These summits are not usually considered part of the Trango Towers group, though they share the Trango name. Trango II (6,327 m) lies northwest of the Monk, and the highest summit on the ridge, Trango Ri (6,363 m), lies northwest of Trango II.

Just southeast of Great Trango (really a part of its southeast ridge) is the Trango Pulpit (6,050m), whose walls present similar climbing challenges to those of Great Trango itself. Further to the south is Trango Castle (5,753 m), the last large peak along the ridge before the Baltoro Glacier.

Climbing history

Overall, the Trango Towers group has seen some of the most difficult and significant climbs ever accomplished, due to the combination of altitude, total height of the routes, and the steepness of the rock. All of the routes are highly technical climbs.

Trango towers have only been climbed once by Pakistani rock climbers in history. Imran Junaidi and Usman Tariq successfully reached to the summit of Trango Tower in July 2014 and opened a new route with difficulty 5.10d, A0. They are also the first locals to attempt Trango Tower, in September 2013, but were forced by heavy snowfall to descend from camp 2. Two days later, however, the team climbed a virgin line at Trango Braak, reporting difficulty of 5.10, A1.