Region: Central Asia & The Far East

Mark Pretty with David Pickford, Ian Parnell and Sam Whittaker (July-August 2005)

Since access to the eastern bloc countries is now so much easier, the granite spires above the Ak Su main and subsidiary valleys of Kyrgyzstan have become a popular destination for technical rock-climbing teams. The area has been likened to the 'Yosemite Valley in the 1930s with terrorism'. This team planned to repeat some existing routes but also make some first ascents. Despite being plagued by bad weather they were successful in climbing 2 completely new routes, The Beast, 550m with pitches up to E4 6A and From Russia with Love, 400m up to E7 6B, the latter possibly ranking as one of the current hardest on-sight routes. They also freed an existing aid route and climb a dozen one-pitch (up to 45m) routes between E3 and E7.