Region: Central Asia and The Far East

Stuart Howard with Dave Swinburne (July-August 2007)

The Malitskovo Glacier lies in the Central section of the Western Kokshaal-Too region of Kyrgyzstan, close to the border with China: in fact, according to recent border realignment, it now lies within China. Until 1999 visits were restricted to climbers from the USSR, but.in 2006 the main glacier was visited and partly explored by an expedition from the ISM. The American Alpine Club produced a 1:150,000 map of the area in 2005 from which this year’s pair identified a number of peaks c.5000m which appeared to offer reasonable objectives for them to make first ascents. They were successful on two, marked as Pik 5055m and Pik 4975m, although their own GPS - which they believe to be more accurate - recorded 5061m and 5100m respectively. They also made an attempt on Pik 4995m on which the ISM had already failed, but proposed the name ‘Pik Kanashay’. Unfortunately a heavy dump of snow made the final slopes unstable, so they did not reach the summit.