Alexander Gukov Details Latok I North Ridge Ascent
The Russian website mountain.ru has translated a report by Alexander Gukov about the Latok I expedition that killed his climbing partner Sergey Glazunov.
Gukov said in his report that he believes they reached the top of the North Ridge, but not the summit of Latok I.
They began their climb on July 13 and Gukov said that 10 days later, they were prepared for their summit push from high on the ridge.
The report goes into day-by-day details, including specifics about the amazing rescue that took place for Gukov after Glazunov died.
Excerpt from the report: I think that it was the top of the North ridge or the western “summit” of Latok I.
Although I can now see on Google Earth that there was only 360m from that point to the main summit with a small height difference but we did not see this in the fog.
Sergey and I decided that we would not lie. He believed it was the summit, I believed it was not.
We didn’t have a second chance to check it. If we had taken the tent and stayed there on the “mushrooms,” we would have found out. But we did not take it.
After that we started to descend. When we heard and saw the helicopter we thought that it was the second team who called for assistance, as we knew that they had been injured by the rockfall during the descent, and that they decided to look for us at the same time.
Read the full report here.
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