âIn recent years, the peaks of Zanskar have seen increasing popularity with mountaineering expeditions. Despite this, there are still plenty of unclimbed summits from 5,500m to 6,500mâŠ.â
Thatâs the start of a report for AAJ 2025 from Matic âMatijaâ JoĆĄt from Slovenia, who has completed four exploratory expeditions to Zanskar, in the southwest of Ladakh, India, in the last decade. JoĆĄtâs detailed, photo-rich trip reports have prompted a lot of recent activity (including three additional reports in the upcoming AAJ). Below, we offer highlights from JoĆĄtâs latest exploration, plus a brief Q&A with the man himself.
âUroĆĄ Cigljar, Tilen Cmok, BoĆĄtjan DeÄman, Nejc Ć krablin, TomaĆŸ Ćœerovnik, and I arrived on July 7 at base camp in the Chhogo Tokpo, the eastern branch of the Haptal Tokpo. [Tokpo is a word for âvalleyâ in this area of India.] While several parties had visited adjacent valleys and climbed a few peaks on the watershed ridges with the Chhogo, the only reported climbing expedition to visit the Chhogo valley was an Indian-Romanian team in 2016 that climbed one peak and attempted another (AAJ 2017).
âA very complex 6,431m mountain known as T16 was our main objective. [Peaks above various Zanskar valleys were numbered by Kimikazu Sakamoto, whose teams made exploratory expeditions in Zanskar from 2009 to 2016; Sakamoto published the first climber-friendly topographical sketches of these mountains.] The lower south summit was climbed by Romanians Cosmin Andron and Cristina Pogacean in 2016, but the easiest approach to the main top appeared to lie up the south slopes above the Khapang Glacier, east of the Chhogo valley. The big riddle was finding a suitable passage from the Chhogo to the Khapang, and we decided to devote part of our acclimatization to solving this problem.
âAiming for a col on the ridge south of T16, we hiked up a side glacier, passing the route climbed by the Romanians, and climbed a 300m west-facing gully (300m, D+ 60° M3) to reach the col (5,836m). From there, it would be easy to descend to the gentle Khapang Glacier and traverse over to T16âs main peak.
âThe whole team returned to the col camp on the 14th, and the next day, in perfect weather, we climbed south-facing slopes above the Khapang Glacier and along the east ridge to the summit of T16 (600m, D+ 60°). Our expedition had been organized by a club from the Slovenian town Ć entjur, so we named our route Ć entjurka (900m, D+). We later encouraged people in the nearest village, Tungri, to suggest a name for the peak, and they came up with Skarma Mindruk Ri. (Skarma is âstar,â and Mindruk is a specific star in the constellation of Pleiades.) Maybe the name will catch on.â
Later in this expedition, JoĆĄt and Ćœerovnik crossed a different col to reach the Korlomshe Tokpo, where a British team in 2015 had attempted what they called a âMatterhorn-like peak.â The Slovenians climbed the east face and south slopes to reach the 6,130m summit. âWe named the route Charlatan De Balkan (500m, D+ 60° ice) after an album by a popular Slovenian group,â JoĆĄt writes. âAs the peak was absolutely nothing like the famous Swiss mountain, we named it Antimatterhorn.â
Team members also attempted the west face of unclimbed Peak 5,435m, close to base camp, and made the first ascent rock tower east of camp, which was dubbed Ibex (5,321m).
By July 24, most of the party had left base camp. âAlthough Iâve been climbing around 45 years, I donât have much experience with soloing, but I decided to try the north face of T9 (6,107m), which I had seen from the Antimatterhorn approach,â JoĆĄt writes in his report. âI left base camp at 1 a.m. on the 25th, carrying two axes but no rope. The north face became icier and brittle the higher I climbed, but at 8:30 a.m. I reached the west ridge. The upper section of this ridge was rockier, but in one hour I was standing on the summit.â Uncomfortable with downclimbing the north face he had ascended, he headed down a couloir on the southwest face to a neighboring glacier, traversing the mountain, and made it back to base camp by 3 p.m.
âThe locals suggested the name Spao Ri for the peak. It means âbrave mountain.â I named the route Old and Abandoned (700m, TD II/III 75° ice). Why? Because Iâm not young anymore.â
JoĆĄtâs comprehensive report from the 2024 expedition, in...
https://americanalpineclub.org/news/2025/1/21/the-line-zanskar
