QUBMC 2012 Tien Shan Expedition

[RonanK]

The final report of the 2012 QUBMC Tien Shan Expedition is now available to anyone who's interested.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bw7kwCjznmBPQy1keHZ1T05Jb2M

The expedition was highly successful, with 11 new routes climbed including 2 first ascents of prominent summits and 3 first ascents of summits of dubious prominence.

For anyone interested in expeditions, I can only recommend Kyrgyzstan - very affordable with loads left to do. If you're going to the Western Kokshaal-Too like we did I recommend going to the Kizil Asker valley or anywhere further east as the rock quality is better than the valleys to the west.

The expedition was supported by MI, Queen's University Belfast, the Mount Everest Foundation and QUBMC.

[MikeClifford]

Great report. The 'Swiss' group was half Irish

We were on the Komorova Glacier which I can only recommend. The rock was of mixed quality. Some mountains were made of really bad shale while others were made of amazing granite. I haven't written a report but at the end of our trip, 2 Americans arrived to finish the unclimbed Ines Parpert route on Kizil Asker and they posted some photos here: http://www.alpineessence.com/

We had success on two mountains on routes graded about AD/D. One of the mountains was most likely a first ascent. We attempted two other mountains but turned back to avalanche risk and bad weather.

The remoteness and adventerousness (is that a word?) of the Kokshaal Too was fantastic.

[jockr]

Thanks for posting this Ronan, looking forward to reading the report.  Sounds like you had a great time well done to all involved!

[RonanK]

Hi Mike,

Good to hear from you - Aleksander mentioned you and showed us your border permit while he drove us back to Naryn in the rickety GAZ. Good to see it held together for you in the end! It is an amazing place, Komorova looks huge, I don't envy your walk-in.
Very strange weather in that place, we were tent bound for 5 days at one point then had more than a week of clear weather at the end.

Jock, cheers - twas a great trip and there'll be a talk in Belfast about it in Feb.