Saser Kangri II East: the 7,518 m peak that stayed unclimbed until 2011

This confusion was not trivial. When Mark Richey and Steve Swenson began researching the peak, the accepted record suggested Saser Kangri II had already been climbed. Careful study of the survey data and photographs led them to conclude that the Japanese “West Summit” was probably not the true top, and that the higher East summit was still virgin. Standing on the East summit in 2011, they confirmed it: the two tops are separate, the East is higher, and their line was a genuine first ascent. Getting the East-versus-West distinction right is the single most important fact about this mountain, and the reason it deserves its own page rather than a footnote on the Saser Kangri I guide.

On August 24, 2011, American alpinists Mark Richey, Steve Swenson, and Freddie Wilkinson reached the summit of Saser Kangri II East by a new line on the southwest face they named “The Old Breed” (1,700 m, WI4 M3). They climbed it in true alpine style, carrying everything themselves without fixed camps or supplemental oxygen, over roughly five days on the route, with the technical crux close to 7,000 m. Richey and Swenson, then in their fifties, had first seen the peak in 2001 on an expedition co-led by Chris Bonington and the Indian mountaineer Harish Kapadia, and had made an earlier attempt in 2009 that was turned back by weather at about 6,500 m. The 2011 climb, filmed by Wilkinson and later released as the documentary “The Old Breed,” won the 2012 Piolet d’Or, mountaineering’s highest honour. The descent was as serious as the climb: Swenson developed a worsening chest infection high on the mountain, and the team made some 30 rappels back to advanced base camp before he was evacuated for treatment.

The massif anchors the Saser Muztagh, the easternmost subrange of the Karakoram, and acts as a water tower for the region, feeding glacier systems including the North and South Shukpa Kunchang Glaciers that drain toward the Nubra and Shyok rivers. The whole group sits in remote, glaciated, and politically sensitive terrain, and the region is estimated to hold more than a hundred unclimbed summits. For the massif’s high point, see our Saser Kangri I guide.

The peak lies on the eastern side of the Line of Control, in a militarily sensitive zone near the Actual Ground Position Line between India and Pakistan. Much of the eastern Karakoram was closed to climbing entirely until 2010, and even now access is tightly controlled. Climbing requires permits from the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF) and clearance from the Ministry of Home Affairs, and India allows joint expeditions only in this region, which means a foreign team must climb together with an Indian team and cannot mount an exclusive foreign expedition. Permit processing is slow and uncertain; the 2011 team waited roughly nine months for approval. There is a mandatory liaison officer, and local Ladakhi staff and Indian climbers are part of any permitted expedition. Add the long approach from Leh through the Nubra and Shyok valleys onto glaciated terrain, and simply arriving at the foot of the mountain is a major undertaking before any climbing begins.

Saser Kangri II East is not a peak anyone works up to on a guided ladder. The climbers who belong on it share a specific profile: extensive high-altitude alpine experience with prior success on serious 6,000 m and 7,000 m technical routes; fluency in self-sufficient alpine-style climbing on steep snow, ice, and mixed ground, since there is no fixed-rope infrastructure; and the logistical patience to navigate a slow joint-permit process with Indian authorities. The 2011 first-ascent team were among the most accomplished alpinists of their generation, and the peak has seen only a handful of ascents in total. For almost everyone, Saser Kangri II East is a mountain to understand and admire rather than to attempt. Climbers looking for a realistic Karakoram objective should start with the region’s established guided peaks and the wider 8,000 m and high-altitude progression.