Trango Towers
Interesting facts
- The route Eternal Flame on Nameless Tower takes its name from a song by the Bangles, picked by its German first ascensionists in 1989.
- The 1,340-metre east-southeast headwall of Great Trango has been climbed by only one completed route, the Grand Voyage of Xaver Bongard and John Middendorf.
- The 1992 Grand Voyage was also the first climb to reach Great Trango's East Summit and get its climbers safely back down.
- The Norwegian line on Great Trango's east face was not repeated until 2008, when four Norwegians spent 27 days on the wall to reach the top.
- Rolf Bae, one of the 2008 Norwegian team on Great Trango, died later that same summer in the 2008 disaster on nearby K2.
- A Norwegian team spent a total of 38 days on the wall while climbing the north-east face of the neighbouring Trango Pulpit.
- In 1999 an American team and a Russian team made the first ascents of Great Trango's West Summit almost simultaneously, and both climbs were nominated for the Piolet d'Or.
- In 2004 Josh Wharton and Kelly Cordes climbed a 2,256-metre new route up Great Trango's south-west ridge in only five days.
- In 2023 two French climbers repeated the record Great Trango BASE jump, then climbed Eternal Flame and leapt off Nameless Tower as well.
- The highest point on the Trango ridge is actually Trango Ri at about 6,363 metres, though it lacks the great granite walls and is not counted among the towers.
Why it is worth it
The Trango Towers are a row of granite blades on a ridge above the Baltoro Glacier in the Karakoram, and for anyone walking towards K2 they are the first sight that seems to belong to another scale of mountain. The ridge runs north-west to south-east between the Trango and Dunge glaciers. At its heart stands Great Trango Tower, a massif with three summits, the main one at 6,286 metres; its east face drops about 1,340 metres of near-vertical and overhanging rock, among the tallest cliffs anywhere. Just north-west rises Trango Tower, better known as Nameless Tower, a smooth, almost symmetrical spike that lifts roughly a kilometre clear of the ridgeline, with the slimmer Trango Monk beside it and the Trango Pulpit and Trango Castle stepping down to the south.
These walls became a proving ground for high-altitude rock climbing. Nameless Tower was first climbed in 1976 by the British team of Joe Brown, Mo Anthoine, Martin Boysen and Malcolm Howells; Great Trango followed in 1977, climbed by Galen Rowell, John Roskelley, Kim Schmitz, Jim Morrissey and Dennis Hennek. In 1984 the Norwegians Hans Christian Doseth and Finn Dæhli reached the east summit by the great east face and both died on the descent. Later came routes that changed what was thought possible: Eternal Flame on Nameless Tower in 1989, climbed almost entirely free by a team including Kurt Albert and Wolfgang Güllich, and freed completely by Alexander and Thomas Huber in 2009; Catherine Destivelle's free ascent in 1990, the first by a woman; and the 18-day Grand Voyage on the east face of Great Trango in 1992.
The towers have also drawn the most daring of stunts. In August 1992 the Australians Nic Feteris and Glenn Singleman climbed Great Trango and BASE-jumped from 5,955 metres on its north-east face to the Dunge Glacier, then the highest recorded start of a BASE jump; in 2024 Chantel Astorga, Christina Lustenberger and Jim Morrison skied the west face of Great Trango for the first time. For trekkers, though, the reward is simply the view: pale golden granite catching the late light above the grey rubble of the Baltoro, one of the great mountain panoramas on the approach to Concordia.
Getting there
The towers stand deep in the Baltoro Muztagh, about 72 km in a straight line from Skardu, the main gateway town to the Karakoram. The nearest airport is Skardu International Airport (KDU), about 76 km away. From Skardu the road leads to Askole, the last village and the starting point of expeditions to K2 and the Baltoro peaks; from there the towers are reached only on foot, trekking up the Baltoro Glacier with porters or mules.
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Nearby places
- Baltoro Glacier 16.4 km · glacier
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From the encyclopaedia
The Trango Towers are a family of rock towers situated in the Gilgit-Baltistan region, in northern Pakistan. The Towers have some of the world's largest cliffs and offer some of the most challenging big wall climbing opportunities. Each year, climbers from around the world embark on expeditions to the Karakoram region to climb these granite faces. The Trango Towers are situated to the north of the Baltoro Glacier and are part of the Baltoro Muztagh, which is a sub-range of the Karakoram. The highest point within the group is the summit of Great Trango Tower at 6,286 m (20,623 ft), the east face of which features the world's greatest nearly vertical drop.
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