Spantik Details

Location: Baltistan province, Pakistan at apprximately 36N 75E.

Height: 7027m (23055 feet)

Access: From Skardu Arundu is a day's jeep ride. Base camp is a three day walk along the Cholo Lungma Glacier. There are flights from Islamabad to Skardu but near-perfect weather conditions are required before the flights depart. The bus trip from Islamabad to Skardu takes two days with an overnight stop at Chilas.

Route name: South East Ridge

Grade: technically easy but is physically demanding. Be aware that the ridge is long so evacuation of an ill member may be problematic.

Time required: our time at base camp was a little over two weeks. For the weather during our trip this was not long enough. Had we another week we may have stood a better chance at reaching the summit.

Camp locations:

• Base camp: 4187m, 35 59.433'N 75 01.155'E
• Camp 1: 5086m, 36 00.089'N 75 00.662'E
• Camp 2: 5481m, 36 01.422'N 74 59.011'E

• Camp 3: ~6100m

Note: heights and locations for base camp, camp 1 and camp 2 taken from GPS measurements. Camp 3 height taken from Field Touring's trip dossier.

Important note: there is also a camp on the ridge which looks a lot more inviting than the one we used on the glacier. However while we were there we observed a rather large rock hurl down the ridge and straight through the area being used. Luckily it didn't hit anything!