Day 49 Ultar Meadows

8:11 am. Another good night's sleep. Rained again during the night. I think today my plan is to go back down to the 'halfway' camping spot [a flat region of grass we passed on the walk up from Karimabad] - from what I remember walking up, there's the potential for some climbing there. Not much here to do at Ultar Meadows proper, except the fine views. I'll see what I can find for breakfast first though.

10:06 pm. Temperature is a very British 17 degrees. Have moved the camp down to the halfway meadow by the stream place, about thirty minutes downhill from the previous camping place. Plan was to find some climbs to do (new routes) but, despite there being much rock, there was very little new route potential: plenty of giant rock walls - which would run to dozens of pitches, with no obvious ways off, but not much else. The others seem quite keen and content to boulder, but I don't find bouldering very stimulating! But little else to do, and in the event I got into it a bit and did find a really great mini-route - a slab followed by curved arete, on a large boulder next to the path / stream. Needed a bit of cleaning - the rock being covered with a fine layer of something like mud. Getting up the slab took several attempts - demands good footwork; small boss of rock out left for layoff, thence big step on to sloping arete and delicate finish. This route's for a unique friend ;-) and is called Beryllium. The rest of the team climbed it - Ben (Hot Rock's bouldering guru) reckoned it comes in about V3, about French 6c/7a (UK 6a I would think) or something. Pleased with this: like I said before, creating a new route is not easy and despite being short I like this one very much.

Next I had a go at a finger crack splitting another boulder, a bit further up the path. The route gives just 4 metres of finger-width crack climbing, looks a bit like Stroof at Subluminal - but easier. Difficult start - I needed to stand on some small stones piled up; 2 wires placed before starting, friend 1/2 shoved in midway, friend 1 at top of crack. Mel videoed the proceedings. Funny that - here I was climbing in the Karakoram, complete with porters etc for the approach, and all I manage is 4 metres of crack climbing. Anyway, I just loved doing this route. It's called Liquid Engineering, HVS 5a. Geoff did the direct start (sans stones).