A 5,585 m col, a midnight start, fixed rope on both sides, and the reason the crew are on it hours before you are.
Gondogoro La is what separates the full Baltoro trip from an out and back to Concordia. It is also the single part of the itinerary most often misunderstood before departure, usually in the direction of people thinking it is a walk.
The ground
From Ali Camp at around 4,950 m the route climbs snow and ice to a col at 5,585 m, then drops steeply to Khuispang and on into the green of the Hushe valley. The ascent is the straightforward side. The descent is steeper and is where the rope matters most.
Why you start at midnight
Snow on the slope softens as soon as the sun reaches it, and soft snow on that angle is both harder work and more dangerous. The group leaves Ali Camp around one in the morning in order to be over the col at first light and off the far slope before it starts moving.
The crew leave earlier still. Fixing the rope is done ahead of the group arriving, in the dark, by people who have done it every season.
What it asks of you
- A long day. Twelve hours is normal and it follows two weeks of glacier travel.
- Comfort moving on fixed rope with a harness, jumar and crampons. We brief and practise this before the day.
- The fitness to do all of that starting at midnight at 5,000 m.
- The willingness to turn around. If conditions are wrong, we go back down to Concordia and out the way we came.
The col is crossed in the dark because the alternative is crossing it in soft snow. That is the whole reasoning, and it is not negotiable on the day.
No technical climbing experience is required, and most people who arrive fit and acclimatised cross it without difficulty. What is required is that you accept the schedule and the possibility that the weather makes the decision for everyone.
Questions this does not answer are the ones worth sending. A guide reads every enquiry and replies inside two working days.
Start an enquiry