©Price
The first ascent of the northwest face of Aikache Chhok, Batura Muztagh, via Secrets, Shepherds, Sex and Serendipity (3,000m, M7 A2+ AI5), October 12-20. The climbers traversed the mountain, descending unclimbed ground to the west and then north to regain base camp on the 21st.
In 2025, George Ponsonby (Ireland) and James Price (UK & France) were members of the British Young Alpinist Group, which concludes a three-year programme with an expedition to the Greater Ranges. Individual members of the group pitch their plans to the rest, and the most popular idea is chosen. Price made a relatively reluctant presentation on a valley north of the Hunza River he had never seen. To his dismay, everyone liked the idea and he was chosen to organize it.
In early September the team reached a base camp at a grazing pasture in the accessible but rarely visited (by mountaineers) Baltar Valley, then spent the next 10 days in largely poor weather looking for a suitable objective. They eventually decided on the prominent spur splitting the northwest face of a mountain they could clearly see from base camp: Aikache Chhok. It had been climbed only once before, in 1983, from a glacier basin to the south. Ponsonby and Price started up this spur on October 12. Prior bad weather had restricted their acclimatization ascents to an altitude of no more than 4,500m.
The two reached the summit early on their eighth day after strenuous and difficult ice and mixed climbing. Late on day four, unable to find either a tent site or a route above the day's high point, they were forced to retreat to their previous bivouac site and try again the following morning: fortunately, they discovered a better line. Over those two days they gained no more than 250m in altitude.
With their route having never been a realistic option for descent, the two traversed the summit and started rappelling a west-facing couloir. Two days later, after a bivouac at 5,000m and intricate route finding, they returned safely to base camp.
The jury recognized this ascent as a long and highly committing outing in a little-known part of the Karakoram by two young and spirited climbers. The pair exhibited great persistence on a route with much technical difficulty and almost zero chance of rescue. Due to the exploratory nature and complexity of the descent, the adventure continued all the way to base camp.
George Ponsonby
Ireland
George started climbing at the age of 18 in Ireland, progressing from the small crags and sea cliffs of the country to larger routes in the Alps and beyond over the next few years. Moving to Utah in 2021, he dove into exploring as many obscure trad, ice, mixed and big wall areas as he could while juggling a career as an engineer and wind turbine technician, leading to many long nighttime drives, large hikes and tired Mondays.
Happiest on sea cliffs, desert walls and granite cliffs far into the mountains, he also dabbles in mixed and ice climbing around the American West and Canada. A couple of years ago he made an effort to refocus on alpine climbing, attempting new routes and repeating others in Canada and Montana, climbing No Siesta on the Grandes Jorasses and culminating in the ascent of Aikache Chhok in Pakistan during his first expedition to the Himalaya.
James Price
UK / FRANCE
Former endurance athlete now living in Flumet, France, James Price made a name for himself in 2021, at the age of 24, by completing three solo ascents in the Batura Range in Pakistan: the first solo ascents of Passu North (6,884 m) and the opening of new routes on Passu Diar (7,295 m) and Maidon Sar (6,090 m), leaving unsupported from the road side.
He had previously done a great deal of climbing in South America and in the Alps, where he has lived since 2020. For James climbing is ‘a form of expression' and he 'enjoy’s climbing aesthetic lines in a very simple style'. He has climbed 81 of the 4,000m peaks in the Alps, including winter ascents of No Siesta and the Walker Spur on the Grandes Jorasses and a solo ascent of the Schmid Route on the Matterhorn north face. When he is not climbing he works as an Assistant Nurse in his local hospital.
James’ connection to Pakistan began in 2020 when he was confined in the Valley of Hunza during the COVID lockdown. He spent 4 months living with a local family and passed his time working in the fields or carrying loads up to the water channel. He has since returned on multiple occasions: notably in 2022 he made the 3rd ascent of Passu Sar (7,478m) but would suffer frostbite to both feet on descent and in 2024 when he climbed Spantik (7,027m) with a few friends, leaving unsupported from the village of Arandu.
