Regular Trek&Mountain contributor Jon Gupta and his climbing partner Nick Valentine have begun their attempt to become the first British mountaineers to hold the Snow Leopard award – that is, to climb all five 7000m peaks in the former Soviet Union.
Having summited Peak Lenin on 17th July, they will now go on to attempt the other four peaks needed to attain the award – Ismail Samani Peak (7495m) and Peak Korzhenevskaya (7105) in Tajikistan’s Pamir Mountains, Peak Pobeda (7439m) in Kyrgystan, and Khan Tengri (7010m) on the Kyrgystan-Kazakhastan border.
Jon and Nick will not just be aiming to become the first British climbers to attain the award (out of neary 600 climbers who have achieved it since 1981), they will also be attempting to do it in record time. To do this they will have to beat the record set by Denis Urubko in 1999 of summiting all five peaks in 42 days.
We’ll be posting further updates on Jon and Nick’s progress in the coming days, and you will also be able to read about their (hopefully successful) record attempt exclusively in an upcoming edition of Trek&Mountain. In the meantime, we wish the boys luck!