KHAN TENGRI 2017
First unguided Singaporean ascent
Team: Nicholas Chee, Samie Vu
Climb: Khan Tengri (7010m - Classical Route)
SOME CONTEXT
Firstly, Xieheng (our team leader) is the first Singaporean to summit this beautiful peak in 2012 in an international guided team.
Nick and Samie attempted Lenin Peak in 2013, inspired by Xieheng's Khan Tengri. Nick became the first Singaporean to summit Lenin peak.
After Lenin, we realized that for Khan Tengri (KT), we needed more training and hence, we put KT on hold for a few years until we felt we are ready and in 2017, off we went to climb KT unguided.
Due to memory card failure, we failed to have any photos of the climb itself. Back in Singapore, we failed to retrieve the data in the faulty card as well. We only managed to keep some summit photos (thanks to an Italian team lending us their memory card).
Photo on the right: Nick and Samie on KT summit on 6 Aug 2017. Nick proposed to Samie on the summit and they were engaged, subsequently married.
THE LORD OF THE SKIES
Khan Tengri means The Lord of the Skies. When the sunset, the summit will have this blood red color (photo on the left). Besides the breath taking view, the climb itself is still the best high altitude climb we've ever had: KT has rock, ice and snow and ALL very steep. We have a lot of difficulties finding any 7000m peak as beautiful and as exciting as KT; we are never going for a snow logging peak anymore! Thanks for Xieheng for pioneering this peak and a LOT of respect for him for climbing KT all the way back in 2012 (whatever you achieved, we can only catch up with you 5 years later).
Photo on the left: Our tent at C3 with KT blood red summit in the background.
THE REWARD
The reward for climbing KT is actually to see Pobeda bathing in sunrise light (photo on the right). Pobeda means victory. We hope one day we could have the blessing to climb Pobeda safely and back unharmed.
