Southeast Arete

The southeast ridge of Kyrkchilta is one of the finest alpine rock routes on the planet. It climbs 5000 feet of high quality granite along an aesthetic ridge line to a world class summit that tops out at 4510 meters to insane views of the Ak-Su and Kara-Su valleys and their surrounding peaks. The route contains climbing up to 5.11b but is mostly 5.9 and under for the first 3000 feet and sustained at 5.9 to 5.10 for the next 2000 feet. The route is very committing as we encountered only 2 fixed anchors on the entire route which we guess are from a party bailing into the dangerous looking gully to the south. 

Hike up the grassy slopes to the left of the talus field then cross over the talus field aiming for a gully between two dry waterfalls. Scramble up the gully to a good belay ledge. The route starts to the right of a large flakey corner system below a large water streaked dihedral. 

Follow the line in the overlay photo for the best route to the first bivy. The route starts off by climbing some grassy crack systems then enters the main corner system and weaves in and out of various smaller corner systems. The terrain is mostly 5.8 to 5.9 with perhaps some sections of 5.10. We climbed 18 rope stretching pitches for what we estimated was 3000 feet.

From the bivy ledge, follow the zoomed in photo overlay to the summit. It is very accurate and should be the only information required. We broke this day into 14 pitches with an estimated 2000 feet of roped climbing. There are multiple bivy spots around the summit area. The best one is just below the south face of the steep summit block wall.

The rap line follows the blue line on the overlay photo. We found the first rap station in a little gully below a large rock perched on the sub-summit just north of the true summit. The third rap required a 65 meter diagonal rap to get into the main corner system. We believe there may be a better start to the rap line further north above the corner system. The raps are low angle and suck. Bring cord.

Hike up the grassy slopes to the left of the talus field then cross over the talus field aiming for a gully between two dry waterfalls. Scramble up the gully to a good belay ledge. The route starts to the right of a large flakey corner system below a large water streaked dihedral. 

Doubles .3 to 2, single .2 & 3, (2) sets of nuts, (2) 60m ropes