Four Korean women scale Trango Tower
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SKARDU: Four Korean women have returned to Skardu after scaling the Trango Tower (6,239 metres high), also called Nameless Tower.
According to Hamid Hussain, a representative of the expedition organisers, Mi Sun Chae, Mi Sun Han and Jin Ah Lee led by Jum Sook Kim began to climb the Trango Tower, a very large, pointed and rather symmetrical rock spire, on July 26 but had to return to the base camp on August 4 due to bad weather.
They left the rock spire on August 8 after the weather cleared and succeeded in reaching the summit on the August 12 morning.
Earlier in 2006, 20 Slovenian women had climbed the peak.
“We used the German route, the most challenging, to reach the summit,” Ms Kim told Dawn.
On average, all four Korean women have the 20 years rock climbing experience.
Ms Kim, 47, is a noted climbing instructor in Korea.
She began to climb rocks in 1989 and surmounted several peaks in the Alps, the US, Canada and India.
Also, Ms Kim won the first prize at Korean Sport Climbing Games in 1993 and the second prize at X-Games in 1999.
Mi Chae, 41, works at a shop in Korea.
She won the first prize at the Korean Ice Climbing Games in 2000, 2001 and 2002, and second at the Korean Aid Climbing Festival in 2007.
Until now, Ms Chae has scaled El Capitan at Yosemite National Park in the US, Mt McKinley in Alaska, Grand Jorasse in the Alps and Mt Fitzroy in Argentina.
Ms Han, 41, is a freelancer and climbing instructor.
She has won the first prize at the Korean Aid Climbing Games in 2010 and second at the Korean Ice Climbing Games in 2009 and 2011.
Ms Han has surmounted rocks in the area of Blue Mountains in Australia, El Capitan at Yosemite National Park in America, the central Peak of Paine Chile Pantagonia and Mt. Fitzroy in Argentina in, Mount Blanc and Aiguille du Midi in the Alps until now.Ms Lee, 38, is the youngest member of the expedition.
A nurse by profession, she began her climbing career in 1998 and won the first prize at the Korean Summer Dry Tooling Games in 2011, second at Korean Ice Climbing Games in 2008 and Korean Summer Dry Tooling Games in 2012, third at Korean Bouldering Games in 2005 and Korean Ice Climbing Games in 2006, and fourth at the Korean Sport Climbing Games in 2005.
The four climbers are carrying out charity work in Baltistan for the poor people.
“We are planning to send some clothes, shoes and other relief items to Pakistani poor people once a year. We hope that our project continue for a long time,” Ms Kim said.
