New trailer, it’s on !!
Fresh news in from the Trango Air Wall crew. After meeting up in Istanbul, Turkey, the crew arrived in Islamabad last Sunday before hitting the imaginatively named Karakorum Highway. Tim Emmett described the road as “It’s like playing chicken with trucks on a 1-lane road covered in boulders with a vertical rock wall on one side and a huge cliff down to a raging river on the other.”
After two days of driving the team arrived in Skardu, which is the launching point for many expeditions to the Karakorum range. A Gnarl Factor 11 jeep ride took them to the end of the road in Askole where the team hired porters for their gear to be carried to base camp.
“Askole is an amazing place. We met with locals and went to the museum. It’s great to see how they’ve been living for thousands of years, totally self-sufficient. During the winter months they move down into their cellars for five months of the year, sometimes four families in one cellar. That’s how they survive the harsh Karakorum winters.”
Surprisingly, all the team’s gear arrived in Pakistan except for one bag which contained solar panels for recharging batteries, some warm clothes, a high-mountain tent, and a few other things. Although the 4-member team will now be forced to either squeeze into a very small 3-man tent or dig snow holes on the mountain, they still have all their climbing gear, BASE and wingsuit rigs and footwear so the missing bag is not a deal breaker.
Liv Sansoz told us, “It’s nice to start hiking. It’s great to see glaciers and snowy peaks. The whole team is in a really good spirit – always laughing and joking – especially when Tim is farting!”
Tim Emmett added, “We’ve seen lots of exit points at the top of 2000-foot headwalls along the way. We’ve been tempted to stop but we’re sticking with the original plan. Hopefully we can check them out on the way back.”
We checked in on the team today and they had made it all the way to Jula Camp, which is six-and-a-half hours beyond the end of the road at Askole. All except for Jérome Blanc-Gras who is going to attempt to fly from Askole up the Baltoro Glacier to Trango base camp. He is with two other paraglider pilots who will try to paraglide from Askole all the way to K2 base camp, which is five days of very difficult trekking up the Baltoro and Godwin-Austen glaciers. As far as we know, this has never been done before.
By Trey Cook, epictv.com
few pics from the beginning of the adventure !!
Happy guys 
Local colours
Kids around
Karakoram Highway !
Next post will be from some of the most impressiv mountains on earth !!
I’m sitting on the plane about to come into land in Istanbul, Turkey. The plan is to meet up with the Chamonix legends Liv Sansoz, Jerome Blanc Gras, Manu Guy and make our way to Great Trango in Pakistan. In addition to our climbing equipment, we each have a parachute, and either a wingsuit or tracking gear. Our intention is to jump down the highest vertical wall in the Himalayas, all four of us. Any equipment we take to the top must come down, we have no support, just ourselves. Four helmet clad compadres looking for the experience of a lifetime, flying our bodies through some of the most amazing scenery in the world. It’s going to cold, hard work and a massive adventure. Only one of the team, Jerome, has jumped at 6000m before, we are excited by the unknown of what lies ahead.
Three days on the road up the infamous Karakoram Highway, then three days on foot 50km up the Baltoro Glacier. We have two weeks to acclimatize and climb the original route to the summit glacier, look for an exit point then wait for good weather. Our dream is to stand together side by side, four amigos donned with flying suits, aloft on top of the highest wall in the biggest mountains in the world. We throw off all our climbing gear, then jump and chase it down to the glacier below. Big wall flying, Pakistan style, as a team!
Now we have arrived in Islamabad, one of my bags did not arrive, I have lost my phone, the adventure begins
Tim
In a few hours we will all meet up in Istambul and the adventure will begin ! Islamabad, Skardu, Askole and a few days of hike till the base camp in Trango…
The last past weeks had been intense, training, trying the new gear and organiszing the gear, 180kg of gear has already been sent and we still have loads of things to bring with us.
The four of us are really looking forward for this adventure. We are a great team with a solid relationship that will make the trip even more fun.
We really want to thank the companies who stand behind us for this project.
We will try to post some news so stay tuned !
Demain c’est le grand jour, le départ tant attendu : Turin, Istanbul, Islamabad, Skardu et enfin Askole avant plusieurs jours de marche vers le camp de base de Trango…
Comme pour toutes les expéditions, les dernières semaines ont été intenses en préparatifs : entraînement bien sûr mais aussi préparation matérielle (180 kilos envoyés en fret !), logistique, financière et familiale…
Un grand merci à tous nos partenaires pour leur soutien et leur aide dans cette première étape !
Se sentir soutenu permet d’aborder les choses avec encore plus de sérénité.
Liv à l’entraînement
L’excitation est à son comble, boostée par une motivation et une envie irrésistible de retrouver les montagnes du Nord Pakistan, leurs habitants et l’atmosphère qui s’en dégage.Nous vous tiendrons informés de nos aventures au fil de l’expé, à l’aide d’un téléphone satelitte, n’hésitez-pas à venir nous rendre visite de temps en temps. Les murs de Trango défilent déjà dans nos têtes.
Trango Air Wall c’est maintenant !
Le parapente fait aussi partie du programme pour Trango. Vols d’acclimatation, repérages, largages et exploration de lignes en mini-voiles… Nous verrons sur place ! Pour cela Jérôme teste actuellement la gamme ITV et notamment les modèles Bip bip et Awak, particulièrement bien adpatés à la haute-montagne.
Samedi dernier il a pu gravir, en compagnie d’Arnaud Bosc, la voie des Parisiens : une grande classique de la Drôme, partiellement équipée sur pitons dans une paroi verticale de 300 mètres. Ils sont tous deux redescendus en volant depuis le sommet. Ambiance et plaisir à l’état pur…
Tim est actuellement en Californie, au pied d’El Capitan, Liv est à Chamonix attendant une meilleure météo, Jérôme est dans le Val d’Orco en Italie.
Au programme, le Granit : ses dalles, ses fissures, son escalade technique et athlétique avec protections sur "friends".
Bref, le temps est à l’entraînement !
