Muztagh Tower: Facts and Where to See It

Muztagh Tower is a 7,276-metre granite peak on the Pakistan-China border, at the head of the Younghusband glacier, which flows south into the Baltoro. K2 base camp trekkers see it to the north from the upper Baltoro. It is famous for a 1909 photograph by Vittorio Sella that made it look like an unclimbable tooth, and for the summer of 1956, when a British and a French team climbed it by opposite sides within a week of each other.

This guide covers the facts, the story of that summer, what has happened on the mountain since, and how and where you can see it yourself.

Where is Muztagh Tower?

The tower stands on the watershed between the Baltoro glacier basin in Pakistan and the Sarpo Laggo basin in Xinjiang. On the Pakistani side the Younghusband glacier, also called the Biango glacier, flows from the tower towards the Baltoro. The name is usually said to mean "icy mountain".

By Karakoram standards it is not especially high: it ranks around 90th in the world, and K2 nearby reaches 8,611 metres. What makes it stand out is the shape: two summits joined by a narrow ridge, with steep granite and ice faces dropping on every side.

The photograph that made it famous

In 1909 the Italian photographer Vittorio Sella travelled up the Baltoro with the Duke of the Abruzzi's K2 expedition. From the upper glacier, due south-east of the tower, the two summits line up one behind the other, and his photograph shows a single, impossibly thin spire. A 1941 book captioned it "The Last Citadel".

For almost fifty years that image shaped how climbers thought of the mountain. Guido Magnone, who led the French team in 1956, wrote that anyone who had seen Sella's photograph must have thought the tower "the symbol of inaccessibility". Both 1956 teams found the real angles less extreme than the picture suggested.

The summer of 1956

The two teams knew about each other. The British party was led by John Hartog, with Joe Brown, Ian McNaught-Davis and Tom Patey. They approached from the west via the Muztagh and Chagaran glaciers and climbed the north-west ridge.

The French party, Magnone with Robert Paragot, André Contamine and Paul Keller, heard at Urdukas that the British were already high on the mountain. Rather than follow or obstruct them, they set up base camp on the Younghusband glacier and looked for a route on the other side. In late June Magnone visited the British camp; Hartog claimed priority of permission, and the two parties parted, in Magnone's words, "without bitterness, each party wishing the other good luck".

The American Alpine Journal records that the British reached the west and east summits on 6 and 7 July, and that every British climbing member got to the top. Hartog's feet were badly frostbitten on the descent. Watching from their own route, the French saw two tiny figures on the summit. They fought up the south-east ridge through deep snow, survived a freezing bivouac at about 23,000 feet, and all four reached the top at 1 pm on 12 July.

The story ended on the Baltoro. Patey came to ask the French team's François Florence for help with Hartog, the two teams celebrated together at Urdukas, and the French party, with Patey, took Hartog down the glacier towards the hospital in Skardu.

Later ascents and accidents

The mountain was not climbed again for 28 years.

• 1984: a British team of Mal Duff, Tony Brindle, Jon Tinker and Sandy Allan repeated the north-west ridge, the third ascent of the peak.
• 1990: Göran Kropp and Rafael Jensen made the fourth ascent.
• 2008: the Slovenians Pavle Kozjek and Dejan Miškovič climbed the north-east face but were stopped short of the summit by wind. Kozjek died in a fall on the descent.
• 2012: a Russian team of Sergei Nilov, Dmitry Golovchenko and Alexander Lange opened a new route up the central north-east face, taking 17 days.

Its easiest route is still a serious snow, ice and rock climb that needs an expedition permit. It is not a trekking peak.

Where do you see it on the trek?

The only practical way to see Muztagh Tower is to walk up the Baltoro on the K2 base camp trek or the Gondogoro La crossing. It is not visible from Askole, the trailhead, or from the lower glacier.

It stands to the north of the upper Baltoro, so trekkers look for it on the stages between Urdukas and Concordia, among the granite spires on that side of the ice. Further up, towards Concordia, you approach Sella's south-easterly angle, where the two summits close together into the single tooth of the 1909 photograph. Lower down, they show as two separate tops.

A few practical points:

• Season. The trek runs from about June to September, with July and August the main months; our guide to the best time for the K2 base camp trek covers the trade-offs.
• Permits. The Baltoro lies in the Central Karakoram National Park and in a zone where foreign nationals need a trekking permit and a licensed operator. Our K2 trek cost guide covers the fees and what they include.
• Getting there. Fly or drive to Skardu, then drive to Askole; see our Skardu to Askole guide.
• Camps. Our guide to campsites on the K2 base camp trek shows where you sleep each night, and our Baltoro glacier guide covers the other peaks you pass.

Is it worth going to see?

Muztagh Tower alone is not a reason to walk up the Baltoro, but it is one of the highlights for most people who do. You see it alongside the Trango Towers, Masherbrum and the four 8,000-metre peaks around Concordia, and knowing the 1956 story makes the view of it from the glacier more interesting.

If you want to see the big Karakoram peaks without a two-week trek, Muztagh Tower is out of reach. Our guide to where you can see K2 without a long trek covers the shorter options.

Frequently asked questions