Gasherbrum IV, Mountain peak in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan and Xinjiang, China.
Gasherbrum IV is a steep fin of marble and limestone in the Gasherbrum massif, rising to 7,925 metres on the Pakistan–China border. Its immense West Face, the "Shining Wall", looms over the glacial junction of Concordia. The upper face is snow and pale grey rock split by dark near-vertical ridges, with a sheer shadowed wall on the left flank and broader snowfields on the right.
The first ascent was made on 6 August 1958 by Walter Bonatti and Carlo Mauri, members of the Italian Karakoram expedition led by Riccardo Cassin and organised by the Club Alpino Italiano. Their mixed rock-and-ice route followed the southeast seracs and the Northeast Ridge, with rock passages up to grade V just below the summit. The summit has been reached only three more times since: in 1986 via the Northwest Ridge, in 1997 by a South Korean team on the central spur of the West Face, and in 1999, also South Korean, repeating the Northwest Ridge.
The name Gasherbrum is often said to mean "Shining Wall", referring to the West Face reflecting the setting sun, but it derives from Balti "rgasha" (beautiful) and "brum" (mountain), so it means "beautiful mountain". The peak was surveyed as K3.
Approaches follow the Baltoro Glacier to Concordia, the glacial junction beneath the West Face, which is visible on the trek into the Baltoro Muztagh. The 1958 first ascent went via the cirque above the South Gasherbrum Glacier to the Northeast Ridge; that route has never been repeated because of falling ice and rock. The North Face, in the Chinese Karakoram, has never been attempted.
The 1985 Polish-Austrian team of Wojciech Kurtyka and Robert Schauer climbed the West Face in alpine style but stopped at about 7,900 m on the summit ridge, forgoing the top. Their line is counted among the hardest in the Karakoram. The summit itself has been reached only four times, the last in 1999.
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