Three American alpinists have climbed a new route up the 1,800-metre north face of Sosbun Brakk, a 6,414-metre peak in Pakistan's Karakoram — and the story behind it is as dramatic as the climb itself. Dane Steadman and Cody Winckler, who won a 2025 Piolet d'Or for a first ascent of Yashkuk Sar, were joined this time by Grant Stewart for an off-season push in early October.
The route topped out at grades of M7 mixed and WI5 ice — serious territory even in good conditions. And conditions were not good. The team's original peak fell through when their permit, secured ten months earlier, was revoked weeks before departure, forcing a scramble for a new objective. Then Winckler's baggage went missing in transit (the outfitter eventually forwarded it to base camp), Steadman battled acute mountain sickness at base camp, and bad weather wrecked their acclimatisation. Their first chosen line turned out to be threatened by a hanging serac they only spotted once on the wall, so they retreated and started again.
The successful push began on October 1. The trio gained 800 metres on day one before a storm pinned them in the tent for a full day. Above, a huge gully system dead-ended at a serac barrier, forcing a visionary pitch up a blank slab to an ice smear, a nerve-shredding traverse on tiny gneissic edges protected by a single rock thread, and a final headwall of steep ice and mixed climbing woven through snow mushrooms. They reached the summit at 4 pm — with sunset at 6 and a storm inbound.
What followed was a race down 35 rappels. They reached their bivouac ledge at 5,800m after dark, then woke to snow already falling eight hours ahead of forecast. Trapped in a proper storm with 1,200 vertical metres still to descend, they rappelled the west rib to the Sokha/Sosbun col, where the wind was so loud they could barely speak. Spindrift, a near-miss crevasse that opened under Stewart on the glacier, and avalanches rumbling through a whiteout completed the ordeal before base camp cooks Ibrahim and Idrees greeted them with chai.
For climbers, this is one of the standout alpine-style ascents of the Karakoram autumn season. For ordinary travellers, it's a reminder of what draws people to Gilgit-Baltistan in the first place. Steadman, now a three-time visitor, put it best: a place where continents and cultures collide, difficult to reach but rewarding in ways that resist simple description. The region's trekking routes, valley villages and mountain hospitality remain accessible to far less extreme itineraries — and the team waited until they were safely home before even announcing the climb, praising the mountains and people before the route itself.
