Veteran German climber Thomas Huber has released details of a summer expedition to Pakistan's remote Choktoi area, where he and Spanish partners Victor Sans and Miquel Mas completed a new 600-metre route on Biacherahi Central, a 5,700-metre granite tower. The 21-pitch line, named Wild Soul, was climbed over four days from August 1 to 4 and included difficulties up to 7a A2+ — serious big-wall climbing at high altitude.

The trio set up base camp at 4,400m in mid-July, then sat out days of storms before a five-day weather window let them push through the full route. The report only appeared after the team returned home, with more details promised on social media.

The announcement briefly stirred controversy. Readers of ExplorersWeb pointed to an American Alpine Journal entry describing a 2001 ascent of the same peak by a team led by the legendary Polish climber Voytek Kurtyka. Huber responded that the confusion comes from the tangled geography of the Biacherahi group, which includes Biacherahi South, Central and the highest tower at around 5,900m. Biacherahi Central itself has three summits; the southernmost and lowest was climbed by Spaniards in 1989 and again by Kurtyka's Polish-Japanese team in 2001. Huber maintains the summit his team reached showed no previous signs of visitation, and the claim to a first ascent stands.

For anyone who follows mountaineering, the Choktoi Glacier area is hallowed ground. The Biacherahi Towers sit beside the Latok group and Baitha Brakk — better known as The Ogre — a massif of sheer granite walls so remote and difficult that only a handful of climbers ever attempt it. It's familiar territory for Huber: he first climbed Latok II there in 1997 with Conrad Anker, Toni Gutsch and his brother Alexander, added Latok IV in 1999, and the Ogre and Ogre III in 2001. His repeated battles with the notorious north face of Latok I are well documented. In 2025 he also opened a new line on Suma Brakk's northern tower with Americans Jon Griffin and Tad McCrea. Partner Miquel Mas knew the area too, having put up a new route on Latok II's southwest face in 2023.

Why should a traveller care? Stories like this are a reminder that northern Pakistan's Karakoram holds some of the planet's last true adventure frontiers. You don't need to climb 7a A2+ to feel the pull — trekkers and climbers heading into the Biafo and Choktoi glacier systems pass through scenery that rivals anything in the Himalaya, with far fewer people on the trail. For the climbing-minded, the Choktoi's walls represent a rare combination of quality granite and genuine wilderness, though the commitment level is extreme and logistics demanding.

For the rest of us, it's worth watching simply because expeditions like Wild Soul keep these valleys on the map — and keep the conversation alive about who really climbed what, and when.

ExplorersWeb