Hiunchuli Peak Climbing

Hiunchuli Peak forms the massive south-facing wall, well seen when trekking north from Pokhara. Hiunchuli is the eastern bastion of this rampart, with its East Face overlooking the Modi Khola, guarding the entrance to the Annapurna Sanctuary. An impressive mountain in its own right, and not, as it was at one time dubbed, the eastern outlier of Annapurna South. Despite the relative ease of access to the mountain and the popularity, rightly so, of the Sanctuary as a trekking destination, it has, like Fluted Peak, received little attention from mountaineers although it obviously offers major new route possible. From the south, Hiunchuli has few weaknesses in its defenses. A precipitous south wall rises above the untracked Chomrong Khola, seemingly menaced by snow avalanches from the slabby, ice-veined buttresses above. The easter flank from afar appears the most approach- able; however, once beyond Kuldi Ghar, it seems far less so. Out of sight, the mountain remains an unknown quantity approached by only a few, through steep and dense bamboo forest, menaced by unseen avalanche danger from hanging glaciers above.
From the north the mountain rises steeply above the moraines of the Annapurna South Glacier in a series of slabby buttresses and an ill-defined and complicated North Ridge. These in turn lead to a final triangle of fluted ice that forms the summit. This is a feasible looking route, and is as yet unclimbed. The mountains western arm is the ridge connecting it with Annapurna South, and forming from the north an icy wall. It is this wall that has provided the key to new things.

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