Hiunchuli, with Annapurna
South, 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
impresseve 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
porential.
From the south, Hiunchuli has few weaknesses in
its defences. 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 form the summit. The summit is bounded on
the east by a ridge that rises in an icy
parabola from a small col , from which a steep
couloir descends towards the moraines above the
lodges at base camp. This is a feasible looking
route, and is as yet unclimbed. The mountain’s
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. |
