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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. |
