The first largely-independent new route on Trango Tower in more than a decade has been completed by a four-man Russian team from the Moscow Mountaineering and Climbing Federation.

Six climbers from the Federation arrived at base camp, with Dmitry Golovchenko, Sergey Nilov, team leader Viktor Volodin and Alexander Yurkin hoping to attempt a new line on the sunless and overhanging North Face.

However, conditions meant the approach to the wall proved too dangerous, and instead the team opted for perhaps the least known facet of this famous 6,239m Karakoram spire, the North West Face opposite Trango Monk (5,850m).

The 900m North West Face had one existing route, climbed in 1995 by the Basque trio of Antonio Aquerreta, Fermin Izco and Mikel Zabalza, and named Insumisioa (VI 6a A3+).

• Full report by Lindsay Griffin for the BMC: BMC Website