Trango Tower, Karakoram Mountains, Pakistan, 1996
Photograph by Bill Hatcher
Tucked within the Karakoram Range of the Himalaya near the Pakistan-China border, the spires of the Trango Group protrude from the icy landscape like shark's teeth. Within this group stands Trango Tower, a sheer, nearly 3,000-foot (915-meter) dagger of granite. In 1996, a group of intrepid mountaineers became the first to successfully free-climb the tower's East Face. Here, expedition member Todd Skinner works to set up a hanging camp anchored to the tower some 19,500 feet (5,950 meters) above sea level.
