Peak Lenin Expedition

Peak Lenin Expedition Leader – Esteban “Topo” Mena

The Lenin Peak Rapid Ascent™ Expedition is organized and led by IFMGA Guide, Esteban “Topo” Mena. Topo is an extremely talented high-altitude mountain guide, having made more than ten 8,000m summits. He has summited Everest four times, once without supplemental oxygen, and in 2019 he summited K2 alongside Alpenglow Expeditions Founder Adrian Ballinger and fellow Alpenglow guide Carla Perez. He has also made several successful summits of Peak Lenin and knows the mountain and terrain well.

The Alpenglow Difference

Rapid Ascent™ Strategy

First developed by Adrian Ballinger, Rapid Ascent™ is a unique approach to climbing big mountains across the world. This innovative program combines hypoxic training at home with precise logistics and small team sizes to reduce the overall time spent away from home, all while greatly increasing the chance of success on your international climbing expedition. By pre-acclimatizing for 4 weeks at home, we’re able to reduce the overall expedition time to 18 days. Alpenglow Expeditions Rapid Ascent™ climbs are an entirely new way to approach big-mountain expeditions. After 15 years of guiding expeditions all over the world, including dozens 8,000-meter peak expeditions, we have refined and distilled the acclimatization and climbing process to maximize safety, health, success, and enjoyment.

1:3 maximum guide to climber ratio on Peak Lenin

All guides are IFMGA qualified or aspirants working towards finishing their certification. We guarantee our guides are the best in the business, drawing upon years spent guiding in the mountains to give you the best and safest experience possible.

Peak Lenin Expedition doctor on call

Dr. Monica Piris, has been on fourteen 8,000-meter peak expeditions. She is in daily communication with our teams during the entirety of the expedition and is available for client consultation at any time.

High-quality food on Peak Lenin

Imported and local foods of the highest quality, combined with a Western-trained cook staff; Alpenglow has the best food on the mountain, ensuring your strength and health throughout the expedition.

Peak Lenin Route Overview

The Peak Lenin expedition starts in Bishkek, where we’ll meet the team and check all our gear before catching a quick flight to Osh and starting our drive across the Pamir Highway the next morning. This stunning drive will give us incredible views of the Alay Valley with the Zaalay Range of the Pamirs rising ahead of us. We’ll arrive at the Edelweiss Glade and Peak Lenin’s Base Camp (11,800’/3,600m) after 5-6 hours. Thanks to our pre-acclimatization we’ll move to Advanced Base Camp the very next day, heading over Puteshestvennikov Pass to reach ABC at 14,400’/4,400m. After a day spent resting and acclimatizing in ABC, we’ll start our first acclimatization rotation.

Leaving early in the morning, we trek along the Lenin Glacier to the base of the North Face before traversing a steep slope to the plateau known as the “Frying Pan”. Peak Lenin’s Camp 1 is found at the far end of the plateau at 17,400’, 5,300m. The next day we’ll continue on up a 30 degree snow slope before making the traverse to the summit of Razdelnaya Peak (20,340’/6,200m) and Camp 2. This will be the high point for our acclimatization we’ll turn around and descend to C1. We’ll finish the descent to ABC early the next morning, leaving the afternoon to rest and recover. Having finished our acclimatization rotation, we’ll spend the next day resting in ABC before we make our summit push. After our bodies have recovered and the psych has been built up, we’ll begin our summit bid on Peak Lenin.

Another early morning will see us return over now familiar ground as we push up towards C1. From C1, we’ll continue up the snow slope to the summit of Razdelnaya Peak once more, this time stopping in C2 (20,300’/6,200m). Tomorrow we’ll push into unexplored terrain as we work towards Camp 3. This easy 650’ day will set us up for success on our summit bid tomorrow.

An early alpine start will see our team leave Camp 3 on our final day of climbing and our bid for the summit of Peak Lenin.  We’ll follow a steep ice ridge for about 700’ before reaching a mellow plateau and the bit of climbing that will see us to the summit. At 23,400’/7,134m we’ll be greeted with spectacular views of the Pamirs as the expanse of the valley is laid out below. After a short celebration we’ll start our descent back down to C1. From there another day of descending will see us return to ABC. One last trekking day will have us back to Base Camp, where we’ll then say our goodbyes to the Pamir mountains and hit the road back to Osh. A short flight to Bishkek will mark the end of our expedition and we’ll say our goodbyes.