Eternal Flame

Eternal Flame follows the southeast face of the Nameless Tower in the Trango Towers, above the Baltoro Glacier in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. It is a long multi-pitch line on steep granite that combines technical free climbing with the logistics of a high-altitude big wall: fixed lines, hauling, and exposed bivies. Climbed almost entirely free at the time of its first ascent, it became one of the defining routes on the tower.

History

Kurt Albert, Wolfgang Güllich, Milan Sykora and Christoph Stiegler made the first ascent on September 20, 1989, climbing the route almost entirely free, a rare achievement at that altitude and remoteness for the era. It followed Albert and Güllich's free ascent of the tower's Yugoslav Route the previous year with Hartmut Münchenbach. In summer 2009, Alexander and Thomas Huber completed the first fully free ascent of Eternal Flame, climbing every pitch without aid at French 7c+, closing a 20-year gap between the original near-free ascent and a true free climb of the whole route.

On film

Making History on the Trango Towers, Pakistan - Edu Marín, a 2025 Petzl film directed by Guillaume Broust, follows Edu Marín on the Nameless Tower with his father Novato and brother Alex, set against this history: Wolfgang Güllich and Kurt Albert's original line, and Alexander and Thomas Huber's free ascent, both part of the route's back story the film references.