When the author saw the photo taken from Sani Pakkush, which appears on picture 66 of the book, he noticed the attributed height for BBC S was 6940m, and 6,830m for both BBC C and NE.


This was visibly impossible: he wrote a letter to Wala and received a reply in June 2006, when Wala corrected the error and re-calculated BBC S to c6850m.

The author then corrected it in his table, including all mountains and "main-peaks" above 6750m and the “case” was finished….

In 2007 Patricia Deavoll from New Zealand announced that she planned to attempt “Beka Brakai Chhok 6940m”. The author immediately tried to contact her, writing to the website on which the announcement was published:

To 'mark at alpineclub.org.nz' on March 23, 2007: “I know that a South Peak altitude of 6940m, was published, by error, in 2003 in “Wissenschaftliche Alpenvereinshefte Heft 36” (German and Austrian Alpine Clubs). I discovered this possible error and asked Jerzy Wala, who had suggested the height, to recheck this peak again. After new analysis in 2006, the famous cartographer from Krakow, Poland, corrected it in a letter (page attached). It is in Polish, but one can clearly see the peak summary (NE, MD, S).

Therefore the Middle Peak is the highest, with the old surveyed altitude of 6882m: the North Eastern peak is 6845m and the Southern peak is estimated by Wala as c6850m and not c6940m. So, if Patricia Deavoll wants to ascent the highest of the three, she ought to climb the Middle Peak.

It would be very useful if she could also take a GPS reading on this summit.

Please inform the Alpine Club of Pakistan of these errors.”

Unfortunately there was no reply to the author’s offered information.

When the website www.8000ers.com was launched in April 2008, a table with the High Asian mountains and "main-peaks" above 6750m was published, with all the information as accurate and complete as possible. Of course, Wala's corrected height for BBC South was included for everyone to see.

When Simone Moro switched from Batura II to Beka Brakai Chhok in summer 2008, it was not possible to inform him about the correction. He would not have known about it when he climbed the peak. His climb was an excellent first ascent of the “Hunza-Matterhorn”, BBC South.

On a news website, Moro has asked for respect, which he of course deserves for his passionate climbing. However, there also needs to be respect for the difficult and passionate work of researchers, and it’s not fair to put them down without knowing all the details.

In the meantime, a corrected map was drawn by original cartographer Jerzy Wala, with the correctly calculated altitude of BBC S.

This ist the best available photo, where BBC S and C are seen from the same distance. 

Photo: © Hubert Bleicher

The person who wrote to the website seems to have no real idea and only wanted to create  controversy. In the end there was no controversy at all, just confusion and misunderstanding. This is part of human nature, the question being, is creating controversy also “human”?

Mountains are beautiful and majestic: climbers, chroniclers and researchers all have the same passion and their spirits should, once again, walk hand in hand, as was common in the days of the old pioneers.

Addition to this confusing story on April 8th, 2013: It appeared after further research, that also the Chinese map includes a major error on Beka Brakai Chhok. They must have reversed the figures for the Central- and the NE-Peaks, because the highest of the three peaks is in fact the NE-Peak. So the peak climbed by Simone Moro is in fact the lowest of the three peaks (South-Peak, about 6810 m), but of course it was anyway a fine performance!