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Dispatch #8: The Long Road Home

Here's a far-too-long description of the last two weeks of the expedition. At this point-July 29-Don and I are the only climbers left from our Base Camp. Don then moves to K2 Base, and I am scheduled to walk out with the remnants of the Field Touring Alpine (FTA) group. The members of that group are: Annibel (leader-ARG), Berit (NOR), Kate (AUS), Ramone (SPA), Celeste (ARG), Francis (USA), and Gina (USA).

July 29--Taking it Easy

At this point I'm just laying around, reading, waiting for porters. Pure bliss. Even though Don and I are alone, we have many visitors to our tent for meals. Our cook has learned how to cook pasta (thanks to Diego's constant tutelege), and we have some Yukon Jack AND I'm burning off extra fuel cartridges by putting a stove under the table, making a nice warm(ish) place to sit at night.

Base Camp sloth. I allow myself a few smokes at BC, just on general principles.

By this time we haven't heard anything definite about the porters and we're getting antsy. We can leave any day. I walk down to Concordia to talk to Amin, our trekking agent's main guy in the Baltoro. The long and short of it is that porters will show up tomorrow. They've been dispatched from Askole and thus are taking three days to get here.

My communications rig in the BC mess tent. The Pringles can is not part of the system.

One afternoon the ladies (Kate, Berit, and Gina) ask me to do a photoshoot. I remark that they look like Charlie's Angels, and we then spend another half hour shooting even more silly photos. A good waste of an hour!

Finally. It's time to make up loads, burn the trash, and get ready to hit the trail. Fida (our cook) puts some gas canisters in the fire and nearly gets blown up. Otherwise the day lacked any significant entertainment value.

Unburnt trash at either the Spanish or French camp. I can't print what I'd like to say.

We decide to skip the Goro 2 campsite (where we camped on the way up) and hike directly down to Urdokas. Goro 2 is just a flat spot on the glacier and has a terrible water supply. We were aching for grass and dirt, so a longer day was acceptable. I figured about 6 hours would get me there. I was carrying my camera gear and little else.

My lunch for the hardest day of the trek out.

Breakfast was a sorry affair. Cold chapatties and a bit of tea. Lunch was even more laughable--a boiled egg, piece of chapatti and (for some) a potato. The Field Touring kitchen (courtesy ATP) was a joke the whole season, with sickness and poor food being the main fare.

I reached Concordia in under 2 hours, and joined Berit for a cup of tea. The usual fecal stench was present. Pakistan is allowing one of the world's most spectacular sites to be ruined through lack of any management. Handling the waste of a few thousand on a glacier is not easy--but it's not THAT hard or expensive.

Trekking out.

We left Concordia and moved steadily down the glacier. You go up, down, up, down, around--any direction to avoid the roughest parts of the glacier.

The recipe for Donkey Poop Soup: Take a lot of donkeys (substitute horses if you don't have enough donkeys). Walk them along the 'trail' on the glacier on a warm day. The donkeys will do what they do best--poop--and it will mix with the meltwater running along the trail. So you'll get to walk for several kilometers in this luscious soup, all because the military is too cheap to fly an occasional chopper to help resupply its troops.

After a couple of hours, we spot a green smear on the slopes left of the glacier. Must be Urdokas, probably another 2 hours away.

More like four hours of hard marching. I stopped for a total of 15 minutes and walked hard for eight hours, finally reaching Urdokas both parched and hungry. There's water, but it's contaminated and I don't have any iodine with me. Berit pulls in and we get tea, courtesy of the FTA high-altitude porters. Later we learn it came from the dubious teapot of some regular porter--oh, well.

The rest of the group starts to roll in over the next several hours (it took a few 12 hours to do the hike). By this time some of our porters have arrived and we hijack a pot, find a stove, and start boiling water. Cookies, Pringles, chocolate, cheese, and other delights appear from various places and we have a mini-feast for afternoon tea. By dinnertime, my tent hasn't arrived (because the porter hasn't arrived), and it starts raining. My cook and the FTA cook are arguing, but mine wins so we get a good meal for dinner.

Finally, about 8:30 my tent appears. It's dark, raining, and my tent platform is two levels up (Urdokas is a really steep hillside). Some porters 'help' me set up my tent. It really was a nice gesture since they got wet, and it only increased the time needed to set up the tent by 5 minutes or so. I get in, pull out my pad and bag, and relax. The drip-drip of the rain reminds me of something--yeah, I have to pee, and I forgot my pee bottle. Back down two levels, find the right barrel, get the bottle, back up two levels. Ahhhhh, that's better. (note: if I peed outside my tent I would have hit somebody, or their tent--it's a busy place.)

We awaken much too early at Urdokas, considering our efforts the previous day. My tent is wet and muddy, my stuff sacks are wet and muddy, my camera cases are wet and muddy, my sleeping pad is wet, my sleeping bag is wet--you get the idea. At least it's not raining this morning. Our dissatifaction with the food the previous day means we have porridge, eggs, and milk tea instead of the cold chapatties and green tea breakfast of yesterday.

Hunger and rain made it hard to appreciate the greenery at Urdokas.

I take off quickly, still in 'hurry' mode from the previous day. After 20 minutes I realize the folly of my ways and stop. After a toilet break, film was reloaded, camera gear was reorganized, and brain was switched to trekking speed. The rest of the day passed more pleasantly. This stretch of the trek follows the margin of the Baltoro without really setting foot on the glacier itself for several hours. There were plants and flowers scattered about, awaiting photography. The skies were cloudy, partially obscuring the granite towers that I've never seen under blue skies. Oh well.

After grumbling obout the lack of lunch, I turn the corner and find a tarp, pads, and lunch spread out at Liligo. Berit is there (she walked fast and hard every day), and I tuck into cheese, eggs, crackers, tinned fish, and tinned fruit.

The last couple of hours involve a crossing and descent of the end of the Baltoro Glacier. This proves tedious and hot, as the sun comes out (over us, not the towers behind). There hasn't been a good place to get water, so I'm quite dry. We can see the trees of Paiju ahead, but my ability to predict how long it'll take is defeated once again by the immensity of the landscape.

I descend the snout of the glacier to hear the roar of the newly-born Baltoro River. Just an hour to go, over a gently-rising, curved plain. But wait! It's really a giant alluvial fan. This means that every 30-50 meters, there's a narrow stream channel 5m deep to descend and ascend. It's like driving down a road with speed bumps every 20 seconds. Not hard, but really irritating.

Finally in the shade, I drop my pack and get a cup of milk tea from another ATP cook. The rest of the day passes in relative sloth. I bargain hard to get a couple of 1.5 liter Pepsis for the group for 400 rupees ($6.50!) each. Unfortunately, one is mostly flat but I drink it anyway. My tent arrives, I dry my stuff, go take a bucket shower, and life seems much better.

In a group meeting we decide to go only as far as Jhula tommorow, making a longer last day. Fida (my cook) has more or less assumed control of the kitchen from Habib (the FTA cook), and everyone's quite happy about it.

Trekking out below Paiju.

After about 4 hours we reach a lunch spot, pleasantly shaded by willow and tamarisk. It's hard to leave this spot, since we know that our campsite is completely shadeless. Another 90 minutes or so brings us to Jhula.

The afternoon passes by drinking very expensive Pepsi ($5 for 1.5 liters!) and trying to call ATP to arrange plane flights, hotel, and jeeps. Finally Major Tahir gets through on my sat phone and we hope, Inshallah , that everything is arranged. The FTA kitchen staff (Habib et al.) seem to have completely given up trying to provide boiled water for drinking, though dinner was OK. We decide to get a very early start the next morning so we can arrive in Skardu early enough to deal with plane reservation problems.

We had to hike out the last stretch to Askole, then take the jeep road to Skardu. Lots of frayed nerves at the end. The day started at 3:30 AM with the final breakfast and repacking of camp. It was a pretty morning, with emerging sunshine on the peaks above as we walked in the morning shade. The porter in the 'cat in the hat' pants (red and white horizontal stripes) passed me early, intent on ending his service at the earliest possible moment. This stretch from Jhula to Askole is the easiest of the entire trek. Neverless, it took me 4.5 hours at a fast walk to reach the trailhead.

Beautiful suburban Askole.

After some needless delay, Berit, Major Tahir (the FTA liasion officer), and I piled into a jeep. What a ride. The driver didn't kill us, but he didn't know much about driving. And his jeep was not in the best condition. Before we even started moving he was pouring dirty water into his radiator--not a good sign.

After delays due to rocks on the road, the Major forgetting his jacket, and a worthless lunch, the jeep overheats. We stop, go, stop, limp along, then we reach the Braldu River and the driver fills the radiator with silty river water. We make it to Skardu sometime after 5pm. We especially wanted to reach town earlier to make sure arrangements for flights had been properly made.

Big rock. Little road.

Upon arrival, Ashraf (our trekking agent) didn't do much to allay our fears. If Pakistanis would only explain things to Westerners, rather than just say, "Don't worry, all is OK", we might not get so irritated sometimes. I did go semi-ballistic and possibly helped accomplished my goal--tickets for the plane the next day.

August 5. I'm sitting in the lobby of the Masherbrum Hotel, waiting for lunch and for my roomate Ramone to bring the key back. He didn't turn it in to the front desk because I'm supposed to be in Skardu right now. Four of us tried to fly to Islamabad this morning. We made it as far as the departure lounge, boarding passes in hand, before the flight was cancelled due to weather. The plane passes very near Nanga Parbat, an 8000m peak, and the flight is often cancelled.

Berit, Francis, and Gina opted for the drive down the KKH. All of them are trying to fly out on the 7th. I'm shuddering at the prospect of my fourth trip down that road in 13 months--so I'll take my chances and try to fly tomorrow.

I stay for another day, while the others get a small bus for the drive to Pindi. I indulge in a haircut and shave (with head massage) for $3. I share a pepsi with two of our cook staff, send an email, and the afternoon is shot.

The next day, four of us actually fly! We don't get to Islamabad until 4pm due to flight delays. We end up in another (nicer) hotel. Kate, Ramone, and I end up eating pizza for dinner.

The Holy Grail-a boarding pass for the Skardu-Islamabad plane.

Kate and I visited Taxila and another town for a few hours...Lot of TV to watch...shopping for handicrafts and DVDs...Waiting three hours at the Ministry for a 15 minute debriefing...Getting to the airport and waiting hours for the flight...Hearing Alejandro's tale of woe...delayed in London...but missing the British Air strike by hours...missing luggage...I'm home.

A common herb in central Islamabad.

Mike