My travel diaries
Sunday 5 August, 2007 - Base Camp and Camp 1, Muztag Ata, China
A hike to Camp 1
Today we continue our acclimatisation programme with a walk to Camp 1 at 5400m, up a steep dry spur above base camp. I've packed a relatively light load to deposit up there: my crampons, cutlery, and warm clothes for the higher parts of the mountain, such as my down jacket, fleece trousers and salopettes.
I start at 8am, when the sun is still behind the mountain, but after only about 20 minutes it appears overhead and I have to stop to remove my fleece and put on sun cream. I go very slowly, walking at my own pace. It reminds me a little of the walk up to Nido de Condores from Base Camp on Aconcagua, on a path zig-zagging up dry barren slopes in a desert landscape, with a hundred colourful tents becoming smaller far below. At about 10.30, still well short of Camp 1, I pass Abdullah and two of the sherpas, Galjen and Leela, coming back down again having deposited their much heavier loads. One of them is running backwards. Just before 11, Lindsay and Toby also run past. I might have known the squaddies would get there first, I think to myself. They got up to Camp one in 2½ hours, and there's clearly no way I'm going to be able to keep up with them. In fact, by the time, I make it up there, after 3½ hours, David and Juliet have also passed me on their way back down, and Orna is sitting outside the tents waiting. She offers me a packet of scallion biscuits she says no one wants to eat, probably because no one knows what a scallion is.
Tired, but not too out of breath, I sit down and start talking to her but discover I've lost my voice, a high altitude phenomenon I've not come across before. The camp site is perched on an area of scree immediately beneath the snow line, and above us a steep snow slope leads up to an ice cliff a couple of hundred metres beyond. The horizon doesn't seem so far away, but somewhere up above is another 2000 vertical metres of mountain that we can't see, so gently does it slope away. I sit there for about an hour admiring the view to the rolling brown mountains of Tadjikistan to the west of us. We are right in the far west of China and the border is only about 10km away. Dave, Ela, Geoff, Luigi and Jeff all arrive while I'm waiting, but Steve is nowhere to be seen. I eventually pass him on my way back down.
It takes me about an hour to return to base camp. The terrain isn't ideal for a rapid descent; so many people have used it that the scree on the path has given way dust with just a few pebbles sprinkled over it. This makes it extremely slippery because there is no friction between the tiny pebbles and the rock underneath. Somehow I make it down without losing my footing and ending on my backside.
Jin's tale of Sino-Swiss relations
Jin comes to our tent during dinner this evening. He's the main man in the China Xinjiang Mountaineering Association, the organisation responsible for the logistics for many expeditions on Muztag Ata, including our own. Because of his position, he's a fountain of knowledge on all the goings-on at base camp, and as he speaks very good English, David asks him to tell us all about the Swiss-Nepali conflict. He immediated corrects us, explaining that in fact it was an argument between Swiss and Chinese expedition teams.
"It started between Camp 2 and Camp 3," he continues. "The Swiss leader is called Stefan. He showed me his mountaineering CV, and it included an expedition to K2 a few years ago. He told me that he is a very well-known mountaineer in Switzerland. Anyway, between Camp 2 and Camp 3 Stefan's team is going up and there is a Chinese girl coming down. Stefan sees an empty coke bottle discarded by the side of the path and thinks that she has thrown it away. He starts speaking very disrespectfully to her, using very many bad words. He says the Chinese don't know how to respect the mountain and are turning it into a rubbish ground. Well, this girl speaks very good English and she understands what he is saying, but she speaks only to say that the empty coke bottle is nothing to do with her. He tells her to pick it up and she refuses.
"Well, eventually this Stefan ends up pushing her and she falls over. Now she is in a very bad position, very dangerous position, but fortunately there is another Chinese climber following behind her. He helps her up and they continue on their way.
"Well, anyway, one or two days later they are back in base camp and they are angry. They say that this Stefan has insulted not only the girl but the Chinese people, saying that we do not look after the environment, and they approach me for a resolution. So I go to Stefan and tell him what they are saying to me, and that we need a resolution to this. Well, again he uses very many bad words and abuses the Chinese people. I tell him I agree with him that we must look after the mountain but that he must apologise to the girl because he has insulted her. But he refuses.
"Then there is a big party to celebrate the end of the expeditions. A great deal of alcohol is drunk and a fight breaks out between the Swiss and Chinese teams. We try to break it up, but there is nothing we can do because they are all drunk, so we call in the police. Well, eventually there is a resolution because both teams have finished their expeditions, want to go to Kashgar and don't want any more trouble. The police arrive and we manage to calm them. We persuade both expedition leaders to write apologies to each other. They do this, and both sides are happy."
All through his narrative Jin has been calm and detached as he has related the sequence of events in matter-of-fact terms. There is a pause, and suddenly he becomes much more animated as he continues.
"Well, anyway, long before all of this, I met this Stefan and he makes me very angry. At the beginning of the expedition, we pick them up from Torugart [the pass between China and Kyrgyzstan], but he is angry with me because we keep them waiting for one hour. But this is not our fault because the border checkpoint does not open till 11 o'clock, and then we have another three hours of driving to where we have arranged to meet them.
"When we arrive he is angry with me because we have kept them waiting for one hour. He tells me he has led expeditions all over the world and never has he experienced service like this. He uses very many bad words, and I apologise. I tell him I am sorry that we are late, but that was not our purpose. I say, OK, now we are here we take you to the hotel and we give you free beer for keeping you waiting, is that OK? But he says no. He starts insulting the Chinese people. He says every time he comes to China the service is not good, the people are rude, they do not look after the environment and the Chinese food is shit.
"Well, now I get angry with him, too. I say, well, if you think the food is shit, why do you come back again to eat more shit? I put money down and I say, OK, if you don't like it here you can take your money and turn around. You can go back your way, and we go back our way - we are both happy. Well now, some of his clients see what is happening and they start to get worried. They intervene and eventually he apologises, so we go on, but he makes me very angry telling me our food is shit."
Jin is now very heated, and David tries to relax him a little. "Never mind, he is just one man," he says. "Normally Swiss people are very calm!"
Everybody looks over at Luigi, who has been silent throughout Jin's narrative. Suddenly, Jin breaks into a broad smile as he recognises Luigi from his unsuccessful attempt on Muztag Ata last year.
"Oh, you are Swiss, too! So sorry, so sorry."
"He likes the Chinese food so much, he has come back for more," says David. "But don't you have any nice stories for us to make us all feel better?"
Jin pauses to think before starting on another tale.
A Korean tragedy
"I tell you about an incident which occurred in July. A Korean group are on their way up the mountain and have got to Camp 3. At this point their leader decides to go to the summit alone. Once he has got to the summit and checked the route, he will come back to Camp 3 and take his three clients up there.
"Well, he goes, but he does not come back, and his three clients, who are not very experienced, are waiting at Camp 3 for three days. They have no means of communication with their base camp, but eventually they send a hand-written message down with another group to tell them what has happened. At this moment, their base camp leader comes to me for help. There are two very experienced Tibetan guides waiting at base camp, fully acclimatised, so I phone their organisation in Tibet to see if they will help us. They agree, and immediately we send the Tibetan guides up the mountain.
"They set off from base camp [at 4500m] in the morning, and have reached Camp 3 [at 6800m] by that evening. They find the Korean group and realise that they are much too weak to look after themselves. They're not even able to melt their own snow for drinking water, so immediately the Tibetans start cooking for them and feed them enough to survive the night. Then the following day they begin to coax them down the mountain. At Camp 2 they find other guides able to help, and eventually they get them all the way to base camp, where transport is waiting to take them to hospital in Kashgar. Fortunately they are just exhausted. They do not have frostbite injuries and they are able to make a full recovery.
"But there remains the question of what happened to the Korean leader. When the Tibetan guides have returned to base camp, I ask them whether they feel strong enough to go up and look for him. They say yes, and the following day they set off from base camp all the way up to Camp 3 again. From there they set out in search of the Korean leader who has not been heard from for several days, and eventually find him very close to the summit, at 7400m, but he is off the main path, which explains why other teams have been past and seen no trace of him. He is still standing up and leaning against his ski poles, but his body has frozen solid. He has succumbed to exhaustion and died in his boots."
Jin stops speaking and we are silent for a while. This is a sobering reminder that the mountain is dangerous, but it also makes me feel like what we are doing is not so extreme, after all. For me, climbing Muztag Ata will certainly be the toughest challenge so far in my short mountaineering career. When we hear about western climbers who achieve much more than this, they are often regarded as heroes and role models, but the two Tibetan guides in Jin's story, whose names we are not even told, are no more than shadows to us. Climbing the mountain is just another day's work for them, yet they are the real heroes.
It's Ela who final interrupts the silence. "But I thought you were going to tell us a nice story, Jin?"
We all laugh.Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Next
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