My travel diaries
Tuesday 7 August, 2007 - Camp 1, Muztag Ata, Xinjiang, China
An early start and leisurely walk up to Camp One was intended this morning, where we would spend the night as part of our acclimatisation programme, but it's snowing heavily again, so after breakfast we all return to our tents. At about 11 o'clock, the clouds start to clear and the sun peeps out. Some members of our group begin to pack and head up the mountain to Camp One.
An arduous ascent
I have a much heavier load this time, which includes my sleeping bag, thermarest, plastic mountaineering boots and ice axe. I set off at midday without much difficulty, slowly plodding up the first 350m without stopping. At about 4800m I catch up with Steve, who is struggling and thinking of turning around. Although I try to persuade him to persevere, he drops behind me, and when I look back I see him heading down again. I pass Scottish Jeff at about 5000m. There is quite a lot of snow and I am finding it surprisingly tough going. The path seems a lot steeper than it was two days ago. This is probably because the first people to break trail through the snow couldn't see the path and had to make up their own much steeper one. The steepness means that I can't maintain my usual high altitude slow plod, and instead have to ascend in bursts of energy. Above a lower camp site at 5150m, the snow becomes much thicker, making the ascent still more tiring, and a cold wind blows across the slope sending spindrift into my face. I stop to put my windproof jacket on. It's proving to be a much more arduous ascent than I had imagined, and a completely different proposition to the same route two days ago. The combination of the heavy rucksack, thick snow, steeper path and wind make the whole thing much tougher. As I get closer to Camp One it starts to feel like a summit bid: I ascend ten metres then stop and rest against my walking poles before resuming. I can't believe how exhausted I'm feeling, and there's still another 2000m of mountain above me! At 5350m, with Camp One just a stone's throw above me, I have to stop, take my pack off and rest when I get an acute stitch. I've never had a stitch from plodding slowly before.
Tired climbers
Eventually I reach the camp site and see Toby and Lindsay poking their heads out of the tent to see who's arrived.
"F--- me, I'm knackered," I shout.
I look at my watch and am surprised to see it's only 3.50 in the afternoon. This means, for all my struggles, it's only taken 20 minutes longer than last time. Toby and Lindsay, on the other hand, tell me they were 10 minutes quicker this time, and have been here nearly two hours.
David's head appears at the store tent, where Geoff and I left the kit we brought up last time. He suggests Geoff and I move to the tent where Scottish Jeff left his kit, and Scottish Jeff can share with Luigi. Scottish Jeff pokes his head in half an hour after I'm settled.
"F--- me, I'm f---ed," he says.
I can't help laughing. "That's more or less exactly what I said when I arrived," I tell him.
I carry his kit over to Luigi's tent for him. About an hour after I arrived, tent mate Geoff finally reaches our camp.
"I'm f------ knackered," he says, appearing at the tent. He laughs when I tell him Scottish Jeff is sharing with Luigi. Luigi has difficulty understanding Jeff's accent, but understands everybody else perfectly well. In fact, even I have difficulty understanding Jeff sometimes when he speaks quickly. It will be an interesting partnership.
Cookery lessons
Geoff gets settled in. He tells me he ran out of water only about a quarter of the way up, and is tired and dehydrated. Even so, after only a few minutes' rest he feels able to get up and fill a bin liner full of snow for us to melt for cooking. It takes us nearly 3 hours to cook this evening, while we are getting ourselves used to the routine. Twice I knock the stove over while melting snow, and have to start again from scratch. Then, just as I'm getting the hang of it, David appears at the tent, moves the stove and knocks it over again. Eventually we're able to cook our boil-in-the-bag mountaineering food, and I find it surprisingly tasty.
As soon as we've finished cooking, at about 9 o'clock, we turn in for some much-needed sleep.
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