My travel diaries
Wednesday 8 August, 2007 - Camp 1 and Base Camp, Muztag Ata, Xinjiang, China
Camp 1 breakfast routine
I wake up at 7.15 and immediately start the stove and begin melting snow from Geoff's bin liner. The food bag brought up here by our porters can feed two people for three days. I rummage through it. There are six boil-in-the-bag main meals, loads of snack foods such as nuts, chocolate, flapjack and muesli bars, plenty of tea, coffee and hot chocolate, and a tube of liquified condensed milk. For breakfast there are packets of muesli we figure out need to be eaten with a combination of condensed milk and boiled water. My first effort is a bit watery, but eventually I work out an edible consistency for next time. Now that we're getting into the camp routine, cooking is much quicker than it was last night, and I manage to complete the whole operation without tipping the stove over this time.
Most of the group head back to Base Camp straight after breakfast, but I decide to spend the morning up here acclimatising for as long as possible before descending to Base Camp for lunch.
The Black Climber of Mt Elbrus
Geoff tells me the story of the Black Climber on Elbrus, Europe's highest mountain in the Caucasus Mountains in southern Russia near the Chechen border, which he climbed a few years ago.
The Black Climber was left for dead by his two companions after falling down a crevasse while descending the mountain. After much suffering and a struggle with life and death, he managed to climb out of the crevasse vowing to punish his two former friends for abandoning him. Reaching the camp site where they and several other climbers are spending the night, and seething with anger, he moves from tent to tent dragging sleeping bodies out into the cold by their feet. When he recognises his two shocked companions he turns them over onto their backs so that they can see the look of vengeance in his eyes as he bludgeons them to death with his ice axe.
By now most of the camp site is awake and people are screaming, but the Black Climber has finished what he came to do, and flees into the darkness, never to be seen again.
Legend has it he still haunts the slopes of Elbrus, and it has become the custom for climbers to sleep with their heads facing the door of the tent so that when the Black Climber comes for them he can see they are not his companions.
Solo crevasse rescue technique
Elbrus is one of the mountains known collectively as the Seven Summits, comprising the highest mountain on each continent: Everest (Asia), Aconcagua (South America), Denali (North America), Kilimanjaro (Africa), Elbrus (Europe), Vinson Massif (Antarctica) and Carstenz Pyramid (Australasia). Geoff has already climbed five of them, and seems to have a story for every one. He tells me about a book he read called 6194, about a man who tried to climb Denali on his own carrying an aluminium ladder, so that if he happened to walk into a crevasse, the ladder would supposedly stop him falling down it. According to Geoff, it didn't work, and the man fell down a crevasse anyway.
I'm reminded of Bear Grylls' method of saving yourself from a crevasse if you happen to be travelling on a glacier alone, as I'm sure many people do. This involves using your pack as a substitute companion and dragging it behind you on a knotted rope so that if you fall down a crevasse, the knots dig into the soft snow of the sides of the crevasse and arrest your fall, allowing you to climb out again. I don't know whether this method works, either, but I'm not planning on using it any time soon.
As we sit in the tent using the time to acclimatise, Geoff, an itinerant TEFL teacher, tells me the story of his life.
"You could call me an underachiever," he says. "I've never held down a stable, permanent job since I left university."
But life is what you make it, and there is no reason to judge your achievements in life by social convention. As well as climbing most of the Seven Summits, I already know that Geoff speaks fluent Chinese and has cycled across most of Asia. What does it matter about having a stable job, when life can be made interesting at every turn? I'm envious of his achievements in life, and I tell him so.
"Well, I suppose there are not many people who have been to 133 different countries," he replies. "I've also been to every country in three separate continents."
I'm impressed. "Which three?" I ask.
"Europe, South America and Antarctica."
"Antartica," I laugh. "That doesn't count - it's only one country!"
Geoff leaves to return to Base Camp at 10 o'clock, but I decide to remain for as long as possible, eventually setting out at 11.45. It's snowing when I depart, and I have to put on my waterproof jacket just before I leave. Much of the snow has melted from the previous day, and there isn't much below the lower camp at 5150m. Again, it doesn't seem to be as steep a slope as it proved to be yesterday. It's not yet hot and dry, so the dusty path is not so slippery. I descend rapidly, and am back to Base Camp in just 45 minutes.
David Hamilton's high altitude cook book
Back at base camp that afternoon, Geoff goes for another of his wanders. He meets a Canadian woman who is sure she's heard of David Hamilton and even has a copy of his high altitude cook book. At dinner time someone asks David whether he has signed his autograph for her. He's as surprised as we are about the cook book, but it provides rich fuel for humour as we eat. Each time a dish arrives that isn't perfect, he's invited to comment upon it and make suggestions to our cook.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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