My travel diaries
Monday 13 August, 2007 - Muztag Ata Base Camp, Xinjiang, China
When I wake up at 6am this morning it's -10ºC inside the tent. It's even colder outside, and my fingers are freezing by the time I've put on my harness, laced up my boots and put on my crampons. As I stand there breathing on my fingers to try and warm them up, various other methods are recommended to me. David suggests I ball my fingers up into a clenched fist, while Geoff demonstrates a method involving swinging his arms backwards and forwards by his side like a monkey to get the blood back into the extremities. None of these methods succeeds in completely warming them, but my partial success in bringing sensation back into my fingers makes them all the more painful, and the pain is all I can think about until the sun hits us the other side of the crevasse labyrinth and I am able to warm up and feel comfortable again.
Descent to Camp 1
It's a fine sunny day without much wind, and it would be perfect weather for a summit attempt, but unfortunately we're not there yet, and head back down to Base Camp for one last time to complete our acclimatisation. It takes us about an hour to descend to Camp 1. To begin with Dave is following behind us on skis, but when we get to the beginning of the crevasse labyrinth, David suggests he goes on ahead of us. We stop and watch him as he slides gingerly above the steep drop below the ice cliff before turning abruptly to his right to ski directly down it. Almost immediately, he falls head over heels and bounces all the way down the steep section on his shoulders. He has disappeared out of sight and we can't initially see what's happened. I know there's a crevasse at the bottom of the steep section, but I seem to remember the slope curves around to the left, and should take him away from it. We spread out with a gap of five or ten metres between us for our own descent. We're not roped together, and have only our walking poles for balance, so tread very carefully. This section seemed dangerous on ascent, and I remember thinking that an ice axe might have been useful, but now the fresh snow has been churned up by the passage of many feet, and the slope is much easier. Dave is way ahead of us now, on his skis and apparently unharmed.
A stray thermarest
At the end of the labyrinth is a short traverse under a bank of snow. The path angles up the bank onto a ridge which descends into the broad snow slope above Camp 1. Coming over the rise the view opens out over Lake Karakul, Kongur and the dry Tadjik hills far below. It felt like a long old slog coming up here two days ago, but we only have to walk a short distance before Camp 1 appears just below us. We're a couple of hundred metres above the camp when I hear a cry and Juliet's thermarest goes flying past as it rolls down the slope in the vague direction of the camp. If it bounces towards the camp site then it will probably be OK, either hitting a tent or landing in a pile of loose rocks and coming to rest. If it misses, though, then either side of the camp is steep snow, and there's no knowing where it might end up. While the rest of us are still pondering these eventualities, David has already bounded into action and is legging it down the slope with his crampons and walking poles moving furiously as he desperately tries to overtake the thermarest. He gets to within about a metre of it and for one brief moment I think he's going to dive like Jim Leighton and pounce on it, but at the last second he presumably remembers how Scottish goalkeeping usually ends, and pulls away. We all watch helplessly as it bounds down the slope. It looks to be 50/50 whether it's going to bounce in the direction of the camp site or a steep precipice to its right. Then it diverts in favour of the precipice. A narrow finger of rocks protrudes from the camp site into the snow slope, and this appears to be Juliet's last remaining hope. The thermarest bounces into it and comes to a halt. She breathes a sigh of relief and we all cheer. Some people at Camp 1 who have been watching the incident give a round of applause.
A few minutes later we're at the camp site and unpacking our rucksacks with things we are leaving on the mountain. Full of bravado and somewhat unwisely, I challenge Toby and Lindsay to a race down to Base Camp. They seem to be dithering with their unpacking and I become convinced they're simply waiting until after I've left so that they can run past me on their way down. I leave at 9.15, overtaking Dave on the way down, and reach Base Camp just before 10. I go as fast as I can expecting Toby and Lindsay to come past me at any moment. Several times I nearly fall and have to use my walking poles to steady myself. They eventually walk into camp nonchalantly about 10 minutes behind me.
"We decided to take it easy and amble down," says Toby. Given that they set off after me, that's some 'ambling'.
Sheep on the menu
Our chef has procured a sheep for us for $100 to provide some variety from the endless cucumber dishes we seem to get served every meal at base camp. While we have lunch in the mess tent, the services of a local Uigur are obtained to perform as butcher. The animal is slaughtered right in front of the noses of our sherpas while they eat lunch outside their tent. He is wearing a white Uigur hat, and both his face and hat are splattered in blood while he holds the sheep's head on a pole with the end of the pole thrust into its mouth. This would be difficult for most people to stomach, but to the Buddhist sherpas, who are taught that all life is sacred, it is particularly hard. They consider it to be bad karma for our summit ascent and have to perform pujas inside their tent later in the afternoon to reverse our fortune and regain us enough merit for the climb.
For lunch I have nothing but chips; then for dinner I have nothing but barbequed sheep kebab.
"Mmm . this is not baaaaad," says David.
Everyone turns to look at me.
"That's like one of Mark's jokes," says Ela.
I find this a little harsh. I get enough abuse for my own jokes without having to take the blame for one of David's. However, not wishing to disappoint them I rise to the challenge.
"I think we're having bear for dinner tomorrow," I say.
"Really? What sort of bears do you find in this part of China?" asks Toby, as though on cue.
"Cucum-bear," I reply. There's a collective groan.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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