Hunza Recce Introduction

The view of Rakaposhi (7 788 m) seen from below Karimabad looking down the Hunza river

We had for a long time played with the idea of putting together an expedition to mountain ranges we had not been to before. Some preliminary research suggested that the Western Karakoram in Pakistan might offer opportunities to do this and I was afforded the opportunity to make closer acquaintance with these mountains when the Alpine Club of Pakistan offered to host the UIAA’s Council meeting in Islamabad in April 2001. This had the potential to be a wonderful introduction to the region, hopefully to see some of its great mountains and possibly to meet and talk to some of its foremost mountaineers.

UIAA delegates attending the UIAA's Council Meeting in Islamabad in April 2001

After the deliberations of our Council Meeting, several of the more adventurous delegates arranged a trip up the Karakoram Highway past Gilgit to Karimabad in the Hunza valley. This was altogether a very good experience - the fabled natural beauty of the area and the incredible friendliness and very different way of life of the local mountain people who lived there. And of course more than anything else, the tantalizing views of some of the area’s magnificent big mountains.

To get a closer view of perhaps the most impressive of these giants rising straight out of the valley, we organised a trek up the Minapin valley to the Rakaposhi base camp. Starting from the village of Minapin we followed the trail next to the Minapin glacier to Tagafari overnighting at Hapakund on the way.

After walking through Minapin village’s cobbled alleyways shaded with ancient mulberry and walnut trees, our trail took us up on the side of the glacier’s lateral moraine, at first passing through scattered fields of potatoes and barley, later copses of willow and juniper trees and finally entering a magnificent forest of giant juniper trees before coming out into the open again, where we found the trail covered in soft snow. Our high camp at Tagafari was set up in thick snow.

Tagafari is one of the base camps used by expeditions climbing Rakaposhi (7 788 m) and is in a spectacular setting with the broad sweep of the Minapin glacier’s white ice culminating in the enticing looking summit cone of Diran (7 257 m) at the head of the valley.

Diran’s summit (7 257 m) rising at the head of the Minapin glacier

Camp set up at Tagafari with a first view of the summit of Rakaposhi (7 788 m) beyond

This introduction to the Western Karakoram not only provided me with my first glimpses of some of the ranges magnificent mountains, but also, because Nazir Sabir, one of Pakistan’s foremost mountaineers, organised our trek through his trekking/expeditions company, I had the opportunity to get to know him. Based on what I had seen and learned in this preliminary foray, I resolved to return to the Karakoram to look at some of its other mountains with a view to identifying an objective that might possibly be suitable for a future South African expedition.

Hunza Recce Part 1

Karambar and Kampire Dior

Friday 10 August

Sandy took me to Cape Town International – we had some coffee then bade each other farewell for some weeks. There was a slight delay on the Comair flight to Johannesburg, but this was not a problem with extra time I had in hand. The Emirates check-in was very easy and the flight to Dubai left on schedule. I caught up on some sleep.

Saturday 11 August

My flight arrived on time in Dubai (±05:00). I got a bit lost in the airport, but then sorted things out finding the airport’s quiet lounge which seemed to offer the same sort of comfort as the Marharaba lounge (DH 160). I spent most of the day snoozing and reading, buying something to drink and eating at the duty free shops. I booked in for my Islamabad flight (also Emirates) and had an easy flight from Dubai leaving at about 22:30.

Sunday 12 August (beautiful day – some cloud in afternoon)

I arrived from Dubai on time (02:00) and then had a long wait getting my baggage from the carousel. My heart sank seeing the huge throng of people waiting at arrivals, but Nazir’s man Asghar Khan was there and recognised me from April. He whisked me off to the Midway Guest House – a comfortable room (Rp 1000 and breakfast Rp 85) for a few hours sleep. Nazir was supposed to pick me up at 08:00 but eventually only arrived at 08:25 – communication problems. We rushed through to the airport and just managed to get onto the Skardu flight by the skin of our teeth. It was fantastic to have relatively little cloud and there was no problem getting through (the previous day’s flight only got as far as Chilas and then turned around – Nazir was very scathing about PIA). Nanga Parbat was almost completely clear – a wonderful sight. Impressive glaciated peaks to the South of Skardu.

Nanga Parbat (8 125 m) seen from the Islamabad/Skardu flight

We landed and as I later came to expect, Nazir was feted as a VIP by any and everone – it was nice meeting Anand Janjua, a Col in the army at Skardu. After all this we caught a bus to the Shangri La Resort (± 30 km South of Skardu). We met and chatted with the Shangri La owner in the shade of a tree next to the lake (groups asking to have their photos taken with Nazir), then I got organised at my chalet and had lunch with Nazir and his charming Japanese wife and 3 children who were already there.

The Shangri La Resort near Skardu

In the afternoon we were taken by jeep to Skardu, where we went to Nazir’s office (Mr Baz Khan) to collect an e-mail that Fran had sent to Nazir Sabir Exps. We then drove up to Satpara lake (on the way to the Deosai Plateau) and rowed across to an island for Nazir’s son Tato to try spinning for trout –– not a great success, Nazir only getting two fish after dark. Going back to Skardu we had an excellent supper outside at the K2 Hotel, then had to make a long drive home in a jeep (seeing a fox on the way) and having a problem getting into Shangri La (11:30 pm). By now I felt exhausted!

Monday 13 August (hot and clear most of the day)

I had breakfast and then spent most of morning sitting and talking about possible options both for the proposed 2002 National Meet/Expedition and my recce. Nazir was incredibly helpful – it was obvious that he had a great knowledge of the whole area. His main suggestion was that we should choose a valley like the Karambar glacier which would be easy to access, no porter problems and with a large number of (mostly unclimbed) 6 000 m peaks and Kampire Dior (7 168 m) as a main objective. He felt Kanjut Sar (that I suggested) would be a difficult peak on this, a first visit. For my recce he suggested I should stay in Passu (Ghulam Mohammed owner) and engage Qamar Jan as a guide for the trip. Qamar Jan was a high altitude porter with a lot of experience climbing on the country's high mountains among others on the fateful British 1978 West Ridge attempt on K2 when Nick Estcourt was killed in an avalanche. After lunch and a short rest in the chalet Nazir and I drove back to Skardu to get his office to purchase the bus ticket from Skardu to Gilgit (Rp 150) and to change some travellers cheques. We then organised a jeep and drove up to Satpara Lake again to try to get Tato to catch a fish. More luck this time with several fish being caught. We had a snack at the Lake Hotel and went back to collect my ticket from Mir in Skardu then drove home slightly earlier to Shangri La, but also in the dark. On the drive down to Skardu from the lake we saw another fox caught in our headlights. I did my last packing in the chalet and then welcome bed, although an almost unpleasantly hot night.

Tuesday 14 August (cooler cloudy day with patches of sun)

The big move today. Breakfast with Nazir and then he drove me down the road - a bit of a wait and then I loaded my gear onto the Masherbrum bus going to Gilgit. I said goodbye to Nazir and thanked him for all his incredible generosity and help. The bus had left Skardu at 08:00 and picked me up about 09:00. A long tortuous drive to Gilgit (about 200 km and about 6 hours) through the incredibly spectacular gorge carved by the Indus river, a big river swollen by glacial melt and with some more than impressive rapid sections. Rain spattered down as we drove into Gilgit, but it was an easy transfer by Suzuki to the Hunza bus depot, just in time to catch the last bus to Karimabad (about 16:00). I was now back in familiar territory. The bus dropped me at the Hilltop Hotel and I dumped all my kit there. I found that the Hill Top was completely booked out then tried to see if I could stay at the Kisar Inn at Altit, but found that it was also full (as it seemed most other hotels were too). But then I was fortunately helped by Ilyas Khan of Concordia Expeditions and found a room (with four beds) at the Garden Lodge on the road linking Upper Karimabad (Baltit) with Hyderabad to the South (Rp 250). It had hot water, a decent place to kip and it was clean. I opted for supper at the hotel – simple vegetable soup and chicken/egg fried rice, because my tummy was now starting to rebel. I fell into bed early, but did not have a good night.

Wednesday 15 August

Diarrhoea was still ruling my life, so had green tea for breakfast. Arranged staying on at Garden Lodge and changed to a room with two beds – better and this loo worked, but a bit more expensive (Rp 300/night). I walked down the road and caught a Suzuki to Aliabad (Rp 10), where I first went to see if I could raise Ayub Khan at Nazir’s Expedition offices, but it was locked. A wonderful surprise to then bump into Iman Yar Baig just as I was leaving - really good to see him again. I organised getting onto a bus going to Passu (the bus was going to Sost). It comes up from Gilgit and the passengers have lunch at a restaurant more or less opposite Nazir’s office. It was further than I thought getting to Passu (about 55 km fare Rp 40). I was dropped at Passu Inn where I met Ghulam Mohammed (the inn keeper). I arranged to come back on Friday as Qamar Jan (the guide Nazir had suggested I use) was away trekking until then. My negotiation for taking a room full time arrived at Rp 400 per day with pressure from me to come down to Rp 350 per day. Complications that Ghulam had groups fully booking the hotel on some days (eg 25 to 27 August – 3 nights and 31 August to 1 September – 1 night) – something we would have to sort out. I was still feeling lousy so had more green tea and talked about plans with Ghulam. Going back to Aliabad was nearly disastrous – I waited more than two hours and still no mini bus came past from Sost (all the buses seem to go in the morning !) – eventually I was lucky to have someone in a private car stop and give me a lift (he was driving through to Islamabad). I bought a pair of sandals and fruit in Aliabad, then got home by Suzuki and went straight to bed !

Thursday 16 August

I had a better night, but was still feeling queasy and not hungry in the morning. Apple and mineral water for breakfast. I left the Garden Lodge (2375 m) at 07:30 and walked up to Baltit Fort then on along an irrigation furrow to the intake in the Ultar Nala. I followed an easy path at first at the river level up to some small terraces with willow and poplar trees (with a magnificent fairly clear view of Ultar Peak 7 388 m) and then climbed up the moraine on the true righthand (south) bank of the river. After going through a curving slot right down at river level again (ie a passage behind some boulders) to get past a slab band, the path then climbed up the moraine wall to a considerably higher irrigation channel taking water out on the south side of the river. At the upper channel there was a hut and a tent pitched on a grassy meadow. The path then continued much less steeply up a shallow valley before traversing underneath and finally going up another moraine wall. This brought me out at the Ultar meadow where there were some huts and individuals offering fruit, food, etc (± 3 150 m – a bit more than 750 m from the hotel). In my rather fragile state I managed to do the hike with many rests in 3½ hours.

I spent about half an hour at the meadow taking photos of clouds playing around the peaks. There were spectacular views of both Bubulimating (6 000 m) and Hunza (6 270 m) Peaks from here – both of which could be approached from this side, but with a lot of steep (quite good looking) granite forming the headwalls. Ultar was still partly covered in cloud, but looked mean with seracs at the top of the main wall overlooking this side, obviously posing serious objective dangers.

Bubulimating (6 000 m) and Hunza Peak (6 270 m) above the Ultar Nala

Still feeling a bit lousy I decided to go down, leaving the meadow at 11:30 and made quite a fast walk down to some willow trees above the grassy meadow at the upper irrigation channel stopping there for lunch (12:00) – an apple and a kip in the shade. A friendly and curious cow got the apple skins. I continued down at about 13:30, finding it easier to follow the path going down because more beacons had been built by the guides bringing parties up after me (that I met on my way down). I was finally down at about 15:00 and watched the local keeper of the gotshil (irrigation channel) at the entrance to the Ultar Nala, adjusting the flow, armed with his long-handled spade. These channels are very impressive because they are built up on miniscule ledges traversing the huge rock faces bounding the Ultar gorge. Another intriguing observation was the diversion for the top channel I passed on my walk, which was obviously opened up just before I reached it (rich brown silt-laden water), but was cut off later when I came down. I would have thought they would have kept the channels running full all the time. The main Ultar stream was an impressive flow and would not be easy to cross even in the morning (and there was a significant increase in flow by afternoon). I dropped stuff at the hotel and did some shopping including buying the DAV Hunza map. I ate a little scrambled egg for supper at the hotel – a light drizzle coming down as I went to bed.

Rakaposhi (7 788 m)

The long ice ridge terminating just to the left of the summit was first climbed by a Japanese expedition in 1979 and again in a semi-alpine ascent in 1984 by Barry Blanchard and Kevin Doyle (Canada) and Dave Cheesemond (RSA/Canada)

I woke early to find brilliant clear sky outside and peaks covered in some fresh snow, Rakaposhi (7 788 m) an absolute gem at the bottom of the valley. I grabbed my camera and walked up to Baltit Fort where I took shots of Rakaposhi, Diran, Ultar and another peak to the east near Rash Phari.

Passu village

Fresh pears and green tea for breakfast, then I packed up my last things and paid the bill (one night Rp 250 and two at Rp 300). I caught a Suzuki to Aliabad and bus to Passu – now quite old stuff ! Arriving in Passu I realised how little I had been able to see on Wednesday – especially views of Ultar and Shispare (7 611 m), the latter a really dramatic snow spire rising above the Passu glacier.

At the Passu Inn Ghulam organised a room and I dumped my gear and had some tea before catching a jeep to go and find Qamar Jan at his house in a newly developed area about 3 km in the direction of the Batura glacier. In the end I found him at a relation’s house back towards Passu Inn. Tea and then lunch (spinach and potatoes) were served by Qamar Jan’s wife in this typical Hunza house, while he and I talked.

Qamar Jan

First something about the house – it was really one huge room with the kitchen, toilet/bath (?) and childrens’ room leading off it. The floor was stepped to a low central point (which was where a stove burned continuously in winter) and the floor was covered with carpets and cushions. The internal columns and roof ceiling were all in timber with quite a lot of ornate decoration. In the roof there were removable panels which were left open in the summer to keep the house cool. Qamar Jan told me he was a carpenter and had done all the woodwork himself. Then he talked more about the “new” development of the area in which the house had been built. It appeared that various attempts had been made over the years to lead irrigation water from the Batura glacier, but with little success, because the channel was broken by the moving glacier. This latest government attempt seemed to have been more successful.

Qamar Jan and I started talking about the possible plans for 2002, what I was looking for and then some of the specific ideas we had come up with. After deciding that the Karambar valley and Simshal/Yazghil valley options should be given priority, we went on to plan how long each of these trips might take. And in the end we tackled the difficult issue of paying Qamar Jan, eventually reaching agreement on a flat daily rate of Rp 750 for his service. I arranged to meet him in the afternoon again to talk about details of food, etc for the first trip to Karambar and then I walked back to the Passu Inn. I started sorting stuff, did the by now necessary washing and wrote out a short contract for us both to sign. I also talked to Ghulam and arranged that I would stay on the specific days we would be back in Passu only at the full rate. Qamar Jan came later and we finalised the food lists, signed the contract and he then took me to his son’s main house in Passu for tea. I had supper at the hotel talking to a friendly Dutchman who was on his way to Kashgar and then packed my last stuff before getting to bed quite late.

Late evening view of the cathedral spires on the east side of the Hunza river seen from Passu

Saturday 18 August

I set the alarm for 05:15 – showered and did my last packing so that I could take a bag down to Ghulam for safekeeping. Qamar Jan arrived at the same time as a big Toyota bus at about 05:55 – five minutes early, and it was a bit of a scramble to get the rucksacks down from the room. The driver was in a big hurry and it only took us an hour to get to Karimabad (fantastic views of Shispare, Ultar and the Hunza peaks). Thereafter he calmed down a bit and we got to Gilgit at 09:30. We first went to the Bazaar where we booked into the Taj Hotel (Madina Market) then dropped our bags in the room and had some breakfast. My first chore then was to change $400.00 travellers cheques at Soneri Bank (Qamar Jan’s nephew). We then spent a hot day buying all the things we needed for the trip – vegetables in the market lane where meat was also sold – a sight to see, then on to buy a stove, porter boxes and hard groceries. It all took a long time and in the late afternoon, when it was finally all finished, I searched trying to find a place where I could send off some e-mails, eventually finding “Future Communications” right next to the hotel - delighted to be able to get e-mails off to Lester to send on to Sandy, etc. Back at the hotel I sat down with Qamar Jan and two of his friends from Passu, one of them the headmaster at Passu’s new school, a very articulate and interesting man who told me that his was the first experimental co-educational school in the northern areas. The three of them then went off into town (to the mosque ?) while I had a bite to eat on the roof top of the hotel. It was still hot, but I turned off the fan in the room and opened the windows to sleep.

Sunday 19 August

Qamar Jan slept in a third empty bed in his friend’s room, so I woke up alone. I did the last odds and ends of packing and then Qamar Jan joined me and we had some breakfast. He then went to check out the landcruiser which he had organised and which was supposed to be arriving at 09:00, but didn’t. Finally I spent quite a frustrating morning waiting for the landcruiser to arrive, with Qamar Jan also getting quite agitated. However, eventually it did arrive in time for us to pack and get away just after 12:00. One advantage of the delay was that it gave me the opportunity to write some post cards – I had to leave them with the hotel to post as the post office was closed. The final negotiation to get the driver to go, was to pay him extra in lieu of the passengers he had apparently been seeking (which was the reason for the delay). The total cost for the journey for our baggage and Qamar Jan and myself was Rp 900.

Loading the landcruiser in Gilgit

The route to the Karambar valley first followed the Gilgit river for quite a long way – along a fairly wide valley with very arid and barren looking mountains at its sides, but very verdant, often with beautiful big trees (mainly walnuts) down below at the sides of the river. There were lots of grapes on offer in roadside stalls along the way. Just beyond the village of Gakuch we turned off the Gupis road and crossed a suspension bridge built by the Chinese to continue up the Ishkoman river on its true lefthand bank (the Ishkoman being a major tributary of the Gilgit river).

Driving through the Walnut groves near Chatorkand on the way to Imit

This new valley was also very attractive – in some places the road twisted and turned between stone walls with orchards of walnut trees completely closing in overhead. The whole area looked very well organised from a farming point of view. After turning off into the side valley of the Karambar river, just as we were thinking it would be nice to get to Imit (because it was proving to be a longer drive than we expected), we came up against a landslide where the road was completely blocked.

The landslide blocking the road just before Imit

The slide had been caused by erosion of the river bank supporting the road and it was easy to see why - the Karambar river was flowing very full and fast – one could hear the rumble of boulders being carried down in the flow. After trying to get a cargo jeep organised on the upstream side of the break and after carrying our baggage across, we finally walked the remaining few kilometres left to get to Imit (we turned down another cargo jeep driver’s offer of Rp 1500 to take us the balance of our journey). Carrying the boxes was difficult until we found a burro and its willing owner to take the boxes on to Imit. After some negotiation with the NAPWD guest house “keeper” in Imit, he agreed to let us use it and we carried all our stuff up the hill to the guest house. Discussing plans for Monday, we agreed Qamar Jan should carry on further and organise porters for the morning, the idea being to complete the distance to the Karambar glacier using porters (3) or a donkey in a single stage, if possible. I paid Rp 100 each to the youngsters who helped us carry the baggage to Imit and Rp 150 for using the donkey. Sharif the “keeper” brought me tea and I spent the evening getting organised – including finding my MSR Whisperlite wouldn’t work with the Paki paraffin we had bought!

Monday 20 August

Imit’s altitude was 2 350 m, about two hours walk from the slide blocking the jeep road.

This was a long walking day. Qamar Jan arrived back at about 08:00 saying the porters had been organised. To do so he had walked all the way up to Bilhanz and slept the night with friends there. We did some re-packing and weighed three porter loads (25 kg – two tin boxes and eventually my red rucksack with my personal clothes, etc). We left Imit at about 08:45 (after an abortive effort the previous night and again in the morning to get the Whisperlite going with the “alcohol” we had bought - we discarded this fuel, but didn’t have any success finding petrol) with a burro carrying the two boxes and a porter carrying my rucksack with some other bits and pieces. It was an easy walk along the jeep road above Imit, at a stage cutting across a suspension bridge (being re-decked with timber) from the river’s true lefthand to its true righthand bank. We passed through attractive countryside on the way to Bilhanz and in fact for all the day – mostly walking along similar jeep tracks between built-up stone walls with trees on either side. I was very grateful for the shade because it turned out to be a blazing hot day. In line with Bilhanz we recrossed the river (ie back onto the true lefthand bank) and climbed up the big river stone cone descending from the gorge just before you get to Bad Swat (perched high above an erosion cliff). There it was pretty obvious why jeeps presently could not get through this section – the side tributary was a raging torrent and there was just no possibility of driving through it. We chose to wade across (though we learned there was a cableway further upstream) and unpacked everything off the burro. It was pretty exciting doing the river crossing with very cold feet and rushing tumbling water. We all went across linking arms and using ski poles to balance. Once across we re-packed the burro (that had come across without losing any dignity!) and walked on along the road, passing Bad Swat high above us – now extremely hot.

The Bad Swat river crossing

Eventually at about 14:00 we turned off to one of the porter’s (Hojali Ali’s) family’s home and were invited inside the simple living room – again just an open space with carpets and cushions. There we were duly fed, first with absolutely delicious fresh yoghurt into which I cut up an apple (preferring to stay with this rather than going on to the potato dish with chapattis that followed). I drank about five cups of milk tea – very refreshing and necessary after getting a bit dehydrated earlier on. I slept a bit (pestered by flies), until the afternoon started to cool with cloud coming in and then packed ready to move on again, now with the final three porters who would accompany us up the Karambar glacier (Hojali Ali, Aziz Khan and Albaig Afzal – who had been with us from the place where the road was blocked). I got some nice photos of the family.

Hojali Ali’s family

Walking on (still with our burro) passing the next small village called Bort, it became rather cooler, with quite threatening weather, thunder and a few drops of rain. We stopped quite close to the junction where the Karambar glacier came into the main valley, at an excellent camp site with firewood and a spring with clear water coming out from under the moraine. We put up the tents, drank lots of tea and made a big billy of soup with one of the rather squashed tomatoes cut up into it. It had been a long but rewarding day – this was an excellent camp site to be remembered.

Tuesday 21 August

We were woken in the middle of the night by a great clap of thunder after which it started and went on raining until dawn. I was the first to get up and scratched out some dry twigs to get the fire going. We packed up the camp (wet tents) and got going at about 07:45 by which time quite a little procession of people and cows had already passed the camp. We walked on along a rough track for perhaps ¾ km before heading off to the right along a path going up the side valley, first through a shallow basin between the moraine and the rocky slope on our right – lots of juniper trees. We then climbed up to the moraine crest (beacon) and went down onto the glacier (mostly covered with rubble) before working our way across it to its far side (ie to the glacier’s true righthand bank) – this was complicated but well beaconed and quite easy – even our burro, apart from one slippery descent, seemed to cope well. It probably took about 2¼ hours from our camp to reach the other side. All along we had heard other people shouting ahead and realised when we got closer to them that they were the people driving the cows past our camp earlier – the cows just walking across the glacier – incredible! We crossed a strong stream coming down a cleft in the moraine on the true righthand bank of the glacier, then climbed up the moraine wall (zig sagging up a narrow path, the first part a bit difficult for the burro). This brought us to a beautiful shallow wooded valley on top of the moraine – signs of water having flowed down it, but no running stream.

The lower valley on the way up to Karambar village

The valley went on rather further than we expected with the path eventually coming out at some cultivated wheat and barley fields. We met up with some of the porters’ friends and after a brief stop continued. Some of the peaks were now coming into view, one very steep peak across the glacier on its true lefthand side and more exciting looking peaks partly obscured by cloud beyond the icefall at the head of the valley. Continuing along a good path, through a steep ravine and past some very old juniper trees on the slope beyond, to our surprise we eventually emerged on another beautiful meadow with more cultivation and quite a few wooden/stone houses with earth/grassed roofs. What an incredible place - deciding this was where we should stop, I talked to an old man who came out of one of the houses with his children and obtained his permission to set up our subcamp, which we immediately set about doing.

Setting up our subcamp beside a meadow at Karambar village overlooking the Karambar glacier

We put up the wet tents and started erecting the tarp for a kitchen shelter when it started to rain quite heavily. The porters, who had asked if they could move into one of the partly broken down houses nearby, wasted no time doing so and getting a fire started to make milk tea (which you drink out of tin mugs dipping a great chunk of rock salt into the tea as you drink it). I got the tent organised after tea, while they went out to collect some more firewood, of which there appeared to be a plentiful supply. We had had to walk some way to collect water because the irrigation furrow much closer to our camp was not running (we later established that it probably should do so for at least a part of every day). For supper Qamar Jan made Dal with onions, garlic, tomatoes and a very mild dash of curry – which was excellent with the chapattis the porters had brought up. We stewed some of the dried apricots too. We were now at an altitude of 3 300 m and could feel that it was also definitely getting colder. Looking down on the glacier below us we saw something strange that took us little while to work out - a huge sort of geyser intermittently spewing a great fountain of water out of a hole in the ice. We eventually worked out it must be the action of a subterranean glacial river with this “blowhole” acting like an air valve.

We listened to the shortwave radio belonging to one of the porters when we had finished eating He and the others liked to listen to the Wakhan news at 19:30. But it was a pretty scratchy reception!

Although the weather hadn’t been all that wonderful, we had caught glimpses of a couple of the peaks at the head of the valley when we were nearing Karambar village and we speculated that one of them might have been Kampire Dior (7 168 m), probably the peak we were most interested in seeing. Nazir had told me that its first ascent had been made by a Japanese expedition in 1975 from the Karambar glacier, but we had no other information about the route that had been taken then.

Wednesday 22 August

It was definitely a cooler night. I got up at about 05:30 after not sleeping very well – grateful to find the porters had milk tea ready in the bothy at 06:00. That was all I wanted – my tummy was still feeling miserable. Qamar Jan and I then packed up stuff for the day including a rope and some climbing gear, - the idea being that we would recce the approach to where we reckoned the Kampire Dior base camp might be and find a place where we could get really good views of the peak.

The view from our subcamp of the upper Karambar glacier with Kampire Dior (7 168 m) and Seiri Parkush (6 872 m) at its head

We thought a possible approach the Japanese may have followed to get to the mountain might have been along the Karambar glacier’s true lefthand bank. For us to follow this line would entail descending onto the glacier below our subcamp and crossing it to get onto what looked like a fairly continuous sloping ledge that we thought might provide access for a long way up the glacier’s true lefthand bank. Qamar Jan and I got away at 07:00 and got down to the glacier’s lateral moraine easily. We crossed this onto the strip of clean white ice between the lateral and medial moraines and made good time going up it – there were very few serious crevasses or glacial streams to cross. We then crossed the medial moraine quite close to the line of the scree “fan” we were making for to start our projected traverse, which also turned out to be quite straight forward. However, crossing the strip of clean ice between the medial and lateral moraines on the true lefthand bank was far more complicated – we had to find ways of crossing several quite big glacial torrents. This wasn’t easy - having to make prodigious leaps across places that we selected where the channels narrowed slightly and the river banks weren’t too steep. After we had completed the crossings, we stopped for a rest on a big rock on the lateral moraine – it had taken three hours to cross and walk up the glacier.

We now started climbing the scree and the sloping slab above us – it was very steep and loose with lots of evidence of rock fall from above in the form of serious craters on the slope. There were also lots of loose rocks, pebbles and earth that we dislodged climbing up the bed of the gully we had chosen to follow, which made us work our way across to another subsidiary scrambling gully further to the left which was better protected. We started our traverse past a dirty waterfall and then a clean one where we were able to have a drink. We were then presented with the hiatus of the day in the form of a forest of tightly packed springy head-high bushy shrubs (Rhododendrons?) through which we had to start fighting our way. There were no paths, but lots of hoof marks that Qamar Jan said were Ibex prints. We battled on with Qamar Jan in the lead for about 1½ hours, but making little serious progress (we might have traversed about 1½ km in total through this thick bush – the highest point that we reached was about 3 650 m). Eventually we realised that even if we did manage to get through this ghastly bushwack, it certainly wouldn't have been a suitable route for porters.

So it was back to the drawing board! We retraced our steps climbing down the rock gully and scree fan and then set off down the glacier again. This crossing went quite well, but we made the mistake of trying to traverse directly across the glacier to where the large stream coming down the first big side valley above Karambar village on the glacier’s true righthand bank joined the main valley. This got us into trouble having to cross some really big crevasses orientated transverse to the glacier’s axis. However we did eventually extricate ourselves and headed down to where we started on the glacier in the morning. By now really hot and tired we made the final weary plod up the steep moraine path back to the subcamp (16:00), welcomed with tea made by the porters who were looking pretty relaxed after their rest day!

Looking across at an attractive 6 000 m peak on the Karambar glacier's true lefthand bank from our subcamp

I had been feeling really “pap” all day from my tummy! When we were rested I looked at the Leomann map from which it was obvious that all the glaciers must have substantially retreated in the side valleys. Notwithstanding this, the peaks looked fabulous, though generally pretty serious propositions to climb. I got organised in my tent and had an early supper of some soup before crawling into bed.

Karambar village with its few houses and the cultivated lands where we camped are part of the highest settlement in the valley. Qamar Jan told me that the cultivated lands were owned by perhaps 60 people from the lower villages, but only a total of about 25 people actually lived at Karambar village. In addition shepherds tended flocks of sheep and goats grazing in the higher side valleys on the same true righthand bank of the Karambar glacier. There were certainly cattle just below the upper meadow and there may have been cattle grazing at pastures higher up as well. The small population of Karambar village comprised mostly men and boys (who worked), but there were some women as well, though we hardly saw them.

What a fabulous setting - the cultivated fields of Karambar village overlooking the Karambar glacier with Seiri Parkush beyond

The region is quite arid (probably some water from melting snow early in the season), and the cultivation relies on water from an old, but well maintained irrigation channel brought out from the south Koz Yaz glacier (in the first side ravine above Karambar village on the Karambar glacier’s true righthand bank) high up on the slope (ie feeding the upper meadow as well - and even used for flooding as far down as the forest on the approach to the upper meadow).

Harvesting the barley in Karambar Village

The people at Karambar village come up from the Hunza valley in May (there is heavy snow before then), sow barley and wheat for harvesting in August/September and go down again from the village in September/October. The barley and wheat is cut with a scythe and then moved to hardened areas in sheaves to dry, later to be threshed using animals on a threshing floor. We saw there were a lot of birds around – small seed-eating finches in the cultivated fields – great flocks of them, and flocks of black ravens (completely black) that also seem to feed in the fields.

Karambar village – implements for making cheese

There must have been herds of cattle grazed at our lower part of the village before, because I found old hollow wooden churns used for making yoghurt, butter and local cheese stored in one of the empty houses. Also shallow wooden hollowed out “basins” for making Ata. All of these implements were beautifully made.

The houses of Karambar were widely spread around the fields. The lower parts of the walls were constructed from stones, then juniper logs caulked with mud above that and a roof comprising juniper logs with a turf and mud/soil covering. There was a central hearth of two big square rocks arranged to form a pit in the centre of one of the rooms, and an opening in the roof with a covering that could be adjusted to let the smoke out! The door frame and door were worked planks of juniper with proper joints and were beautifully made. An adze was probably the only tool available for doing all this shaping. All the people in the village were Wakhi and spoke Wakhi and Qamar Jan did too when he conversed with the porters.

Thursday 23 August

We made a l lazier start with milk tea at 07:30 because we had decided this should be a rest day. I ate a bowl of cornflakes with stewed apricots and drank some bush tea with lime – feeling a bit better. Qamar Jan, who was complaining of still being tired said he would rest so that we could try recceing the Karambar’s true righthand bank on Friday. The old man and the two boys from the village whom we had met before (one of whom, the older, understood and spoke a bit of English, apparently because he worked for a time at the Passu Inn), worked in the fields all day – the old man cutting the wheat and barley and stacking it where it was cut, and the two boys endlessly tying the sheaves up in great bundles and carting them across to the threshing floors where they were stacked to dry.

Qamar Jan tried to get the Primus stove working, but without success – taking the plunger apart, it seemed that there was a small spring missing at its non-return valve. This would unfortunately mean we that we wouldn’t be able to set up any higher subcamps because it was unlikely that they would find any wood there. Two of the porters went visiting the houses at the first glacier tributary (ie the lowest) on the true righthand bank and. I packed my small rucksack and walked on the path to the glacial torrent joining the glacier on the true righthand bank just beyond our camp. The path took me through more lovely meadows with some huge very old juniper trees growing there. I looked at the rushing water and decided not to risk a crossing on my own, so rather worked my way up the side of the tributary's wide river bed, climbing up to the intakes of three irrigation channels – the middle one being the main one and much better built than the others. There were a lot of trees in the lower part of the valley and a dwelling with a resident shepherd and a flock of goats on the true lefthand bank, high up on top of a steep moraine wall, also some birch trees that Qamar Jan explained were used for their bark and light timber.

I continued far up above the irrigation channels on quite a good path which must obviously have been used for taking cattle up to the high pastures and on the way came to a stone wall built across the path with a single huge Ibex horn adorning it. Eventually I came out on a moraine crest where I could look up to the vestigial glacier and rock peaks (which had very nice looking potential for rock climbing) at the head of the valley, but I couldn’t see any snow peaks on this side of the valley from here. However, on the other side of the Karambar glacier, beyond the pyramid shaped peak we could see from our subcamp, a connecting ridge and another good looking peak came into view. Unfortunately there was rather a lot of cloud, and I could only catch a brief glimpse of another fabulous looking steep pyramid-shaped snow summit, still further on. With the clouds gathering and a few drops of rain coming down I dropped back down to the main irrigation channel and walked along it to get back to camp.

In the meantime, because I hadn’t returned (I got back to camp about 17:45) Qamar Jan had become worried and went out to look for me with Aziz. He followed my tracks up the start of the valley and eventually picked up my clear tracks going back to camp along the irrigation channel.

At last I seemed to have got some appetite back and celebrated by making a big risotto with carrots, onions, garlic and green peppers and with tuna added to it (plus a touch of curry c/o Aziz). It cooked perfectly (¾ hour after adding water and stock) and was I think appreciated by Qamar Jan and Aziz (the other two porters were sleeping over down the valley). We finished off with green banana jelly for pudding!

Qamar Jan carried a wad of chewing tobacco in a small plastic pouch and used it from time to time - perhaps this was an explanation why he was such a proficient spitter!

Friday 24 August

We made an early start with milk tea at 06:00. It had rained a bit in the latter part of the night and was quite cloudy when we got up, but then cleared to become a beautiful morning. Breakfast comprised apricots (including the nuts) and cornflakes washed down with milk tea. The idea for the day was that Qamar Jan, Aziz and I would recce the grass ledge we had seen but not yet explored higher up the valley on the glacier’s true righthand bank. Starting out at about 07:00, we climbed up a bit to a good path that skirted the shoulder some way up above our camp and then descended into the valley to the crude bridge of logs, brush and stones that had obviously been built to get the animals across the river and give access to the shepherd’s house on the shelf above the river that I had seen the previous day. From the bridge we went downstream to a fabulous campsite with lots of space, shade from birch trees and a clear stream coming out from under a scree. The only disadvantages seemed to be that there was a single dwelling on the glacier side of the little valley and there was also no view – how fussy can you get! From there we followed quite a good path up the little valley onto the crest of the moraine (which formed the valley) and then descended the very steep and vegetated moraine wall to the level of the glacier. This allowed us to get onto the glacier over the lateral moraine and onto the white ice, but it took us quite a long time to move on up the glacier to the next side valley, a short distance beyond, which we reckoned we should be able to follow to reach our ledge. We firstly had to deal with a heavily crevassed section of the white ice and then a little further on where the lateral moraine abutted a cliff on the true righthand side of the glacier, had to climb over some really nasty black ice and mud. Looking up we saw a whole herd of yaks grazing on an incredibly steep grass slope above us and wondered how the hell they had got there ? We eventually got off the glacier onto a steep slope where a gully seemed to offer a means of getting onto the ledge we were aiming for (11:00 - 4 hours from camp – height at the bottom of the gully 3 630 m).

We went up a very loose approach to our gully and found it was really no better once we were in it – slabby loose earthy stuff with the only technical climbing involving straddling past a big blocky chockstone (“C”). We built a big beacon at the top of the gully (and noted some plastic binding tape on the way up – we thought that this was probably from the Japanese expedition that made the first ascent of Kampire Dior in 1975. From the top of the gully we continued up for a bit on firmer more vegetated ground (it would be necessary to fix a rope in the gully if used for porters) and then started our long traverse, going up and down to avoid sections of slab and scree, but ascending slightly all the time with fabulous new views unfolding into the high glacier branch on the true lefthand bank (South Karambar glacier) with some very attractive looking peaks in it.We then reached and turned the corner with a simply fantastic view opening out of the peaks above the top icefall at the head and in the branch of the glacier going to the north.

Two things immediately became evident – Qamar Jan quite correctly was adamant that the “Matterhorn-shaped” peak that we had earlier thought might be Kampire Dior, was definitely not, but that the peak to the left of it was Kampire Dior. That would mean that the “Matterhorn-shaped” peak was more likely Seiri Parkush at 6 872 m. This made sense looking from this position. The second thing was that Seiri Parkush didn’t really look much closer from here than from our subcamp – perhaps an indication of the huge scale of this country. Looking at Kampire Dior, the elegant looking ridge facing us seemed the most likely route that the Japanese would have climbed – it certainly was a classic line, though very long.

After a bite of lunch (we had reached this viewpoint in about 6 hours from camp – altitude 4 130 m), we walked on to a point where we could see our ledge ran into and gave easy access onto the glacier. It would give perfect access for climbing the peak, though an advance base here would probably mean setting up camp on the glacier.

Hectic icefall on the South Karambar glacier below Bori Dorkush (6 780 m)

The Southwest Ridge of Kampire Dior (7 168 m) that the 1975 Japanese expedition climbed on the first ascent of the peak

Seiri Parkush (6 872 m) - the route followed on its first ascent was the prominent ridge going up to the left of the summit

We built a beacon at this vantage point and set off back to camp at 14:00. A long traverse back and safe/easy descent of the gully to reach the glacier, and then a seemingly endless haul back down the glacier – generally easy technically, but complex route finding. Back in about 4½ hours – a long day. We must have walked more than 20 km.

The complex approach to Kampire Dior’s Southwest Ridge seen from the high point of our recce

Qamar Jan and Aziz well pleased with themselves after our recce high up on the Karambar glacier

Saturday 25 August

We didn’t manage a very early start on this, the day we had decided to go down from Karambar village. After breakfast we packed everything up, loaded the burro and struck camp before leaving at 10:15 after paying the farmer for our camping. We made a slow descent taking some more pictures as the whole of Kampire Dior came into view (at least the Southwest Ridge we wanted to see – we were quite frustrated during the previous day’s recce, because the ridge kept disappearing in the clouds as did the summit). Going down we became aware of some things about the approach to Karambar village that we hadn’t fully appreciated coming up – the beautiful willow forest above the moraine, the fantastic waterfall cascading down the cliff face and the stream debouching onto the glacier after you make the steep descent down the moraine wall (altitude at the foot of the moraine wall 3 000 m).

Qamar Jan seemed to lose the way a bit crossing the glacier to get to the true lefthand bank and we landed up a bit too high upstream. However, after following another path on the edge of the glacier and climbing over the much lower moraine wall there (now on the route we had followed walking in) we went down the pleasant valley with young juniper trees on the other side to rejoin the jeep track and catch up with the porters and burro at our original camp site in time for lunch. We were rather disappointed that our clear water spring had somehow degenerated to the usual turbid glacial water! It took us 4¼ hours to reach the camp from Karambar village. The height of this camp was 2 750 m.

I did make a note that if we were to use Karambar for a meet, there would also be good potential for peak bagging on the west side of the Karambar river with access up the Denjarau valley (more or less opposite our first camp site) or the Feursin (birch) valley – the next valley upstream. One would have to cross the main river using the Bort suspension bridge to get there.

With Qamar Jan and our Karambar porters

We left our lunch place at 15:30 and it took 1½ hours to walk along the jeep track past Bort and Bad Swat, and to do the river crossing that had previously so impressed us. We met up with our cargo jeep driver there and told him that we would camp just on the Bilhanz side of the crossing and be ready for him to pick us up at 05:30 on Sunday morning. We had beautiful soft sunlight in the evening for the crossing – and it was quite easily done. There were impressive views of Swat Maras 6 300 m and other nice looking peaks to the east as we came down the valley. We set up our camp in a field and organised paying off the porters as well as providing them with handwritten references. I think they were very happy with their deal and there was quite an emotional leave-taking. They had been very willing and able and proved to be really quite excellent companions. That left just Qamar Jan and me at our camp. We were surprised when quite an old man appeared from Bilhanz carrying a simple supper dish of tandoori spinach and beans with chapattis for us to eat. What an incredibly touching gesture, whether he expected the small payment we made to him or not. A long but good day too – beautiful weather.

Sunday 26 August

There was another threat of rain when it became cloudy during the night, so I put up the tent fly, but it didn’t rain. The cargo jeep came just after 05:00 and we packed everything into it, getting away at 05:30. Going past Bilhanz we loaded several more passengers, including Hojali, and some sacks of potatoes, which I hadn’t expected, seeing as the Rp 1 500 price we discussed with Kahan Mohammed, the driver the previous evening, had been based on him not being able to get any other passengers and taking us alone.

It was an easy drive down to Imit and beyond to the place where the road had been blocked by the landslide (which we found had been repaired/re-made). But the repaired section was so incredibly narrow with the righthand track on a veritable crumbling outside edge that everyone except the driver leapt off the vehicle and watched it inch its way safely across. After more passengers got on at Chatorkand we drove on to join the Gilgit river at the Chinese bridge, eventually stopping at the same roadside eating place where we had stopped before. We bought some apples to eat and had some milk tea sitting under the trees outside. I noticed that here and elsewhere they plant the vines under the big trees and allow them to climb up into the trees like creepers – there is no trellising or pergola made for the vines. On the way down to the Ishkoman turnoff from Imit, we saw several hoopoes flying up as we passed by. After getting going again (a half hour stop at the eating place), we came to a section of road that was being re-surfaced and it was striking to see young boys (possibly eight to ten years old) working on the road – filling sand between the pre-placed stone to form the hardened surface prior to placing the asphalt, or brushing this surface, just before priming and placing the asphalt!! It was now getting much hotter and so we made another welcome stop next to the Gilgit river at an irrigation channel with clean water, where we could all refresh ourselves.

We drove into Gilgit at 11:15, dropping off all the passengers at the bus station and then took our stuff through to the Taj Hotel again where we booked in. In paying the driver, I said the Rp 1 500 agreed price should be less, because he had in fact been able to pick up passengers and cargo along the way who had also paid him something.– finally giving him Rp 1 200. However, it appeared that this really made Qamar Jan angry and he paid the driver the extra Rp 300 himself, then in our room saying he didn’t want to go on to Shimshal with me! I think what really happened here was that the driver was his friend (and we used the same cargo jeep driving both ways) and especially the outward journey was a “deal” struck specially. He therefore felt it was not fair to bargain beyond the agreed price. We later talked the matter out and I apologised, explaining that Qamar Jan really would have to help me where we were dealing with money matters like this, because the way that they were handled in Pakistan was clearly different from what I was used to back home!. Qamar Jan later calmed down and everything seemed OK again.

We spent a hot afternoon shopping in Gilgit, getting the things we would need for our next Shimshal trip before going back to Passu on Monday. This included getting some petrol and ensuring that the MSR would work with it – of course we had no success trying to buy a metal petrol/paraffin can with a screw top for the fuel! I was able to send off more e-mails home. To bed quite early after a light supper at the Taj. I also bought some mangoes.

Request for English school books from Yousuf Khan – Tesil Ishkoman Post Office Imit Village Bilhanz.

Karambar Glacier and Kampire Dior

Part of Sheet 1 of the Karakoram Orographical Sketch Map

Published by The Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research Zurich, Switzerland

Map 3 – Kampire Dior – Grupe Diagram showing the route taken by the 1975 Japanese Chronik der Erschliebung des Karakorum Teil I – Western Karakorum Expedition that made the first successful ascent of re Kampire Dior

Wolfgang Heichel

Hunza Recce Part 2

Shimshal and the Malungutti, Yazghil and Yukshin Gardan Glaciers

Monday 27 August

I woke very early with Qamar Jan also getting moving and the muezzin starting at 04:00. Qamar Jan left with all our luggage put on the Passu bus just before 06:00. I had a shower, went to buy the petrol for the stove and then sat down and had breakfast, where I was joined a bit later by Qamar Jan’s friend Aziz Khan who was the headmaster at Passu school. He spoke good English and was good company – I wrote down his address for future reference. After breakfast I went out and bought the last few things required (soups and fresh vegetables) for our Shimshal recce and then walked quite far to the National Bank of Pakistan to change travellers cheques and to talk about organising a money transfer through the bank's Gulmit branch. However, apart from their lousy exchange rate, the bank officials also didn’t show much interest or try to give any help arranging my money transfer, so I went back to Soneri Bank where I was able to change my travellers cheques quite easily and was given help sorting out the details of the account, etc to be used if I wanted to organise a money transfer. Altogether a very different attitude. Before deciding on a course of action for this money, I wanted to speak to Nazir’s office to enquire whether, as an alternative, I might organise the transfer into the Nazir Sabir Expeditions account and then draw on that. Nazir wasn’t in the Islamabad office, but I spoke to Suldan Khan who was very helpful. He suggested, rather than me transferring money, it might be easier for me to draw money on credit from the Nazir Sabir Expeditions office in Aliabad (ie from Mohammed Ayub) and then square up in Islamabad using my debit card or credit card. He said he would in any case fax me the bank details as well as c/o Travel Plus in Gilgit. As this last option would suit me best, I e-mailed Nazir telling him about Karambar, thanking him for the time we spent together at Shangri La and asking if we could make an arrangement along the lines suggested for credit. I asked that his office should confirm by phone both to the Aliabad office as well as to me at the Passu Inn. This done, I paid up the bill at the hotel, visited Travel Plus (where the fax hadn’t yet come through) and caught the bus to go to Passu (leaving at 13:00, very hot). We stopped for the driver to eat in Aliabad and I was able to drop in and talk to Mohammed Ayub in Nazir’s office there. I briefed him, but forgot to give him my card details!

Driving over the bridge beyond Karimabad (the Ultar nala), I noticed a huge pall of dust rising above the river and was impressed to see a gigantic piece of cliff had collapsed in a side gully just beyond Altit. The balance of the trip to Passu was uneventful and I was met there and installed in a front room by Ghulam and Qamar Jan, who I could see was obviously happy to be home and in a much better frame of mind (18:00). I showered, unpacked and spent about half an hour walking in the village to buy apples and then had a simple supper at the hotel talking to a French trekker.

Tuesday 28 August

The day was spent getting ready to go to Shimshal. I started by taking a walk through the village and hopefully getting some decent pictures. The old houses were beautiful – stone packed walls (round river boulders) caulked with mud and straw with pleasant curves – nothing straight. Timber beams for the roof projected at the ends and doors and windows were made with nice timber. The yards were heavily shaded by (often heavily laden apple) fruit trees. There was water running everywhere and the cultivated fields were demarcated with stone walls. Similar walls bounding the narrow lanes. Altogether a very nice feel about the place. The people were friendly and the children greeted you, most of the women seemed to enjoy a greater freedom and also greeted you – the old ladies all wearing traditional costume. There were cows and sheep walking in the lanes. And these incredible cathedral-like mountains in the background! Breakfast with quite good coffee!

Passu village

Old Hunzakut man with a flower in his traditional woollen hat

Then to the chores – a big clothes wash with a perfect hot day to dry the stuff on the lines in the front garden. I waxed my boots and Qamar Jan organised some small stitching repairs on the one tongue. I bought a few necessary food items and Qamar Jan went off to Sost to change my cash dollars (getting an exchange of $1 = Rp 65). We sorted gear and packed up in the afternoon – warm. Also met two of the porters that Qamar Jan had organised for the trip. I thought about going to Gulmit to try to phone Suldan Khan (because Ghulam couldn't get through to Islamabad on his phone), but finally decided to get Ghulam rather to organise delivery of a letter to Mohammed Ayub (Nazir Sabir Expeditions in Aliabad), giving him my card details. I also wrote a card to Lindy and Mike – wondering if they would ever get it! In the late evening I took a stroll towards Batura to take a photo of the last light on the cathedral. Supper and fell into bed.

Wednesday 29 August

I got up at 05:00 to shower, have a cup of coffee and pay Ghulam before leaving for the Shimshal trip. I carried the boxes and other stuff down from the room and packed the jeep when it arrived at 06:00 as planned. We picked up Qamar Jan on the road and got away at 06:15 with all the gear, Qamar Jan and the three porters (Khoshal Khan, Abass Joshi and Bashi) plus another passenger on board. It was a beautiful clear morning with Shispare and the Passu peaks standing out. The road to Shimshal turned off the Karakoram Highway a couple of kilometres beyond Qamar Jan’s house, crossed the Hunza river over a good bridge and then went up the Shimshal gorge, mainly quite close to its bed – an incredible feat, winding between huge boulders (and built up against the sides) with about three bridge crossings, one of them on a really flimsy structure. It took us about 1½ hours to reach the end of the road (still one day’s walk short of Shimshal) where we off-loaded the jeep and the porters carried all the gear down to some huts at the level of the river (Uween-e-ben) where we had some milk tea. We had a good view of Karun Koh (7 164 m) on the last stages of the road (“Koh” means “mountain” in Wakhi) and also of Malungutti Sar (7 000 m) from the huts.

The rugged terrain traversed by the jeeptrack going up the Shimshal valley

Offloading the jeep in preparation for going up the Malungutti glacier

Crude suspension bridges going across the Shimshal river

We started walking at about 08:00 from Uween-e-ben following a good path along the banks of the river, crossing two bridges (quite hairy suspension jobs with loosely wired planks and the river tumbling by below). All along the way we stopped to greet porters who were on their way down to the road head to do a carry for a big trekking party apparently arriving on Thursday. It was evident that Qamar Jan just about knew everyone – very social (we were well ahead of our porters, so we had time to chat). We stopped at Ziarat where there were a couple of clean well-maintained huts open for the general use of travellers like ourselves. Shortly before Ziarat there was good clean water and a long stretch of willows at the side of a clear stream running parallel to the main river on the true lefthand bank. Above Uween-e-ben the valley had widened out considerably and there seemed to be very little vegetation on the slopes at the sides of the river. One’s whole impression was of an arid landscape – not an attractive approach like Karambar, but very impressive.. The stoves in the huts at Ziarat were accordingly designed to use wood quite sparingly.

Leaving the Shimshal valley to go up to the Malangutti glacier

Approaching a big bend in the river at a small village called Kuk, we climbed up an erosion gully in the huge moraine cliff (apparently this was the original route to Shimshal, before the bridge was built at Kuk) and then up a valley next to a small stream on top of the moraine to reach a quite well wooded (small willows, etc) meadow near the top of the valley, where we were glad to dump our packs and lie in the shade waiting for the porters, which took about an hour. We then set up camp a little higher on a grassy meadow with a donkey and her foal grazing on it and finding some wood for a fire we made tea.

I put up my tent and walked to the crest of the moraine to take a couple of pictures of the mountains around the Malungutti glacier (very white), especially Distaghil Sar (7 885 m) and a couple of good looking peaks to the East (5 500 m and 6 400 m, this last a spectacular pyramid shaped peak). Unfortunately Distaghil Sar’s summit was covered in mist. We made a supper of rice and fresh vegetables cooked on the fire – excellent. It was quite a cool night.

6 000 m peaks on the Malungutti glacier’s true righthand bank, the highest Shimshal White Horn (6 400 m)

Thursday 30 August

We tried to make an early start, but only partially succeeded. It was a beautiful clear morning and we cooked the FAUJI oats for the first time for breakfast which were good. After packing up we got away at 07:30 following the path through the obvious small neck to some higher meadows with grass, at first with the little stream continuing to run next to us, then in the long flat valley above, behind the moraine wall where there was no water. There were three or four hoopoes that flew up as we walked along (some small trees grow higher up in the valley). Then, even more to our delight, a beautiful red fox took flight and ran up the valley, then off up the screes –in really good condition with a great big bushy tail. Qamar Jan and I walked up the big moraine “peak” next to the valley to take some photos of the peaks up the valley – particularly the hugely impressive Distaghil Sar which was completely clear, though the whole valley was rather hazy.

Distaghil Sar (7 885 m)

I thought Distaghil Sar looked a difficult peak to climb from this side, mainly because the glacier approach is complicated and dangerous with some horrible looking icefalls and plenty of seracs.

The three lower 6 000 mpeaks on the true righthand bank of the glacier look very feasible with obvious climbing lines on them. The glacier was very white in comparison with the Karambar. We reached our destination far more quickly than expected (in just over an hour) a shepherds hut and a small clear spring in a patch of small trees an invitation to set up camp (3 250 m). Looking up the glacier it was obvious that we wouldn’t find an accessible “dry” moraine camp beyond this point. If you were climbing, this would be a bit difficult because this “hut” camp was situated very low down on the glacier.

We made some tea and then Qamar Jan and I got away to explore higher up the valley at 10:00. We just followed the moraine wall (and an old disused irrigation channel) and then made a very steep descent down a loose dirt gully to get onto the glacier’s true lefthand bank lateral moraine (Qamar Jan cutting steps with his unique glacier “pole” – a wooden pole with a forged “pick” on one end). A short and easy section crossing onto the white ice and then further easy going to the central medial moraine along a series of open gullies and channels with little crevasse complication. Once on the medial moraine things went quite well until we came to a section with large longitudinally orientated crevasses where we had difficult route finding and some awkward climbing sections. In fact the greater part of our route up the glacier proved difficult and complicated – we proceeded to a point where we could start to see into the topmost side valley going to the west with the summit of Malungutti Sar visible. However, by now Distaghil Sar and Malungutti Sar were being enveloped in cloud and there didn’t seem much point in pushing on any further. The only peaks we couldn’t really see were three or four more 6 000 m peaks on the west side of the valley. What was apparent though, was that any approach to the big peaks in the valley (Distaghil Sar and Malungutti Sar) would be extremely complicated and dangerous because of the icefalls and hanging seracs.

There was also a lot more fresh snow on these peaks than we expected. We therefore turned around at about 14:00 (3 650 m). Qamarjan now tried to traverse across to the left looking down the glacier to reach the lefthand bank’s lateral moraine, but this was a bad choice – we got into some really huge crevasses and quite serious climbing problems. He kept on trying until I insisted we go back to the route we had followed up the glacier earlier in the morning. Even getting back to there was quite a problem and after I slithered down an ice slope, we put on crampons and returned to the medial moraine. A long complicated and tedious return journey – glad to eventually come across the beacon I had built where we joined the medial moraine in the morning. The rest was easy, though we did go a bit too far down the medial moraine, trying to simplify our exit.

We got back to our subcamp at 17:30. I put up my tent after milk tea and enjoyed a good supper made by Khoshal and Abass – fresh spinach that Bashi had brought up from his house (he slept there the previous night, also bringing us some delicious fresh apples), and other fresh veggies eaten with chapattis made on a flat slab of rock suspended over the fire. It was very cosy cooking and eating in the shepherd’s hut. At the end of the meal Qamar Jan pulled out a bottle of ARAK (made from mulberries and the same as we had tasted in Karimabad in April, but much nicer). We all went to bed under a clear sky with the moon riding high – not a cloud in sight - and then woke up in the middle of the night with rain pattering down on the tent. It was a good idea I put up the fly!

Friday 31 August

Not a very nice morning when we woke up – we could see low cloud and lots of snow coming down on the peaks through gaps in the cloud. Qamar Jan and the porters slept in the hut and complained that the rain came through holes in the roof! There was no more flour for chapattis (left at our previous camp), so it was tea and porridge for breakfast. We packed up and left by 08:00 going down the same route we had come up from our previous camp. There were no mountains to be seen – all heavily shrouded in cloud. We picked up the paraffin and other gear left at our previous camp and continued down to the shepherd’s hut just below (which had a single apricot tree) and then swung back over a low neck in the moraine wall to descend onto the glacier (± 09:00).

Making the Malangutti glacier crossing

We made a very easy crossing of the glacier in about an hour (this was the original route taken to Shimshal) with a very steep little climb to get up the moraine wall on the other side. Looking down at Kuk we could see lots of porters carrying loads. We went on for a bit on top of the very flat moraine, then made a short descent down an amazing corkscrew gully and followed a long diagonal path descending to the road. We could now see Aminabad in the distance and set a fair pace to reach it – still overcast. The first settlement one reaches is a large area with stone walls around it with poplar trees, some cultivation and some houses, a little distance before reaching Aminabad.

Breakfast with Qamar Jan’s cousin Bi Bi Pari

Bibi Pari

Near the end of this cultivation Qamar Jan took us over the wall to have breakfast with his delightful cousin Bi Bi Pari – a lady of possibly about Qamar Jan’s age with lots of personality. She took us into her house, a single room with a traditional stove (and a quartz clock), where she made us milk tea and the best chapattis I had eaten. While we were eating a hoopoe landed and sat right next to us outside the door.

Some comments about the stoves one sees in all the homes

Shimshal village’s highly organised agriculture

We passed below Aminabad (now thankful for rather cooler weather) and immediately came to Shimshal – a tremendous contrast coming from the arid, stark, austere scenery further downstream along the Shimshal river, to this veritable oasis. There were trees, green grass, patches of golden wheat everywhere and lots of water running in furrows – cows, sheep and goats. We stopped at Abass’ family’s home – virtually the first house we came to entering the village – and Qamar Jan and I were organised in one of the rooms and immediately taken into the main living room to drink more milk tea and eat a lunch of rice and potatoes with light curry, and more chapattis.

Abass told us this family home was about 100 years old, whereas the oldest houses in the village date back some 600 years. The living room was a large 12 m x 12 m square room with four main wooden columns and wooden beams with some simple decorative carving on them – all black. There was a square opening centrally in the roof to let light in and a standard stove centrally installed with the chimney going through the roof next to the opening.

The whole room outside the four columns was carpeted with coarse Yak and goats wool carpets, with soft cushions and pillows to lean against. You take off your shoes when entering the room and sit cross-legged or lean back against the cushions. Huge balls of black Yak wool (300 mm diam) and goats’ wool were hanging from one of the columns.

Abass’ father in the Shimshal family home

We were impressed to see a picture of Gary Kirsten and a scout scarf hanging in our room. Abass’ wife served us our lunch, preparing everything (stoking the fire and, when necessary, giving it a good blow with a short piece of hosepipe) and serving us, but not eating with us – only on her own later (though at the evening meal all the children did eat with us). With lunch finished I walked around the village taking photos of the threshing done with cattle, oxen and donkeys (with children driving the animals around a centre post in the threshing floor - the threshing floor, probably shared between about six households). Abass said Shimshal had about 400 inhabitants. We were impressed that everyone was so incredibly friendly and that the whole village was obviously so well organised, split up into plots of cultivation with a network of irrigation channels controlled with sluices. It was a time when the threshing was very much on the go – only one mechanical set-up with the village’s only tractor, but probably half a dozen threshing floors in operation with animals.

Wheat threshing

Men winnowing the wheat

A note about the mills for grinding the flour – the mill has a vertical axis with two mill stones, driven by water led down a wooden chute propelling a wooden “fan”. There were possibly about half a dozen of these mills that I saw in the village working flat out to get the milling done.

Shimshal miller

After taking some photos (when the sun fortunately obliged), I came back to the house – more tea! Then Abass and a friend took me for a walk up to Aminabad (3 050 m) to look back down on Shimshal. Later we walked across the glacial stream separating the two villages – across a lovely wooden bridge made with Poplar logs and Juniper cross beams.

The footbridge linking Aminabad with Shimshal

The sketch of the Aminabad footbridge that I made in my diary

In the village we went to Abass’ cultivated plot and gorged ourselves on delicious ripe apricots hanging on the trees in a small orchard. We were also given some tiny red-tinged apples (Abass called them “common” apples) by a neighbour, before dropping into Abass’ sister’s house for more milk tea and a dish of mutton pieces fried in a pan (a lot of chewing!).

We returned to Abass’ home in Shimshal as it was getting dark (but the weather was now looking better). The lights were already on in the houses (hydro-electric generation, but only operating at night in the summer - there was too little water to generate power in the winter). I wrote up my diary (and you can see how long that took me!), then supper time! The whole family (including father, and I think another sister helping Abass’ wife) prepared the meal. A ceremonial hand washing preceded the meal and we were served a simply delicious traditional dish of chapattis with Yak butter and cheese melted on top of them, eaten with fingers (right hand) and ending with milk tea. It was truly a huge privilege to experience this hospitality and share a meal with the family in a traditional home like this – what an incredibly moving experience. Shimshal is certainly a beautiful and a very unspoiled place.

The Zardgarbin side valley giving access to Shuijerab and the Shimshal pass

Saturday 1 September

We had an excellent night in the house, waking to a clear morning at about 05:30. We were served breakfast comprising “Parata” – a sort of batter deep fried in butter, and milk tea. The little ones were still sleeping around the outside of the main living room, including Abass’ seven-month old daughter in a wooden rocking cot. We said our goodbyes and warm thanks for the hospitality extended to us and got away from the house at 07:20, first walking through the village, with lots of greetings.

The path/track continued down at river level, going around the prominent “headland” on the upstream side of Shimshal. Qamarjan pointed out the Zardgarbin valley leading off to the north, a trek giving access to the Shimshal Pamir and eventually also the Shimshal Pass and Shuwerth.

Where the huge moraine from the Yazghil glacier cut into the main valley, we detoured to the right and climbed up it for a short way before stopping at a shepherd’s hut to make tea. Here we also cached the food we would use going on further up the valley to the Yukshin glacier – stashing it in one of the boxes and hiding it some distance away from the hut. We made an arrangement to do the Yazghil part of the trip using two porters, Koshal and Bashi, and said we would meet Abass at the hut on the following Thursday morning 6 September, when he would take Bashi’s place for the rest of the trip. A lot of discussion took place about Yazghil here, Abass being adamant that we should cross the glacier at the bottom and walk all the way up the moraines on the true righthand bank of the glacier to reach a base camp called Sherzan, which he told us was exposed to rockfall. In order to see the Yukshin Gardan peaks that can be seen from the Yazghil glacier, it would be necessary to cross the glacier from Sherzan to the opposite side where there was a base camp called Perigos that apparently would afford a much better view.

A short walk up the valley (less than an hour) took us to a hot waterless camp on the moraine at the place where we had to go down onto the glacier (camp altitude 3 275 m). Not a very nice place.

Big peaks at the head of the Yazghil glacier – Pumari Chhish (7 492 m), Kunyang Chhish (7 852 m) and the Yhazhhil Domes (7 324 m)

However, Qamarjan and I did do a recce, walking up the moraine valley (dry and rocky with a few small Juniper trees and some rhubarb plants!) to its crest (3 470 m) where we stopped and I took some photos of the incredible view looking up this huge glacier. Apart from the huge 7 000 m giants, there were some attractive, reasonably easy looking 6 000 m peaks on the enclosing ridge on the east side of the valley. We went back to camp to bush tea with lime and some meat that Koshal had cooked with tomato paste – tasty, but again pretty chewy! I then retired to the shade of the big mud cliff above camp and sat on a rock writing up the diary.

Some thoughts/observations on Wakhi women. For sure they appear to enjoy greater freedom than some of their counterparts, but there is obviously a strict role they are expected to play in the home. For instance when I asked Abass to say thankyou to his wife for her hospitality and preparing the supper, he just said that was her job! Interesting too the greeting between females and men, I guess where there is a close relationship, the two shake hands, but the woman then bends down to touch the man’s hand with her lips.

With the late afternoon sun and what looked like some clearing of the clouds to the south, I took my camera and sloughed up to the moraine ridge behind camp in my flip-flops. The peak opposite us looked quite beautiful (and would be very nice to climb). It is called Yazghil Sar and has an altitude of 5 964 m – continuing along the ridge southwards to adjacent un-named summits and Skirish Sar (6 600 m).

Yazghil Sar (5 964 m) seen from the bottom end of the Yazghil glacier

Coming back down to our camp I asked Koshal about the big peak with a saddle below the summit to the east on the right that Qamar Jan and I had seen earlier, and he was fairly sure that this was probably Kanjut Sar (7 760 m) looming over the other peaks in the adjacent Yukshin valley – we’ll probably see in the next few days. Koshal’s guess did later prove incorrect when we saw Kanjut Sar at the head of the Yukshin Gardan glacier in the next part of our exploration.

We had an early supper, an excellent meat (mutton) and potato stew cooked by Koshal, ending with coffee. I had put up the tent earlier, and after sitting and chatting with the others for a while, where they had decided to doss down in one of the small walled enclosures, I crawled into the tent, wrote a bit and read a bit. Not bad going to bed at 18:00.

Where we were felt incredibly remote and would I think be a doubtful starter for a national meet, though obviously OK for a small lightweight expedition. Three days from the roadhead before you set foot on a glacier!

Sunday 2 September

It was a slightly windy start to the day and probably the coldest night of the trip so far. Up to the previous night, I’d only been using my sleeping bag as an eiderdown. After a quick breakfast we packed and got away at about 07:15. We first walked up to the crest of the moraine and then along the gullies next to the crest (all on a good path), before descending to the glacier. We then struck across the ice more or less diagonally, and found quite a simple route following easy water gullies with very few crevasses. We reached the bottom of the moraine wall on the glacier’s true righthand bank at 09:00 (altitude 3 400 m) and followed the runnel at the bottom of the wall, before coming to an easy gully we could climb to bring us up onto the shelf or shallow valley at the top of the wall. We stopped there wanting to make tea at a well-built shepherd’s hut, but the obvious spring in the undergrowth on the slope above the hut didn’t have any water. Instead we continued along the path for about another 45 minutes to another shepherd’s hut, evidently occupied by some of the womenfolk from down the valley, because there was bedding airing on one of the adjacent kraal walls and two small goat kids were pinned with fodder in one of the kraals. There were also sheep and goats grazing on the slope above. Some grass, smallish wild rose bushes and small Junipers. This was the obvious stream we had seen running quite strongly the previous day from our vantage point on the moraine on the other side of the glacier. We could also see that the water had run down the valley, but there was no obvious explanation why the stream was virtually dry now. However, we did find enough water to make tea! Tent sites at this shepherd’s hut were probably all made by the Japanese expedition(s) that I had been told had come up the glacier.

"Dragon back" ridges alongside the Yazghil glacier

All the way across the glacier we had been treated to amazing views looking up the valley to its head, particularly of (what we had at first thought was Kanjut Sar’s summit – not unlike the squarish shape of the summit of Du Toit’s peak seen from the pass). A very feasible and safe looking ridge coming towards us (snow) to a neck on the right. One would have to see how feasible it would be to reach the nek!

We saddled up again after tea and continued next to a series of little valleys on top of the moraine wall for a little while until we reached a small neck with a large beacon built on it, where we were forced down to the glacier again. This part was less pleasant, but fairly easy and quite fast. First sliding down a loose steep scree slope and then working our way all along the bottom in a very narrow “trench” hard up against the edge of the glacier or on the steep scree slopes leading up to Yazghil Sar above us. This section was a bit of a “bomb alley” certainly with potential for stonefall so we didn’t dally too long pushing through it.

“Bomb alley” trench at the side of the glacier going up to our Yazghil subcamp

Eventually we emerged onto slightly easier ground as we came to a big rock buttress – larger boulders and some flat spots. Going on around the corner we came to another gently rising valley with several levelled tent platforms – the Sherzanˣ base camp, also quite well protected from stonefall. The camp’s only problem - that the little spring provided rather turbid water. We put up the tents – Qamar Jan moving in with me and the two porters settling into Qamar Jan’s tent.

While the sun was still on the camp I had a wash. Then Qamar Jan and I walked up to the top of the valley from where we could see the Perigos base camp on the other side of the glacier – we intended crossing the glacier to see that on Monday. Koshal made vegetable stew for supper with fresh chapattis on a wood fire. To bed at 18:00!

ˣ Should actually be named Sher Khan who was a Pakistani climber accompanying the Japanese expedition into the valley. Altitude of the camp 3 650 m.

6 800 m Peaks on the ridge leading up to Yukshin Gardan Sar on the East side of the Yazghil glacier

Sherzan subcamp

Monday 3 September

Not a good morning. I woke to cloudy sky with cloud right down on the mountains. Notwithstanding this, we decided to go ahead with the recce to Perigosǂ hoping the clouds would lift.

ǂ “Ghoz” means “grass” or possibly sometimes “firewood” in Wakhi. Qamar Jan said “Peri” is like the spirit of a beautiful woman, perhaps in the form of a bird or animal

Qamar Jan and I got away at 07:00 and walked up the continuation of the valley our camp was in – it seemed you could continue on this true righthand bank for some distance. However, where we could easily scramble down onto the glacier, we left the moraine, building a big beacon to mark the access for our return (about half an hour from Sherzan subcamp). At first it was a very easy start getting on to the glacier, then it became quite a lot more complex. We put on crampons (I put on my plastic boots for the first time) and I think this paid off as we were able to go more or less where we wanted. Qamar Jan only had instep crampons so I cut steps where necessary to make it easier for him. This was a long and quite complex crossing, but nowhere difficult – large ice towers but relatively few large crevasses, mostly water gullies.

At 09:15 we reached the lateral moraine on the true lefthand bank of the glacier and took off our crampons. We were now able to continue quite easily going up the lateral moraine for a way and then got off the glacier into the same sort of trench or passage all along the cliff next to the scree slope that we had followed to get to our Sherzan subcamp. This allowed us to make good progress to where the first major side glacier came in from the west (ie north of Yazghil Dome). There we climbed up the steep rubble covering the glacier to where we knew we would be able to connect with the Perigos moraine valley on the further side of the glacier tributary. We eventually reached Perigos at 11:30 at an altitude of 3 920 m.

All this time the weather was really lousy – no mountains to be seen and drops of rain kept coming down, though never really heavy rain. It was quite cold on the glacier (we were wearing anoraks over jerseys as well as gloves), but warmed up as we climbed up to Perigos. Perigos was a much smaller camp site than Sherzan – only one largish tent platform and a very small roofed shelter (with Ibex horns and perhaps a piece of pelt (?) in it) and another walled shelter built up against a boulder. An inscription on one of the boulders read “Sher Baz 1997” – he was apparently an expedition liaison officer. There was no water at the camp – you would have to drop down onto the glacier to get it. But nice vegetation – tufts of grass and the same sweet smelling herby plant we had seen elsewhere. We ate an apple and some apricot nuts and biscuits at the camp and then continued beyond – easy walking across a broad sloping hillside, well vegetated and leading up to the higher moraine (perhaps 500 to 800 m above us) of the glacier we had crossed. A very pleasant place after all the loose rocks and mud we had had to deal with getting there! Lots of Ibex droppings, but no animals to be seen. At about 4 000 m Qamar Jan built a large beacon and we waited a while as it looked as though the clouds might lift a little. This was probably a fantastic vantage point when it was clear, as you looked up the major glacial tributary branching off to the east towards Yukshin Gardan Sar, as well as the continuation of the main Yazghil glacier going on to the upper ice falls. In the early season (May and even June) access to the upper glaciers would not be feasible because of avalanches coming down from the side slopes and screes – we surmised that all the debris at the bottom of these slopes must have been carried there by avalanches (though some of it might have come from stonefall – in some places there were obvious marks from stonefall).

ˣ “Inshala” in Wakhi means “maybe” eg that tomorrow will be nice weather! Accent is on the last syllable

Directly opposite us was the “dragon back” spiky rock ridge south of the glacial tributary going up to Yukshin Gardan Sarˣ. It looked as though it would be easy to go up this tributary as the slopes on either side of the valley were not too steep – quite gentle open moraine valleys with grass in them appeared to offer good camp sites too. It looked as though it would provide the obvious access to Yukshin Gardan Sar (7 647 m). Possibly also to the very attractive looking peak (6 820 m) to the southwest side of Yukshin Gardan Sar which had such a prominent snow ridge on its west side. Similarly access to the upper glacial tributary on our side of the valley to reach Yazghil Dome (7 324 m) and the other 6 000 m peaks on the west side of the Yazghil glacier looked fairly simple.

The Yazghil Domes (7 324 m)

ˣ Qamar Jan thought Yukshin Gardan means “Ibex pastures”- rather a nice name

But the upper Yazghil glacier, which would possibly give access to Kunyang Chhish (7 852 m) and Pumari Chhish (7 492 m) looked an entirely different proposition – it was much steeper with several broken icefall sections and there were no obvious routes at the sides of the glacier – it appeared to abutt directly onto steep rock cliffs.

Mean looking icefalls at the head of the Yazghil glacier

We didn’t have any luck seeing anything more than the glaciers and odd glimpses of the ice/snow slopes above them from this vantage point, only later from further on across the glacier did we have some views of the peaks as the clouds opened up a little. At 13:00 we decided we had better go back and descended the moraine and retraced our steps along the trench next to the glacier to the point where we could get onto the glacier again (1 hour). We made the glacier crossing quite easily again (with crampons), now quite hot with the sun breaking through occasionally and glimpses of the peaks (Yazghil Sar to Skirish Sar open and Yukshin Gardan Sar with cloud still wreathed around the summit). Looking up the next glacial tributary down from the one just described as most likely giving access to Yukshin Gardan Sar, more views of the beautiful steep snowy summit comb on the 6 800 m peak.

Returning to our subcamp, Koshal was waiting at the side of the glacier to welcome us – soon followed by Bashi, both taking over our rucksacks and giving us a big welcome. When we got back to camp, Koshal made a small traditional dish to eat – chapattis broken up into pieces and mixed with a slightly sour cheese (“qurut”), perhaps mixed with a little water to make it more liquid. Later I cooked a big supper of soup followed by spaghetti with a sauce of green pepper, onion, garlic, tomato paste and a tin of tuna, ending off with a strawberry jelly. Koshal and Bashi had spent time rebuilding the kitchen shelter’s walls improving it greatly. A very long, but quite satisfying day, even though we only caught a few glimpses of the peaks we had hoped to see. Late to bed at 19:30!

Koshal Bashi

Thoughts on "Chapattis"

Sitting in the tent at Sher Khan base camp and listening to the constant patter of rain on the fabric interspersed with the sound of rocks tumbling down the ice on the nearby glacier, I realised I had learned one really good lesson there – how to provide for the bread-equivalent one so craves for in base camp on an expedition. Koshal made us chapattis for breakfast in the morning. We had been cooking on a small wood fire (breaking off chips from the Juniper stumps we found when we arrived at Sher Khan camp). To make the chapattis, Koshal put a large slate slab (perhaps 25 mm thick) over the top of the fireplace, like a stove top and this served its purpose admirably for cooking the chapattis. The chapattis were made with a simple flour and water dough (no rising agent), just with a little salt added, the dough kneaded and rolled into circular disks about 350 mm diam x 10 mm thick. They cooked like a dream on the slate and one just went on cooking until one’s appetite was satisfied!

More thoughts – “Dirt”

I decided that the Karakoram beats anywhere else I’d been to on expeditions, for “dirt”. Firstly you have to walk through a lot of dirt on and next to the glaciers getting anywhere you want to go – small, big, flat and round mud covered rocks and mud slopes from vertical caked and congealed to sludgy wet slithery stuff on ice! You drink turbid water, unappetising liquid that looks like mud, full of glacial silt. Everything is covered in the fine powdered dust you pitch your tents on. And the kitchen attains a pinnacle of achievement for the dirt “afficianado” – plates mugs and food all assume a uniform mantle in hues of grey and brown that simply seems to become more ingrained with the earnest efforts made by the porters to wash and scrub the dirt away. Plastic plates and mugs and the Karakoram are just perfect partners to attain the very best in dirt. And around our Sherzan subcamp, whether we were just walking along or sitting in the kitchen shelter, Qamar Jan was sure to clear his nose and throat with a noisy snort and deliver a great gob of spit in some well-chosen direction, often in the dirt at his feet where he was sitting!

Tuesday 4 September

It started raining early in the night and continued to rain all night long. I woke to the patter of rain on the tent and a gloomy day outside. The clouds were right down around us and there was fresh snow covering the peaks we could only see to a level perhaps 500 m above camp. Koshal and Bashi got moving about 07:00 and put the tarpaulin over the kitchen shelter then made milk tea and chapattis for breakfast, using the fire for the chapattis and the stove to boil the water. After breakfast I retired to the tent again to write up the diary. We wouldn’t be doing much so long as it remained as miserable as this. Although the weather hadn’t been good in the Yazghil, we had managed to see something of its mountains – the valley was a bleak and quite desolate place, but the mountains were quite beautiful. Moreover, I had the impression that one could do some fantastic climbing from there. Access was obviously not easy but appeared to be reasonably safe and feasible and there were clearly some wonderful 6 000 m peaks to climb – to the east (between the Yazghil and Yukshin Gardan valleys) Yazghil Sar (5 964 m), un-named Peak (6 500 m) and Skirish Sar (6 600 m), to the west (between the Yazghil and Malungutti valleys) the peaks directly behind Shimshal village (5 800 m, 6 000 m and 6 400 m) and Yazghil Dome (two summits 7 324 m and 7 300 m). We knew that Yukshin Gardan Sar (7 641 m) had been climbed from the Yazghil side (the first ascent by a Pakistani/Austrian expedition in 1984) and that several other expeditions had also climbed it from the same side. The two 6 000 m peaks next Yukshin Gardan Sar (6 820 m and 6 830 m) looked as though they might offer additional possibilities.

It rained on and off all morning. Somwhere Koshal and Basi found a monstrous Juniper log (when asked they just said from “upside”), which they installed as a rather over-designed support beam for putting the tarpaulin over the kitchen shelter. We had Qurut (cheese) for lunch with more fresh chapattis. The previous evening Bashi had stuck a flower into his rolled Hunza hat and after lunch he took me to the place where he had picked it. I took a picture of this and other flowers that we found around the Sherzan subcamp - Bashi was a real enthusiast and bounded off like a mountain goat when I told him I wanted to see the flowers! In fact one should note how extremely fit and tough the porters are. When we agreed to reduce from three to two porters, the adjusted loads weighed over 25 kg, yet there wasn’t a murmer of complaint. They were incredibly willing, friendly and just such nice people. One must also realise that on top of the load of 25 kg that they were carrying they had their own personal kit as well.

Both Bashi and Koshal hummed to themselves when they walked along with their loads – it seemed to be the same refrain repeated over and over again.

The “improved” kitchen shelter proved to be very smoky and as a result, while I had a short sleep in the tent and Koshal likewise in Qamar Jan’s tent, Bashi and Qamar Jan migrated to another shelter higher up the valley, and built a small fire to warm themselves. Koshal cooked supper for us (or, at least the main course of potatoes, onion and garlic), while I made some soup and banana jelly! Very good – we ate the potatoes with fresh chapattis. A lowering sky sent us packing to bed quite early. Our second lousy day! In fact it started raining again quite early in the night and kept on sousing down all night long.

Wednesday 5 September

A good night despite the rain, though Koshal and Bashi both got a bit wet because Qamar Jan’s tent leaked. We got up at 06:00 to see the snow was even lower down than the previous day – right down covering Perigos camp. A gloomy start to the day made worse because I had a sore tummy again! A quick breakfast of milk tea and chapattis (with a healthy dose of smoke from sitting in the kitchen) and then we packed up, including striking the rather wet tents. We got away at 07:45 on our way down. Going back along our original outward route, it seemed simpler and easier – certainly it went very quickly as it only took 1½ hours to reach the shepherd’s hut where we were pleased to find the occupants at home this time. First we met a young girl (perhaps 18) tending a flock of goats a little way above the hut and it turned out that she and her mother were staying there on their own to tend the animals. They said they would spend another couple of weeks at this hut and then move down and cross the glacier to the next shepherd’s hut (where we planned to camp that night) for another couple of weeks’ grazing before going back to Shimshal.

Our hostess - the Yazghil shepherdess who, with her daughter, so spoiled us

The old lady was very striking – she had strong features and was beautifully dressed, with a necklace of beads, a gold ring on her finger, a silver bracelet and a traditional headdress.

Our special meal with the Yazghil ladies at the shepherd’s hut

The daughter was quite plainly dressed, but she was a very pretty girl with a lovely smile. Our visit turned into something more than the milk tea I had expected. In fact I was feted as a special guest – we sat down outside and were first given fresh yoghurt made from goat’s milk, served in small china cups on a steel tray. Then a little later the daughter brought out a traditional dish called “Malida” which was fresh chapatti broken into pieces and mixed with cheese and liquid butter. It was served in a communal bowl and we sat around it helping ourselves with spoons. The bowl was placed on a pretty hand-embroidered table cloth with a flower design. The dish was delicious though quite rich. To end our special meal we were given salt milk tea in the same small china cups. The two ladies sat and talked to us while we ate – it was altogether quite a moving event and one I felt very privileged to be a part of. It was obviously something special too for the women to have visitors in such a remote place. We said goodbye and I left them with a packet of butterscotch sweets – the smallest token I had available to express my appreciation for their hospitality. The daughter continued to wave to us for as long as we were still in sight after we left.

Looking up at Kunyang Chhish (7 852 m) from the Yazghil glacier

It didn’t take long to complete our traverse along the moraine valleys to where we dropped down to the glacier level (a donkey following us for a part of the way) then continuing to traverse along its edge in the usual trench or passage for a while. The weather was now looking much better – the summits were still in some cloud, but there was a whole lot more sun.

At the same point where we started out up the glacier on the outward journey, we commenced our glacier crossing. It went extremely easily, taking much less than an hour – both Koshal and Bashi obviously now knew the way. We went on over the top of the moraine on the true lefthand bank and down past our previous camp to the shepherd’s hut at the floor of the main valley where we had previously made tea and had left one of the boxes. We dried the tents in the sun and had some more tea, then sorted out the food to take with us to the Yukshin Gardan glacier. While Bashi went off up the moraine to find us some wood we worked out the stages he should be paid for. With the days that he stayed in camp, this worked out to 13½ stages. We paid Bashi when he came back – he would go down to Shimshal with our box with a few oddments of food and equipment in it and we would collect it there on the way back. A fond goodbye to Bashi – he really was so good at his job and a real pleasure to have him along.

I spent a while writing up my diary (Qamar Jan and Koshal moved into the shepherd’s hut and I think had a short kip. Koshal decided that I had to make supper so I fell back on the rice dish that Qamar Jan seemed to like so much the last time around. We cooked on the primus, but I abhorred doing so because it was a monster – either it was on full blast, or it gave up the ghost and stopped burning, spewing out great clouds of paraffin vapour waiting to explode – not quite the job for a gentle simmer! So we used some of Bashi’s wood instead and the rice was again a big success. I can’t say the same for the custard I tried to make – it came out like a solid tasteless blancmange and Qamar Jan and Koshal thought it was a hell of a joke! It was still strange weather, snowing on some peaks we could see and perfectly clear elsewhere. It had been a nice day, especially the time that we spent with the Yazghil ladies! Thursday was going to be our recce up the Yukshin Gardan glacier and my tummy was feeling better!

Thursday 6 September

I woke early and got up to take a few shots of the first sun touching the tops of the peaks, then sorted out the stuff in my tent. The realisation that, after looking at the map more carefully, I had been caught out a second time. Certainly the “Du Toits peak summit” pointed out to me as Kanjut Sar, just cannot be. I now see it fits the position and obvious dominance of Kunyang Chhish – we han’t yet seen Kanjut Sar! There was a cold wind blowing, but not a cloud in the sky. Qamar Jan and Koshal both complained that they hadn’t slept.- it seemed that sleeping in the hut wasn’t good because the hut had a “bad feeling” about it (they said something bad must have happened there). In addition Koshal complained of a sore gland in his neck, so I gave him a couple of Panados to help relieve any pain. Right on schedule we saw someone in the far distance walking across the river flats towards us, and of course it turned out to be the ever cheerful Abass, just as we had arranged. We enjoyed a breakfast of porridge and milk tea and a loaf of fresh bread that Abass produced from Shimshal. We packed up and got away at 08:10. First we descended to the river and walked across to the clean water spring (where Bashi had collected water for our camp) and the flowing river itself. The next section was very interesting, first crossing at the river’s edge below the snout of the west branch of the Yazghil glacier (the glacier split into two branches before it reached the main valley). Then, after walking through a rocky gorge, we thought that we would be able to do the same with the glacier’s east branch, but there was a short section where we had to climb up onto the rubble covered black ice to get past the glacial stream pouring out from underneath the glacier.

Then quite a sobering thought – Qamar Jan said that he had been up the valley (going up to the Khurdopin glacier) each year for the last three years, and each year the Yazghil glacier had retreated significantly. The first year they had some difficulty going across the glacier ice having to negotiate several tricky crevasses and the next year there was still ice they had to cross, but it was much easier. This was the first year that he could traverse virtually the whole way at the main river’s edge without having to get onto the glacier!

Having successfully got past the Yazghil glacier, we had to do a long walk across more stony river flats to get to a point below the confluence of the Khurdopin and Yukshin Gardan glaciers (which merge before this and then flow on to fill the whole Shimshal valley at a point below the Yukshin Gardan valley). This brought us to a thin strip of green bush up against a cliff face where there was obviously a little stream that had flowed earlier in the season. We stopped at a stone walled roofless shelter and made some more milk tea which was welcome as it had become quite hot and there was very little shade. While Koshal made the tea, Qamar Jan and Abass went off to recce the river where we would have to cross it on a cable. Qamar Jan also said that the river had presented a problem there in some previous years because it had dammed up and the dam had eventually been breached sending a torrent downstream (in one year such an extreme flood had washed away a lot of the arable land at Passu).

How nice it was to see some birds in the trees – I saw a robin and a hoopoe. After tea we all walked across to the cable crossing at the river. Qamar Jan had previously muttered some concern that his 30 m rope might not be long enough to pull the trolley back on the cable, so he had now gathered together all the available bits of rope we had with us to make up as long a rope as possible. On our side the cable was anchored on top of a pile of large rocks and on the other (the true righthand bank), over a huge boulder. The trolley that ran on the cable was simply a framed metal basket about 600 x 750 mm, suspended from four thin wires at the corners to a pulley running on the tensioned main cable.

Qamar Jan first sent Koshal and Abass across (one by one), the first one taking one end of the knotted ropes with him. When this was done, the three became very excited, because it was clear that the combined length of the knotted ropes was still about 12 m short of the required length and Qamar Jan was in too much of a flap to listen to any advice from me! At last I got him to listen – saying that all we needed would be to tie together some light line (boot laces, tent guy ropes, etc) to make up the additional length required – we would theoretically need twice the length of the main cable. Because the main cable was a catenary, the trolley ran some distance from each bank under gravity. By tying the “bootlace” extensions to the ends of Qamar Jan’s thicker rope, we could simply use these to get a hold of the thicker rope for the hauling required to complete the crossing.

Even when we had gone back to the packs at our tea place, knotted together a strange assortment of bits and pieces and taken them back to the river, Qamar Jan again insisted on rigging the set-up his own way and got it horribly screwed up. We must have wasted about an hour and a half waiting for him to get it sorted out!

In the meantime another debate had commenced – in our earlier planning we had always talked about walking right through to the Yukshin Gardan base camp on the same day we left Yazghil. With the excitement of the too-short rope for the cable crossing, Qamar Jan now wanted to camp at the tea place and only go on to Yukshin Gardan on Friday! This buggering around was now too much for me and I got quite angry – the message getting through pretty clearly, so that eventually we got everything across the river safely, packed up and set off for the Yukshin Gardan subcamp at 14:30.

Crossing the Shimshal river by cable

Abass said it should take us four hours to get there. I think Qamar Jan was miffed that I had put my foot down about pushing on to Yukshin Gardan and he simply went like a bolt out of a gun all afternoon to get there, hardly deigning to speak or pay any attention to me! The route we followed was not one for the faint - hearted! Firstly it was a fascinating place – three large glaciers coming together – the Khurdopin (by far the largest), the Yukshin Gardan and he Virjerab and this huge river issueing forth from under the rubble covered ice. First we followed the river (on its true righthand bank) to a point close to where it came out from under the ice, then climbed high up onto the glacier (and from there Abass fortunately knew the route, because it looked horrific and highly improbable), to where we could descend onto the lateral moraine back on the true lefthand bank of the river. From there it zig-zagged up this horrendously steep moraine wall, finishing up a near vertical very exposed little gully, where one had to climb for about 15 m using the smooth rounded river stones (sticking out from where they were embedded in the mud) for holds. This landed us in a completely different and far more “friendly” terrain – a wide ablation valley with some vegetation in it on top of the moraine wall. The route was now much easier on a good path with fabulous views looking back down the Shimshal valley and onto the glaciers directly below us. Across the Shimshal valley an array of the very attractive looking peaks of the Virjerab group (several summits around 6 500 m and probably none climbed according to Abass). Getting more onto the crest of the moraine there was still a path, but more boulders, rubble and mud until we reached the corner at the entrance to the Yukshin Gardan valley, where we had to descend down a very steep scree slope. This gave access to the usual trench between the lateral moraine of the Yukshin Gardan glacier and a scree slope, until we could climb onto the lateral moraine itself – difficult terrain. At last we climbed up a steep gully and came to another ablation valley, at first with some vegetation including Junipers growing in it and then over debris from what must have been a huge avalanche that came down the slope on our right. After traversing through another valley we finally arrived at the Yukshin Gardan subcamp – a large stone walled shelter with a roof and a similar smaller one next door. A good stream of clean water trickling nearby.

It was an extraordinary place - though the peaks were partially obscured by cloud, it felt as though they were bearing down almost on top of us. I certainly felt that this was one of the remotest places I had ever been in.

Qamar Jan and the porters moved into the “Hilton” while I got myself comfortably ensconced in the “annex” – what luxury! Abass cooked us a great meal of potatoes and fresh chapattis followed by milk tea. What a good feeling it was to have “arrived” – a really nice atmosphere relaxing in the “Hilton” with a billy on the fire and the flickering light from the fire and the candles we had lit, bringing out the texture of the granite blocks in the walls and the huge roughly hewn Juniper logs in the roof. Qamar Jan lying in bed at the side and Koshal and Abass cleaning up after supper. The sweet scent of the smoke from the Juniper logs on the fire. There was altogether a very nice feeling about the place.

Koshal doing duty in the Yukshin Gardan "Hilton" kitchen

More thoughts about the cable crossing on the river. If you arrive at the river and the trolley is on the other side, someone has to go across on the cable (trailing a rope) in a sort of Tyrolean traverse securing himself to the cable with a short length of rope tied around his waist and to a loose “ring” of “bloudraad” wire that slides along the cable. Rather more “heart in the mouth” stuff than just being pulled across in the trolley!

The Yukshin Gardan subcamp was at 3 575 m. It took us 3½ hours to get there from the cable crossing. It looked as though it must be nearly full moon – I watched it rise and bathe what must be Kanjut Sar and Yukshin Gardan Sar, now completely clear, in magical moonlight.

Friday 7 September

I had a very comfortable night in my cosy annex. But waking I found that the weather had done the dirty on us again – low cloud and mist and some drizzle. Not a mountain in sight! I started the day going to fetch water at the stream about ten minutes back along the path and up the slope above our valley. It was cold and quite tricky carrying the 3 filled Nestle bottles and 2 billies full of water back to the “Hilton”. I used the MSR to make coffee – it seemed to be working quite well burning the local petrol. We had quite a long discussion the previous evening about the ethics of not using firewood and of carrying out all rubbish. I guess using the MSR was a statement, but sadly I didn’t think the porters really subscribed to these ideas. The fire that was lit to make chapattis had been kept going in the “Hilton” to keep it warm and I was still finding it a great effort to get the porters to burn the burnable rubbish and flatten and take down our tins.

There was more snow low down and we were going to just have to wait to see if the clouds would lift. We agreed that we would be at the subcamp for two days and that we would go all the way down to Shimshal the day after that. Abass got a nasty cut from a sharp piece of wood piercing the side of his boot when he went to fetch water and we used some Hibidol and a plaster from the First Aid kit to patch him up. Abass made dal and Koshal fresh chapattis for lunch – after which we were delighted when the sun came out and the clouds started to disperse so that we could start to see more of the peaks. I walked back along the path and up the slope on the way to the stream and took photos as the peaks started coming out of the cloud. Most impressive by far was the monster of a peak we could see closest to us which had a very impressive and forbidding north face (when we later developed a better understanding of the peaks around the Yukshin Gardan valley, we realised that we were in fact looking at Yukshin Gardan Sar’s north face!).

First views of Yukshin Gardan Sar (7 641 m) prompting speculation about the line for a possible route up the North face

A lot of iced rock and it looked pretty serious! There was only one feasible route that I could see on the north face (that I’ve shown on the accompanying sketch). The key to climbing the peak from this north side would be the feasibility of surmounting the rock tower at the start of the summit ridge, that looked as though it would involve some difficult rock climbing. The route looked safe with only some danger from small seracs on the section after leaving the corniced ridge (mixed climbing) and moving up to the north summit. Feasibility would also depend on being able to reach the col at the top of the big snow gully bounding the face on its north side (seen on the righthand side of my sketch).

Yukshin Gardan Sar (7 641 m) North Face

The other big peak that looked very good from our subcamp was the one that we could see from our base to the north of Yukshin Gardan Sar. This has an attractive east ridge which could be accessed from a subsidiary spur facing our base. The top of the ridge terminated in a blunt snow arête and the lower part was mixed rock and snow. We would only be able to confirm our guess that this was most probably Skirish Sar (6 600 m) when we could see it more clearly from the east side of the Yukshin Gardan glacier.

The Yukshin Gardan glacier continued a long way beyond Yukshin Gardan Sar with a huge snow and ice peak on its true righthand bank, which we later realised must be Kanjut Sar (7 760 m).

Kanjut Sar (7 760 m) at the head of the Yukshin Gardan glacier

We saw lots of avalanches streaming down Yukshin Gardan Sar’s north face shedding the newly fallen snow as well as from Kanjut Sar’s enormous west face. The Yukshin Gardan glacier was truly hugely impressive and beautiful as were its surrounding mountains. I was glad that I had taken the opportunity to take some photos, because the clouds then came in again partially obscuring the peaks. They didn’t clear until after dark when the whole sky became fairly clear, just some cloud left around the summits of the peaks. By demand I had to cook supper again in the evening! We had some soup and then risotto made with a tin of tuna and half a tin of tomato paste and finishing with strawberry jelly! This was all starting to sound a bit repetitive, but then thinking of this simple diet (potatoes, rice or dal and lots of chapattis), these were the essentials I remembered absolutely craving for on other expeditions, especially the potatoes and bread. Koshal was also a shortwave radio fan and writing this I could hear the others were listening to the news in Wakhi. Although the weather hadn’t play ball entirely, it had been an interesting day seeing these big mountains unfold and trying to work out how they related to the map, if they did! Qamar Jan was as confused as ever about identifying the peaks – we decided that we would try to throw more light on how it all worked on Saturday. From our time on the Yazghil glacier and here it had become clear that to a certain extent we must previously have been misreading the Leomann map!

Saturday 8 September

Well, with the morning dawning bright and entirely clear, and being able to now clearly see how the mountains related to one another and estimate what their possible heights might be, I had to admit to another complete about face (and take back some of the harsh things I said about the Leomann map!!!) This, because getting up at 05:30 and walking up the moraine next to camp to take some early morning photographs, just the size of the peak at the head of the Yukshin Gardan glacier absolutely confirmed that it must be Kanjut Sar, and the cathedral-like peak above us dominating the valley, had to be Yukshin Gardan Sar. Everything fitted if this was the case. Moreover, thinking back to the photos taken from the Ogre in both Bonnington’s and Scott’s books, they showed Kanjut Sar was a snow peak essentially with a long shoulder extending to the west, fairly closely fitting what we could see here. Yukshin Gardan Sar on the other hand was clearly a very rocky peak – someone had also described it to me as an exceptionally beautiful peak, which was certainly correct.

Yukshin Gardan Sar’s summit in the early morning light

After taking my photos I walked back to camp and made coffee on the MSR for the others – the porters served in bed! A quick breakfast of corn flakes with the cooked apricots and then Qamar Jan and I got away for our recce at 07:15.

6 400 m Peak to the north of Kanjut Sar

Qamar Jan explained that “Yukshin” means Ibex in Wakhi. From what he had explained earlier, I was under the impression that “Gardan” means the fields or pastures where the ibex graze, but today he said “Gardan” is the ruff of fur at the back of an ibex’s neck. “Sar” means top or summit.

It was turning out to be a perfect day with quite beautiful views of the 6 400 m peak (looks complicated, steep and difficult) to the north of Kanjut Sar, Kanjut Sar itself, Yukshin Gardan Sar and Skirish Sar. We walked all the way up the valley above our camp, to a point where we could slither down the moraine wall and a scree to get onto the glacier. From there it was a very easy crossing with rubble in clear passageways between the white ice towers and very few crevasses, getting us onto the lateral moraine close to the glacier’s true righthand bank and, after climbing up a little, into the usual trench between the scree/moraine wall and the lateral moraine. Going on along the trench for perhaps a kilometre we could also now clearly see that the peaks on the west side of the valley and north of Yukshin Gardan Sar, were all relatively much smaller peaks, confirming what we worked out about the two major peaks. Looking at the glacier from there, we could see it had a very uniform medial moraine leading on up the glacier for at least another 5 to 7 km, which, if we followed it, would give good views of the access to the top of the ravine north of Yukshin Gardan Sar leading from the glacier up to the col from where my possible proposed route on the peak might start.

At this stage I guess we had been going for a bit more than an hour. When I said I wanted to go on up the medial moraine to its upper end, Qamar Jan jumped up and down saying he was not a donkey and that I was expecting too much of him – walking up to the Yukshin Gardan camp in a single push and then making him do such a long day’s recce! I pointed out that he had sat all day on his backside the previous day as a rest day and that I wasn’t expecting him to do any more than I was doing and after muttering a bit more he calmed down. He was such a super guy, but seemed prone to getting excited about some things!

It was easy to get back down onto the glacier from where we were and to cross onto the medial moraine. This now afforded easy and enjoyable walking mainly on rubble (well compacted and not loose) with a few sections of white ice and a few crevasses that were very easily crossed. And what extraordinary surroundings – these two HUGE peaks with their summits towering nearly 4 000 m above us, dominating the valley and the massive icefall leading up into the upper glacial basin, all bathed in sunshine with a deep blue sky and whisps of cloud forming around the summits. We stopped on top of the last small hill of the medial moraine and just sat and absorbed this wonderful situation. Every now and then a powder avalanche came roaring down Yukshin Gardan Sar’s north face. To describe the important elements I would say that Yukshin Gardan Sar must be one of the most beautiful peaks I have seen. I had not seen Shivling, but would think Yukshin Gardan Sar’s beauty must compare and of course it is much higher. Its north face is exceptionally steep rock with a central bowl of steep fluted ice. Qamar Jan thought that the ice/snow rime that we could see on the face must be there much of the time. If you were on the face any snowfall would make it a trap with avalanches pouring off it all the time.

From where we were it looked as though the lefthand (east) skyline might also offer a very steep mixed route. Certainly, now that we could look at it more closely, the line on the north face that I had thought might be feasible still looked good, though the feasibility of climbing it would hinge on the rock tower proving to be practically climbable and the seracs above the corniced ridge not posing too great a risk. To reach the col on our right looking at the peak from our vantage point, it seemed that any route in the ravine would be exposed to avalanche danger and that it might be safer to climb the easy rock ridge on our side of the ravine to a point where one could traverse or drop down to reach the col. The other problematical feature of the route might be the traverse from the fore summit along a very narrow snow ridge to get to the main summit.

Looking at Kanjut Sar, access to the north shoulder via the ravine hidden from view behind the previously described 6 400 m peak or similarly any route on the main peak’s huge west face would be very risky due to a wide serac band threatening the whole of this side of the mountain and the general avalanche danger. In my view the only safe route on this side would be to climb up to the col between Kanjut Sar and Yutmaru Sar (7 330 m), hidden from our view behind Yukshin Gardan Sar, and then to follow the long but relatively less steep and easier looking west ridge to the summit. To reach the col between Yutmaru Sar and Kanjut Sar would involve climbing up the chaotic looking icefall slightly higher up the Yukshin Gardan glacier to reach the upper glacial basin – which certainly did not look easy!

The chaotic icefall on the upper Yukshin Gardan glacier

The successful first ascent of Kanjut Sar by an Italian expedition in 1959 appears to have been from the Hispar and Khani Basa glaciers on the south side of the mountain. Lastly access to all the smaller peaks to the north of Yukshin Gardan Sar on the dividing ridge between the Yazghil and the Yukshin Gardan glaciers - Skirish Sar (6 600 m) and Yazghil Sar (5 933 m), from this side appeared to be very easy and the peaks would offer some lovely climbing.

We had some biscuits, peanut butter and apricot nuts and Qamar Jan really mellowed, I think recognising what a fantastic day it had been. I couldn’t stop taking photographs! At 11:30 we turned around and set off to go back to the subcamp. Delightful easy walking made progress a pleasure. However we decided to try to go straight down to our glacier crossing, rather than going back via our outgoing route on the moraine wall on the true righthand bank, which resulted in us getting tied up in some large and unpleasant crevasses. Sensibly we retraced our steps and went back to our original route and got through very easily again. I stopped at the top of the little valley above base, just to savour the view and the day’s experience. Walking down to meet the others at the “Hilton,” I came across a huge wild rhubarb plant with red flowers, already over, and a little further on some rocks that looked like pieces of petrified wood, possibly indicating a great forest may have once been here in prehistoric times. It had taken us 4 hours to reach our furthest point on the glacier at about 4 000 m and it took about another 3 hours to return to base, reaching it at 14:30.

Milk tea, potatoes and chapattis with apricots for lunch, then I went off to the stream for a wash. I took some photos of us all at the huts.

Pretty pleased with ourselves!

I think to tease me after what has certainly been a long and energetic day, Qamar Jan suggested during lunch that we should pack up and go down to the cable crossing over the river for the night. However, he didn’t say any more after I said I’d be quite game to do so!

Dal and chapattis with soup our first course for supper. Qamar Jan said a mouse had tried to eat one of his fingers the night before. Early to bed ready for an early start tomorrow. It had been a fantastic day!

Cooking “Hilton” chapattis on thin pieces of slate at our Yukshin Gardan subcamp

Sunday 9 September

We started moving at 04:30 – another beautiful day with Yukshin Gardan Sar shining like a beacon in the pre-dawn light. After milk tea and chapattis in the “Hilton” and a final clean-up we got away at 06:00. With a way to go we really “motored” down with Koshal and Abass pressing on ahead to rig the cable crossing. The descent of the steep moraine section held fewer terrors in the sunshine. It must have been a good day because Qamar Jan was singing to himself all the way as we went along – he sang beautifully and this was rather a sad song with a verse and answering refrain sung rather nasally in the local fashion.

Our motoring brought us to the cable at 08:20, and with it pre-rigged and with Koshal’s and Abass’ loads already across, it took only a few minutes for us to follow. It all went very quickly this time! Only when we arrived at Abass’ house in Shimshal, did he tell us that he and Koshal nearly had an epic when they had originally rigged the cableway. Koshal had tied the rope off too short so that Abass when crossing to get the trolley had got stuck halfway, fortunately just after the bit close to water level (where the true lefthand bank extended a bit into the river), so that when he couldn’t hang on any longer, he at least only dropped onto terra firma and not into the river!

We got going again at 08:45 after de-rigging the ropes at the cable to do the long stony stretch leading up to the Yazghil glacier crossing, stopping there at the little walled shelter before the main Yazghil river for about 45 minutes for tea and a bite to eat. Finding a whole lot of bird feathers in the shelter (and I’d also seen some at the Sherzan base camp and elsewhere), prompted me to ask Abass whether they caught the birds to eat them, which he said they did – not impressed! Getting away at 10:15 again we motored on, Qamar Jan this time taking the “safe” route all the way across the east branch of the Yazghil glacier. We passed the rocky gorge and the west branch of the Yazghil glacier and reached the clear spring that we used for water at the shepherd’s camp at the bottom of the Yazghil valley at 11:40. Then the very long and rather boring stretch along the stony river flats to Shimshal, getting to Abass’ house (with some more stops for greetings as we went through the village) at 13:30. Our “short walk” (with the stops we had made) that Qamar Jan had laughed about had taken just 7½ hours – fantastic going (looking at the map we had probably covered a distance of close to 25 km). The four porter stages we had covered in a bit more than half a day was the best going that we recorded on the trip! Welcome milk tea and lunch of potatoes and chapattis at the house.

Shimshal on a Sunday afternoon was a hive of activity - still lots of threshing going on as well as “winnowing.” And they slaughtered a cow in the open in one of the fields – all the interested parties gathering around to cart off their chosen cuts!

We saw the flour being ground in one of the many small water mills in the village. You appreciate how well organised the small community is when you look down on the village from a higher vantage point and can see the pattern of fields separated from each other with a network of irrigation furrows.

After checking up on all this activity, I wandered back to Aminabad to photograph the little bridge I liked so much and then continued climbing up a little path high above the bridge (through a forest of little trees with orange berries at the edge of a rather precipitous moraine cliff) to arrive at a small perched threshing floor with a lovely view of Aminabad and the peaks above Shimshal.

Returning to the house I found Qamar Jan sorting the food and equipment which we would have to take with us back to Passu.

I learned that Abass and Koshal both lived in Shimshal (actually Koshal lived in Aminabad). Abass was a teacher at the school. They were both surprisingly well read – one of the discussions we had at our Yukshin Gardan camp was about continental drift (the plate actions that have made the Karakoram such a geologically “young” and steep range) and they both made intelligent contributions.

I think supper with Abass’ family brought home to me the real circumstances under which a typical family like that of Abass, lives in Shimshal. Apart from Qamar Jan and myself (and we were treated as special guests), the family members present at supper were Abass, his father and mother and a younger sister and brother. Abass’ wife and sister cooked the meal and looked after Abass’ baby daughter. I could see that cooking for the family was really hard work – it involved getting firewood from the storage place on the flat roof of the house, making the fire and constantly feeding the stove, preparing the meal and cooking and serving it, washing up after the meal (not in a sink – in a basin on the floor) and making chapattis for the meal and bread for the next day (the bread made in a heavy cast iron pot with a lid, put right inside the stove with the fire built over and around it then left for the night). Abass told me his mother spent time from late May until September tending the family’s animal herds at the higher pastures – yaks, cows, sheep and goats. This time of year was really critical – wheat, peas and vegetables as well as the fodder crops had to be harvested, the wheat had to be threshed and then milled and the flour stored. There was great reliance placed on having a good potato harvest – there had to be sufficient to feed the family from one year to the next. Apparently Shimshal got very cold in the winter with heavy falls of snow and during January the village didn’t see the sun for 22 days.

I thought Abass’ father looked old, yet he was probably only in his 50’s. Our supper comprised rice and potatoes served with chapattis – I suspected this was probably their staple diet day in and day out! For all that, the family seemed very happy – the baby obviously much loved by all. She was breast fed while her mother went about her chores – put to bed wrapped (bound) with swaddling cloth, so she was stiff like a mummy sleeping in a little rocking cot with a blanket over it (like a parrot cage). Abass also said that there was no doctor in Shimshal, obviously everything and everyone had to come in on foot. There was radio communication with Gilgit for emergencies, but nobody could afford a helicopter evacuation in the case of an emergency.

Monday 10 September

Qamar Jan and I were up at 05:00 to finish our packing – finding it was cloudy outside. We had had a good sleep after our previous energetic day! Some of the family were still fast asleep on their beds around the central cooking area in the family room – bed rolls (mattresses and duvet type covers) were rolled out at night and again rolled away against the walls to serve as cushions or bolsters to lean against during the day. The old man slept with his rolled Hunza hat on!

Abass’ wife made the same deep fried chapattis for our breakfast that we had previously enjoyed.

This time a final farewell – difficult to adequately convey the real gratitude I felt for this ordinary family who had made us feel so much at home. What a privilege it had been to so intimately experience their way of life.

Qamar Jan and I set off at a more reasonable pace down the road and after about half an hour, Qamar Jan said he wanted to stop at a friend’s house nearby (on the Kuk side of Bibi Pari’s establishment). The friend turned out to be Rajab Shah, one of Pakistan’s most celebrated climbers (he had climbed all the Pakistan 8 000 ers as well as Everest). And what a nice man he seemed to be. His wife served us milk tea and we had a long discussion about the confusion between Kanjut Sar’s and Yukshin Gardan Sar’s positions as they are shown on the Leomann map. As we were leaving another Pakistani “great”, Mahroban Shah, was also introduced to me – Qamar Jan had previously told me that he had done the same Pakistan 8 000 ers with the exception of Nanga Parbat. He was not related to Mahroban Shah, but had climbed a lot with him.

Then just outside the house Qamar Jan bumped into some more of his friends in a party of Pakistani trekkers coming back down to Shimshal with their guides and porters on the way back home – all on the local tractor trailer, which we also jumped onto to hitch a lift to where the Shimshal part of the access road ended a few kilometres upstream of Kuk. From there the walk to Kuk took us through a rocky gorge and then, after crossing one of Kuk’s two bridges, it came out opposite the snout of the Malungutti glacier, with spectacular views up to Distaghil Sar and the other huge mountains in the valley.

View up the Malungutti valley from near Kuk

An interesting feature of the large trekking group we met up with was that it included three Pakistani girls, who although rather quiet, seemed to be really enjoying their trek and walking very well.

At Kuk itself there was another startling feature – beautiful crystal clear water gushing out of the ground and flowing everywhere. As we came to the first stream, we walked through a profusion of blue-flowering plants giving out a lovely minty scent. The water there seemed to be warm too (though perhaps it just didn’t feel quite as cold as the glacial stream) – warm enough for some of the young porters from another party, to jump in and have a swim!

After crossing back to the true lefthand bank, across Kuk’s second bridge, we found that we were back in familiar territory – a long rather boring walk along stony river flats brought us to Ziarat where Abass, Koshal and I stopped for tea while Qamar Jan went on to try to organise the Jeep, we’d need to use for the drive out through the lower sections of the valley to get to Passu.

Then rather relishing the opportunity to walk alone after the interminable Wakhi chatter I’d had to endure walking with Qamar Jan and his friends in the large trekking group, I pushed on to Uween-e-ben and on arriving there found Qamar Jan was there waiting for us having successfully organised the Jeep. After waiting for the porters we thanked them and paid them off, also saying goodbye to Koshal (Abass was coming through to Passu with us). We loaded the jeep and drove through to Passu, the road and river if anything impressing me even more than before.

Arriving in Passu I organised my room at the Passu Inn with Ghulam – arranged that Abass could sleep in it too if he couldn’t organise a bed with family in the village. Ghulam brought me an envelope with 30 000 Rupees in it, sent to him by Muhammed Ayub from Nazir’s office for the credit I had arranged. I washed and, after supper with Abass, got everything ready to go to Gilgit on Tuesday to catch up on mail and make the arrangements for going on the last section of my recce up the Batura glacier.

After Ghulam gave me the money from Nazir, Qamar Jan came to the hotel later in the afternoon. He brought 26 000 Rupees with him to lend me in case I still had a money problem, saying I could pay it back later. I was immensely touched what an incredibly nice and generous thing it was he had done – Qamar Jan was certainly not very well off.

The Shimshal Valley and the Malangutti, Yazghil and Yukshin Gardan Glaciers

Part of Sheet 1 of the Karakoram Orographical Sketch Map

Published by The Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research Zurich, Switzerland

Hunza Recce Part 3

Batura Glacier

I got up early to put some of my gear into the hotel storeroom and Abass’ rucksack in the vestibule outside my room as he requested, for him to collect later. It seemed he must have organised a bed at his grandfather’s house, because he didn’t sleep at the hotel.

I caught a minibus coming from Sost at about 06:15, packed as usual – going to Aliabad we had 20 people sitting inside and besides the piled up baggage on top, another four people hanging on the back. We made a short stop in Aliabad and when the bus disappeared (to get diesel), I really did wonder if I would see it again, but had some milk tea while I was waiting anyway. Just before reaching Gilgit I got very cramped not being able to move and was very relieved to finally get there. A bit peeved to have to take a Suzuki to get from where the minibus stopped to the Taj Hotel. I booked in and had some welcome breakfast, then found the PIA office close by to book a seat on the flight to Islamabad on Sunday 23^rd – there was only one flight on a Sunday. The ticket costs Rp 2 750 and I have to buy it before 12:30 on the day before. Then bought food items from the same little shop as previously – had to get mineral water bottles from the Taj for paraffin. I’d get the fresh vegetable items on Wednesday.

A bit of a run around trying to find Fuji slide film, but was eventually successful getting a shop to hunt it down for me. Each Sensia film cost Rp 350! I spent the afternoon responding to Fran’s e-mails about David Bristow’s comment on the MCSA seeking Getaway sponsorship, and also sent on my news of the Shimshal trip. I made a successful phone call to Nazir bringing him up to date. He would unfortunately be away when I got back in Islamabad, but I’d go to his office anyway. Supper was dominated by TV news of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre!

It was horrible afternoon weather in Gilgit – a very strong wind blowing up clouds of dust, a heavy black overcast sky and some big drops of rain. The minibuses that operate between Gi;git and the towns in the Hunza valley were always packed to capacity (at least 20 passengers plus a roof-load of luggage and some outside hangers-on)! Despite this and the fact that they were surely not roadworthy, I hadn’t seen one accident so far!

Wednesday 12 September

Maybe I was getting used to the 04:30 muezzin! I got up and showered and had breakfast in time to catch the first fruit and vegetable shops opening to buy our requirements for Batura. However, although the shopkeeper I bought the groceries like sugar and dal from, had left the box with these items (together with 4,5 litres of kerosene) with one of his shopkeeper friends opposite, and had assured me that his friend’s shop opened at 07:00, there was nobody there when I arrived just after 08:00. Fortunately the friend pitched up soon afterwards.

I hefted my baggage further down the road, bought my ticket to Passu and waited for the bus. This eventually left (or rather we were put on a Suzuki and taken to the bus at the same place it dropped me on Tuesday) at just about 09:30. An easy journey back to Passu. I used the lunch stop in Aliabad to go and say hello to Mohammed Ayub and found him with a whole lot of porters that had just returned from Rash Phari (Sparkling Lake) above Nagar (including Imam Baig’s brother – just like Imam!) I was treated to milk tea and biscuits. I thanked Mohammed for organising the money.

In Passu I had a bite to eat, got the stuff I had left in the store and then did a big wash. Qamar Jan and Abass came with a porter drum and we sorted out the food, after which I re-organised my own gear. Qamar Jan brought an interesting map showing a lot of information – how some of the peaks to the east of the KKH were climbed, base camp positions, etc. I asked him to get a photocopy and send it on to me. What was especially interesting was that both this map and a Polish map hanging up in the Nazir Sabir Expeditions’ Aliabad office, showed Kanjut Sar and Yukshin Gardan Sar as they are shown on the Leomann map. Qamar Jan’s map showed the (Italian) base camp for Kanjut Sar was on the Khani Basa glacier, due south of Kanjut Sar, and indicated the route taken in their first ascent went up the ridge connecting with Kanjut Sar II, ie the southeast ridge. The ridge that we looked at from the Yukshin Gardan glacier was the west ridge which was probably unclimbed. The map also showed a route all the way up the Yazghil glacier to the glacier’s major branch west of Yutmaru Sar (7 330 m) with a base camp shown at the junction of the Yutmaru north and northeast glaciers. From this base camp the map showed routes both up Yutmaru Sar and Yukshin Gardan Sar from the southwest side.

Yukshin Gardan Sar and Kanjut Sar sketched from Qamar Jan’s map

There were a lot of people at the hotel in the evening and it developed into a real United Nations supper!

Thursday 13 September

It rained quite heavily during the night and I woke to a pretty dismal morning – a threat of more rain. The stuff that I washed was fairly dry – I had hung it up all night on a line strung across the room. I had some toast and coffee and paid Ghulam for the two nights. Abass arrived and we brought all the gear down to meet the jeep at 06:30. One of our porters Mohammed Raza rode with us to the Batura glacier to meet Qamar Jan and the third porter Aziz Hayat.

After getting the loads organised at the bottom of the Batura valley, we got away at 07:00. At first an easy climb up the moraine valley next to the glacier, then coming out on the crest of the moraine so that we could look down on the big stream gushing out from the snout of the Batura glacier – impressive. In fact I only realised looking down on the glacier that the moraine covered ice extended to within a couple of hundred metres of the KKH. Continuing on up a rather dusty moraine valley, we came to a stone wall and a gate built to control the movement of the animals in the valley, and shortly afterwards a largish hut at Yunzbin, where the Yunz path from the Passu glacier comes over the ridge separating the glaciers and descends to the Batura glacier. Based on what the local porters told us, we decided to cross the Batura glacier there, rather than making the crossing from further up the true righthand bank. Our chosen crossing was certainly very easy – for most of the way there was an easily identifiable path, only on the rocky sections did we need to take some care not to miss the route. The crossing took just under an hour and then we continued hard up against the rock and mud cliffs on the true lefthand bank of the glacier. At first this was not very pleasant going (rocks and scree), but when we climbed up to the top of the moraine and could start moving along the valleys on top of the moraine, or next to it, the going became easier and the route more interesting. Soon the first junipers and other big trees appeared. We saw a marmot and some birds that looked like francolins among the boulders of the screes. But the whole route was very dry. Even when we reached the substantial hut at Yokpirt, there was no water there, though fortunately there was enough good water in a container inside the hut that we could use to make welcome milk tea.

Ablation valley next to the Batura glacier with the first views of the Batura Wall beyond

Qamar Jan gave me an enormous golden delicious apple (he had picked from his orchard) to eat – absolutely scrumptious! These huts are used when the animals are moved up and down the valley and are maintained in really good shape, clean and fully equipped with pots, pans, mugs, etc, even some bedding. The weather was still lousy, but we were treated to the first enticing views at the bottom of the valley of the steep rocky, snow-clad peaks on the east side of the Hunza valley and up the valley of the first Batura ice flow. After tea we walked on, at first through some really attractive ablation valleys – flat floors with big boulders and lots of trees (juniper and willow) – some of them quite big. Then there was more mixed ground. After about an hour and a quarter we came to a wide open dusty meadow with the first cows and yaks we had seen, and with a strong clean stream flowing out of a small steep side gully where I used the opportunity to fill my water bottle. Our path crossed this flat area and then climbed up to a higher meadow, also with only a little grass on it called Yashpirt – with more than a dozen of the typical shepherds’ stone and juniper log houses dotted around it. A fantastic situation I thought we would appreciate more when the weather improved. Now we could only see the glacier below, some icefalls on the opposite side of the valley and the slopes above us dotted with juniper and birch (now starting to turn colour) trees. The altitude when we left the jeep was 2 500 m and here it was 3 220 m.

Yashpirt summer settlement

It had taken us about seven hours to get to Yashpirt with a stop of about three quarters of an hour for tea along the way. It was very dry there and the spring had no water – we had to go down and get water at the stream previously mentioned. “Yash” means “horse” and “pirt” is a sloping meadow in Wakhi. When the animals are brought up the Batura at the end of May, people stay at Yashpirt and graze the animals there for a couple of months, before moving on to higher pastures up the valley.

Qamar Jan took us to one of his family’s huts where he, Abass and I would stay – the other two porters would stay in another hut. The only other people in Yashpirt were two trekkers in a tent and two other porters from Passu staying in another hut. For the first time on the whole trip we had met two other small trekking parties heading down as we came up – the Batura was a much more frequented glacier. Milk tea and bread (and Qamar Jan scratched out some biscuits too) for lunch and because the weather was so miserable and it was cold, Abass started cooking supper at 15:30. A good meal of fresh potatoes, onion, garlic, peppers and carrots with chapattis and soup to start. I had to have a “dop” of Qamar Jan’s arak while supper was being prepared! I talked to a young couple (an Italian boy and a girl from Toulouse, France) who, with their guide, were on their way down to Passu after going to Lupdor - they said that they had enjoyed quite good weather the previous morning. Very early to bed with quite a lot more rain falling during the night (and snow coming down quite low too). The sound of big avalanches crashing down from the peaks opposite as we slept.

Friday 14 September

An abysmal day. Snow, rain and sleet on and off all day long with hardly any views of the mountains – all we could see was heavy snow coming down and cloud down almost to the valley floor. After milk tea we got going about 08:00. We went down from Yashpirt to a series of ablation valleys – very attractive with lots of junipers and other trees, after a while coming to an abandoned mill. Qamar Jan told us that in the old days there was quite a lot of cultivation in the valley, because there was enough water to sustain it (in the ablation valleys there must have been substantial lakes created from snow melt early in the season). However, over the years it had become progressively drier as there is no longer any ice in the side tributaries on the main valleys north side causing the Passu people to abandon their cultivation. Going further on we came to the first substantial stream we had seen – this was the Warthum stream that flowed parallel to the glacier from the Wartham Nala for quite a few kilometres. To cross it we had to take our boots off and wade the stream. Before reaching the Wartham stream we passed a huge alluvial fan issuing from quite a small looking gorge called Fatmahil – attractive with a small forest of birch trees starting to change colour. We then followed the south bank of the stream to Kukhil, where there are about half a dozen huts used for the grazing animals early in the season.

At Kukhil we crossed a log bridge to reach the houses on the opposite bank (where there were a whole lot of sheep, goats and yaks grazing) and went to Aziz’ mother’s house. There we were royally looked after, being fed with fresh yoghurt, cream and butter (all made from yak and goats’ milk), together with freshly made chapattis and milk tea. There was a huge cooking pot on a small fire (it seems none of these huts had stoves), with the milk in it being heated to make the cheese which was then put on the hut roof to dry, ready for eating during the winter. The cooking was done on a small fire in front of the cheese making operation, the milk tea supported on a triangular stand and the chapattis made on a simple disk also placed on the triangular stand.

Cheese making ladies in Kukhil

As we ate various goats, sheep and yaks looked in the door. I watched a small black, grey and white bird, something like a wagtail, hopping about outside the door to peck up crumbs, as the snow flakes fell around it. We had seen quite a lot of birds – almost in profusion at Yashpirt, together with a lot of mossies and a couple of hoopoes again.

After Kukhil we continued along the south bank of the Wartham stream for another stretch, to where the stream issued from the Wartham Nala, then shortly after crossing another alluvial fan, also coming from this Nala, we reached a smaller stream called the Bostong and after crossing this we finally came to the settlement of Gutshism, where we would spend the night. We found possibly a dozen huts there, but only three or four of them occupied. There were apparently more families at the higher pastures upstream, but there were still quite a few sheep and goats grazing at Gutshism. We stopped at Abass’ grandmother’s house first (where we were given more milk tea) and then moved on to the hut of his best friend’s wife (from Passu), where we were treated to more fresh cream, yoghurt, butter, chapattis and milk tea! Aziz would go down from there so I paid him off. Qamar Jan, Abass and I again moved into an unoccupied hut, where we’d stay – Mohammed would stay in another hut. It took us 5½ hours to walk from Yashpirt to Gutshism with a 1¼ hour stop in Kukhil.

The huts don’t have any mud “caulking” or plaster to close the holes between the rocks in the walls (Qamar Jan said to keep the yoghurt and butter cool!) and as a result they are very drafty and on a day like this bl..dy cold! A young English trekking couple who arrived on Thursday were camping in a tent nearby – also not too impressed with the weather. More “booming” avalanches opposite and Qamar Jan plied me with more arak! He also hauled another three of his magnificent apples out of his pack for me – to be shared. No wonder his pack was so heavy –perhaps because of the apples, but I suspect also because he had a healthy supply of “Hunza Water” stashed away in it!

This weather was the pits! It was now very cold with the snow drifting down around us. With this bad weather I’d wondered how my other friends in these mountains were faring – Hans Scheffler on David Hamilton’s Adventure Trek (going up the Panmah and Choktoi glaciers to cross the Sim La pass onto the Sim Gang glacier to reach Snow Lake on the Hispar glacier) and John Brimble trying to climb Spantik, both of these commercial expeditions. What was very useful at Gutshism was meeting a friend of Qamar Jan’s, Ali Dost Dar from Chalt who described the access to the Kukuar glacier over Chalt and Bar (which is accessible by jeep). He told me there were six stages involved to reach the Sani Pakkush base camp on the East Kukuar glacier and the rate per stage was Rp 300. Engaging a guide like that could help overcome some of the porter problems other parties in the area seem to have experienced.

We made an early supper of fresh vegetables, again with chapattis, preceded by soup. Abass spiced the vegetables up with some chillies and the meal was quite hot! In the end all four of us were sleeping in this hut – coldest night on the trip so far!

Saturday 15 September

I was driven out of bed by the urgent need to have a wee - disappointed to find the mountains were still covered by cloud, though it did look a little brighter. Based on the time that the Trekking Guidebook indicated it would take us to get to Lupdor, I thought it might be a good idea for Qamar Jan and myself to go on and camp there. However Qamar Jan said it would not be worth it and instead suggested we should walk to Lupdor to see if the clouds might lift and give me the opportunity to take some photos.

Gutshism yak milking

Before we left there was a spell of sunshine and I used the opportunity to get some photos of one of the yaks being milked there. They seemed to be lovely docile animals - their calves were tied up on one side during the milking.

With the promise of better weather Qamar Jan and I got away just after 08:00, shortly followed by the young English couple with their two guides. The path to Lupdor followed the Bostong stream for a while and then traversed along the edge of the lateral moraine, passing a small lake fed by a trickle from a nearby ravine and eventually climbed up into a larger ravine, also with a small lake (now pretty empty) and a stream.

Batura Wall reflections in the small lake near Lupdor

Qamar Jan was right, there wouldn’t have been any point moving our camp to Lupdor – it only took us 35 minutes to get here. We stopped for a while enjoying the antics of the young English couple’s guides who were trying to rescue three goats that had got stuck on a rock ledge on one side of the ravine. As the others planned to descend to Yashpirt and soon left us, Qamar Jan now took me to a better vantage point on the “corner” high above the confluence of the Batura and Yoksugoz glaciers. To get there we traversed diagonally upwards out of the Lupdor ravine over some unpleasant steep shaly slopes to get onto the higher Lupdor meadow. The idea was that hopefully the clouds would lift and we settled down to wait for this to happen. This was a fantastic vantage point to see the peaks and understand the lie of the land. The heavy cloud persisted high up in the Batura valley but gradually opened up opposite where we were sitting, gradually revealing the huge Batura Peaks (five of them all around 7 500 to nearly 7 800 m) on the Batura Wall between the glacier's First and Second Batura Iceflows.

The Batura Wall's immensely impressive big peaks

Also several very attractive looking 5 000 to 6 000 m peaks appearing out of the clouds across the Yoksugoz glacier which must be part of the Kuksar group.

Peak of the Kuksar group (6 943 m)

Waiting for the weather to improve I suggested that Qamar Jan could go back to Gutshism and that I’d return to on my own later, knowing he would be glad to have someone he could natter to in Wakhi! The additional time I spent at the vantage point didn’t help much – the weather was still pathetic and at about 15:15 I set off to make a high traverse back to camp. I found this involved negotiating two or three very deep ravines, one of them necessitating quite a climb to find the right route. They were all animal trails that I followed and everywhere heavily grazed. After a long descent I rejoined the moraine path and was back in camp at 17:30. Hungry as a horse, I had some bread with peanut butter and drank some milk tea. Abass cooked us a huge meal of cabbage and potato with onions and garlic, which we ate with chapattis. Another cold night.

Qamar Jan said when he went home he had found the three goats we had seen high up in the Lupdor ravine and had herded them back to Gutshism. One of them was his own, which he said he recognised by a slit cut in the ear. I saw quite a lot of birds during the day – our “wagtail friends” in camp and even a hoopoe, an eagle, the usual ravens flying around the glaciers and a swarm of small seed-eating finches.

Sunday 16 September

Our hopes for a clear morning were dashed when we got up to find some cloud still around the peaks. Hoping for the best, after a breakfast of milk tea, bread and cooked apricots (me only), Qamar Jan and I got away at 06:30 to walk up to the high camp. Abass and Mohammed had gone down to Yashpirt each carrying about 25 kg of yak butter, that would eventually be taken all the way down to Passu (they came back to Gutshism at about 14:30). Qamar Jan said the yaks we had seen on the pastures were the male animals that were used to bring everything needed up to and down from the pastures. At the end of the September someone had to go and collect them from where they are grazing (often kilometres away) so that they could be used for going back down to Passu.

We took the same moraine path towards Lupdor and I stopped to take some photos of the reflections in the small lake along the way. Shortly afterwards we stopped again, because it was becoming obvious that the weather was not going to co-operate. We decided not to go on, there being no sense in going all that way and then not seeing anything! We went back to the lake where I stayed awhile, with Qamar Jan going on to Gutshism. Definitely more cloud moving in – these last few days there had not only been cloud on the mountains, but it has also been very hazy – as though the air was full of moisture. A bit like being in an aquarium! My short stay at the lake was made worthwhile when I saw a peregrine falcon flying in and perching on a rock ledge, then a young eagle (I think golden) flying by quite high up being mobbed by ravens. When Qamar Jan and I had walked out, we put up a flock of what looked like francolins and at the lake I heard these same birds calling. I thought they might be either snow or rock partridges according to the trekking guidebook.

Gutshism matriarchs

After returning along the short walk back to camp Qamar Jan and I then sat in the sun and chatted before Abass’ friend’s young wife invited us to her hut for fresh yoghurt, yak butter, fresh chapattis and milk tea – a sort of brunch! I then went for a walk down the valley so that I could look up into the Wartham Nala, on the way passing a rock in the village on top of which there were a lot of cheeses (“qurut”) put out to dry. These looked like small cakes and were rather crumbly. There was a clear view up the Wartham Nala, but the peak we could see (probably the 5 700 m peak on the Leomann map) was partly obscured by cloud. Although more bad weather was clearly moving in, I was rewarded with views of a beautiful peak beyond – a great corniced ridge climbing up into the sky with cloud boiling up on one side (one of the peaks of the Kuksar group). I walked back along the north side of the Bostong stream where I found Qamar Jan at what he said is the normal trekkers’ campsite – a rather uninviting looking bleak open space with the shingle cleared for tent sites and a small trickle of clean looking water nearby. We crossed the stream over a small log bridge and made some coffee and had some biscuits, bread and peanut for lunch, to be invited again by our kind lady neighbour for a full scale meal of meat and vegetable stew and milk tea with salt (apparently the meat was a goat bought by the young English couple for their porters).

By now the wind had come up and the clouds had clagged right in, with the odd snow flake swirling down among the huts. And then the Karakoram displaying the character that it is – a complete turn-around with the evening just opening up and clearing – mountain after mountain appearing in a soft magical evening light.

Late evening at Gutshism and the evocative call of a shepherdess calling in her flock

One of those incredible moments – Lupghur Sar (7 200 m) shining like a beacon far to the east in the last rays of the sun, the bleating of the sheep and goats returning to their pen and a shepherdess silhouetted against the western sky calling the last of her flock to come in.

And a feeling that the clear sky might bode well for us on Monday – at last we seemed to have dispelled the hazy sky and ever-forming clouds hiding the peaks that we had almost come to expect over the last few days – we would have to see! The only sad thing was that I could not find my Swiss Army knife – I remembered we had last used it when we went up to Lupdor. We’d just have to hope that it turned up! Abass cooked an enormous rice dish for our supper under my instructions!

Monday 17 September

At last, for Batura, it looked as though we might have hit the jackpot – almost a clear sky when we got up. I rushed off to take a couple of early morning photos, had a bite to eat and got away with Qamar Jan at about 06:45 – fortunately there was no repeat of the previous day and no turning back. We now enjoyed our first clear view right up to the head of the Batura glacier, of particular interest was a very prominent snow peak with two smaller pyramid shaped peaks to its right. Qamar Jan was adamant that the big peak must be Sani Pakkush.

Looking up to the head of the Batura glacier - Sani Pakkush (6 952 m) the pyramid shaped peak in the centre, it's summit partly obscured by cloud, Point 6 315 m on the left and Seiri Porkush 6 872 m on the right

Beyond the big Lupdor gully, the moraine wall terminated and we were forced down onto the glacier – apart from a longitudinal band of white ice (a couple of hundred metres from our true lefthand bank), the glacier was covered with rubble. Qamar Jan followed a line going onto the glacier and then moved up it to cross its junction with the Yoksugoz glacier coming in from the right. Lots of up and down over quite big boulders and rubble eventually brought us to one of several medial moraines that extended right up the glacier (which at this point also almost immediately became snow covered). As we worked our way higher up the glacier the snow became deeper – eventually 200 to 300 mm of thick soft powder – a bind to have to break trail through the snow. We crossed three sets of animal spoor, one obviously a rabbit hopping along, another one we thought must be a big ibex running across the glacier and one with paw prints about the size of a lynx that Qamar Jan felt sure was a snow leopard. The mountains on our right (ie on the true lefthand bank of the glacier) going up the glacier were still partially covered in cloud and remained so until late afternoon. But the huge wall on our left, apart from the peaks beyond Sani Pakkush at the top of the valley, remained quite clear almost all day. Looking at Sani Pakkush from high up on the glacier we could see what appeared to be a quite feasible and fairly safe route up the mountain from this side. Firstly up a broad snow ridge leading up to the 6 315 m peak to the left of Sani Pakkush then all the way up the northeast ridge on Sani Pakkush – some cornices and a snow step in the middle, but it looked pretty reasonable.

Sketch of Sani Pakkush seen from the upper Batura glacier

As we came closer to the China Camp on the moraine beneath the big spur coming down to the glacier opposite Sani Pakkush, we decided to veer towards the glacier’s true righthand bank rather than heading more directly to the China Camp, because Qamar Jan, probably quite rightly, felt this might give us a better chance of looking right up to the head of the glacier and possibly also of seeing Kampire Dior from this point.

The ridge leading up to Point 6 315,the peak to the East of Sani Pakkush

Point 6 315 and the East Ridge leading to the summit of Sani Pakkush

As it turned out the head of the valley was by now already covered by cloud and in fact we never did see Kampire Dior or for that matter anything that looked like Seiri Porkush (a peak of about the same height as Sani Pakkush). We stopped on the lateral moraine just before 13:00, after about 6 hours non-stop going from the subcamp and probably close to 15 km from it. Apart from the snow, the going on the glacier had been pretty easy and we had been able to keep up a good pace. After eating some biscuits and peanut butter and drinking some orange cooldrink, we turned around and headed home. By now it was pretty hot and we had a long trudge back, but this was compensated for by the stunning views – lots of photos. At the Yoksugoz glacier junction we followed a better line down an open gully between the moraines, but still had to make a lot of up and down over the small mountains of debris on the glacier, to get to the moraine corner below the Lupdor meadow.

At this point Qamar Jan decided he would dash up to our previous vantage point to see if he could find my knife (which he in fact did), while I bashed on along what he called the yak path in the trench between the glacier and the steep moraine cliff defining the edge of the glacier. I didn’t enjoy this very much because it was a horrible place and I also nearly had a serious accident when I got dumped by a huge boulder (the size of two coffins!) that rolled out from under me as I stepped on it and very nearly landed on top of me. This “near miss” made me think about the potential predicament we would have had to face if this had happened with Qamar Jan and the rest of our party completely unaware of my whereabouts and not knowing what might have happened to me!

Reaching the Lupdor path, I saw Qamar Jan was already on his way down and we joined up at the lake. From there a short walk back to camp – a big welcome and a good supper.

Qamar Jan talked about a 1982 British expedition (for which he portered) that set up a base high up on the Batura glacier’s North Ice Flow on the west side and successfully climbed Kuk Sar (6 943 m). Sadly the two successful climbers (Brodrick and Hurrel) were killed in an avalanche on the descent. Qamar Jan said that at the end of the expedition, he had crossed a high pass (> 6 000 m) to get back onto and go down the Yoksugoz glacier to return to the Batura glacier.

The Batura Second Ice Flow - with Batura IV (7 594 m) and Ani Kucho Chhok (6 869 m) above it and Beka Brakai Chhok further to the right

More of the Batura Wall's huge peaks moving towards the East with the ash trees in the glacial basin starting to display their magnificent autumn colours

Batura Wall rock spires coming out of the mist

Tuesday 18 September

What a pleasure after our previous days’ disappointments, caused by the terrible weather, to now be sitting against a rock in Yashpirt writing up my diary with warm sunshine flooding down. And savouring our walk down from Gutshism which had turned into something of a photographic frenzy as the clouds lifted revealing peak after peak – another very good day.

We had decided the previous night already, that from the amount of snow we had encountered on the glacier going up to the China Camp, our earlier idea of going up the Wartham Nala to the Shireen Maidan pasture to climb one of the 5 500 m peaks there would take too long and wouldn’t be practical. With the bad weather (and because Qamar Jan hadn’t been able to obtain a small sheep to give the porters a feast – much to my relief), we had also decided to go down straight away to Yashpirt (maybe rather to use the time to make a short foray onto the Passu glacier later to see if I could have a look at Shispare and the Passu Peaks). We only got away from Gutshism at about 10:00 and it was only when we reached Kukhil that it started clearing. When the peaks appeared (remember when we went up to Gutshism from Yashpirt the weather was awful and we couldn’t see anything at all), I told Qamar Jan and the others to go on so that I could come down in my own time and take photos. This was very successful, especially as the birch trees had now turned an even more spectacular shade of gold – incredible views of these lovely colours contrasting with the great white expanse of the First Batura iceflow and the huge peaks above it.

View looking down the Batura valley to the peaks on the East side of the Hunza river

A really incredibly beautiful walk going down with the mountains and attractive ablation valleys you pass through, filled with juniper trees. Coming to Yashpirt was like coming to a place I had never been to before – quite different from the drab rainy place we left previously.

And now we could also see the magnificent panorama of the mountains to the east – most prominent Distaghil Sar dominating its smaller neighbours like Lupghur Sar (7 200 m). We were the only people at Yashpirt (though we knew there was a Norwegian trekking party arriving – perhaps on Wednesday? Our only company a couple of yaks, cows, goats and sheep guaranteeing the peace that was fitting for such a beautiful situation.

The vibrant autumn colours of the birch trees you see going down the Batura glacier

This trip had been so different from the others. Apart from Sani Pakkush, of the big peaks in the Batura valley there were none which would really be feasible climbing propositions for us. Kampire Dior would involve too long a walk in, and in any case we hadn’t even seen the peak to form an opinion about the feasibility of climbing it from this side. However, from a trekking perspective, the Batura was simply magnificent. And in addition there were lots of peaks in the 5 000 m to 6 000 m range that were very accessible and seemed to offer very attractive climbing possibilities.

At Yashpirt we once again settled into Qamar Jan’s hut which was very organised – much better equipped eg with kitchen gear, extra food, lots of juniper wood - a pleasure after Gutchism, where firewood was scarce and cooking had to be done on a yak dung fire. Abass was making us chapattis to have with supper and I had to admire how adept he was at making them – the tools for making the chapattis are a wooden board and rolling pin (a round piece of wood about 400 mm long) and the chapattis are cooked on a heavy metal disk supported on a triangular metal frame, which is also used for the heavy cast iron cooking pots. I would look back on good memories of the sweet smell of juniper smoke and the flickering light cast by the fire on the massive juniper beams supporting the roof.

Wednesday 19 September

Abass was up at 04:00 starting to make fried chapattis for breakfast – I think partly because he had woken sometime in the middle of the night, after not sleeping and then, still lying in his sleeping bag had lit a cigarette. I told him it was disgusting and pulled the door wide open! Qamar Jan and all the Batura porters smoke like chimneys and, to an extent I found this very aggravating – there was no consideration whatsoever for any others who were non-smokers.

Anyway Abass’ early start also got us going early and we packed up and started off just after 06:00. Weatherwise it was again not a good morning – a very overcast sky and the mountains all hiding in the clouds. A bit disappointing because I had really wanted to get some early morning photos of Yashpirt with the sun on the Batura Wall, which would have been spectacular. But that was not to be, and as if to hurry us on our way, there was a HUGE avalanche that came thundering down the wall, at a stage split in two by a rock ridge, before coming right down hundreds more metres onto the moraine below (up till then bare of snow) – a very impressive display!

Looking back on the day, as Qamar Jan said, we simply “flew”- no buggering around like stopping to rest. It took us four hours from Yashpirt to Yunzbin, where we eventually stopped for milk tea and some biscuits, peanut butter and cheese (the Trekking Guide talked about 10 to 12 hours for this stage on the way up and 5 to 6 hours coming down - there is not a significant height difference between Yunzbin and Yashpirt). Then there was about another 45 minute walk down to the snout of the Batura glacier and the KKH. All this time the weather had remained lousy – as we reached the KKH, we were blown down onto it by a strong West wind with drops of rain hastening us on our way down the road to have an end of trip lunch at the Passu Tourist Lodge (we had chicken done with vegetables and rice) – a nice celebration and compensation for Qamar Jan, Abass and Mohammed for our not having a sheep to eat on the mountain! Qamar Jan went home on the way and came back very concerned about the developments following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in America, the main concern being the ultimatum given to Afghanistan by the USA to hand over Osama bin Laden or face attack – the ultimatum was due to expire on Thursday night. Qamar Jan felt there was likely to be strong anti-American sentiment among some of the religious factions in Pakistan and that it would be wise for me to go through to Gilgit and fly to Islamabad as quickly as possible. According to Qamar Jan PIA was giving precedence to foreigners to fly out of Gilgit in order to leave the country. Later speaking to Ghulam and another tour leader (with a French group staying at the Passu Inn), they were less concerned – apparently the Pakistan President was scheduled to address the nation at 20:30 that evening to state the course of action the Government would take. I decided I should wait to see what might come out of that, but nevertheless after getting back to my room, I had a welcome wash in hot water and packed everything ready to go first thing in the morning, if I decided it would be best to leave straight away.

I paid the porters for the Batura trip and made a contribution to Abass for his family’s hospitality in Shimshal. I also squared up with Qamar Jan – besides all the equipment he was getting (stove, boxes, tarpaulin, etc), I gave him generous baksheesh! For all my enthusiasm for the porters on our Karambar and Shimshal trips (and for Abass on our Batura trip), the other porters from Passu just didn’t seem to measure up to my expectations. In fairness Aziz went down from Gutshism and Mohammed’s English was virtually non-existent. They were certainly capable and willing.

Qamar Jan organised that Abass, Mohammed and I would eat at his house in the evening. In fact Mohammed didn’t come, but Qamar Jan’s middle son and brother-in-law were there. It was a really pleasant evening with a special chicken meal prepared by Qamar Jan’s wife, who seemed to be an extremely nice lady. To my relief Qamar Jan didn’t expect too much of me in respect of his arak! I went back to the Passu Inn quite early after a saying quite an emotional final goodbye to Qamar Jan and Abass. Listening to the news I was relieved to hear that the Pakistan President had affirmed his support of the USA’s and UN’s stand that the Taliban must hand over bin Laden.

At the end of my recce I looked back on what an exceptional companion Qamar Jan had been to me. His knowledge of the areas we visited, his incredible ability to handle all the logistics of organising transport and the porters we hired to access such remote destinations and most of all his generosity and the close friendship we shared were for me the elements that made this trip so memorable.

Thursday 20 September

When I woke in the morning a glance outside made it clear that the day’s weather would again not be so good. There was heavy cloud right down on the mountains. Based on the previous evening’s news and the further discussions I had had at the Passu Inn after leaving Qamar Jan, I weighed up my options and decided to stay a day or two longer in Karimabad before going back to Gilgit and then moving on to Islamabad. First what I hoped was a good omen – I rescued one of the Wagtails that somehow got trapped in the upstairs foyer outside my room. When I opened my hands to let it go, it stayed perched on my hand for perhaps five or so seconds.

A said my final goodbye to Ghulam who had also been so incredibly helpful. Got my gear on a minibus that had driven in from Sost, and and got away at about 06:30. I pulled out the sheet of plastic that I had bought at the start of the trip and spread it over my stuff that was packed on top of the minibus roof to stop it getting wet – when we reached Gulmit it was obvious that we were heading into rain. At Aliabad I jumped straight onto a Suzuki to get up to Karimabad and arranged to stay at the Garden Lodge Hotel again – the same room. Because it was still being cleaned, I had a bite of breakfast and listened to the BBC news on shortwave. It seems today would be the crunch with the Taliban expected to formally announce their response to the USA’s ultimatum. The BBC news gave prominence to the support pledged for the USA by the Pakistan President – we’d have to see. I spent the morning escaping the rain by going down to the shops to buy the presents I want to take home as well as some biscuits, peanut butter and golden delicious apples for lunch. The weather looked a bit more promising in the afternoon, so I made a foray to explore Altit.

Karimabad - Baltit Fort

Walking along the lower road, I found the school I remembered from our walk down from Duiker in April, as well as the small lodge called the Hunza Guides Tourist Lodge near it that was run by a lady called Catherine Fevre. It looked very nice, the only snag being the really loud music seemingly being played over the PA system of what I assumed was a small mosque next door. Walking on to Altit I passed the Kisar Lodge (which I nearly stayed in when I first arrived in Karimabad on this trip) and then found myself next to a half empty stone walled dam sunk below the ground, before entering a maze of narrow alleyways and ladders going up and down to the old stone-walled houses nestling beneath the Altit Fort (unfortunately closed for renovations that were obviously being carried out). The Fort looked interesting with some quite intricate decorative woodwork on its doors and windows. I also conveniently found a small antique shop where I lingered and bought some of the remaining presents I wanted to buy.

Karimabad – Hunzakut children

Friends in conversation

Karimabad street scenes

On the way back, I took the high road and was delighted to come across a water mill in operation attended by a flour-dusted miller. The whole wheat grains were fed into the centre hole in the millstone through a wooden hopper, the millstone simply whizzing around and the fine white flour then collected in a stone trough next to it. It was absolutely fabulous to find one working here at last. I crossed the top bridge over the Ultar Nala after passing the road we had followed going up to Duiker, and found myself back in the top part of Karimabad village. I resolved that, if Friday was a sunny day, I should go back to Altit – there were certainly some nice photos waiting to be taken there! I had supper at the Garden Lodge and went to bed with the rain pouring down outside – I doubted that there would be any flights flying out of Gilgit on Friday!

Friday 21 September

There was more rain during the night and it was another gloomy morning – in the last ten days we had had about two days of decent weather! I was woken at about 04:30 by the muezzin calling! After breakfast I walked for part of the way along the irrigation channel going from Baltit to Hyderabad, at a point just sitting and enjoying the leafy peacefulness of the valley below me and the parade of people passing by, many of them women with baskets full of green fodder, evidently going to a market somewhere near Baltit (though I later looked, I couldn’t find it anywhere).

Without exception the people in Karimabad were very friendly, men and women responding warmly to my greeting. One lady carrying freshly picked apples insisted that I take one. The wicker baskets used for carrying the produce are woven from willow saplings with four main longitudinal stiffeners pulled in at the bottom, giving the basket a pleasing shape. The patch of sunshine I enjoyed didn’t last long and I walked back – going on to have a look at the cemetery. A wonderful viewpoint, but sad to see how badly neglected it appeared to be. Almost all the graves had been totally abandoned. In the afternoon when a patch of sun came through, I took the last few photographs on my last film of the typical subjects one sees in Karimabad – young people and the town’s everyday activities.

Comingback to Karimabad, two things were evident – firstly that there was a distinct change in season, it was really quite cold, there was a lot more snow on the mountains and the tall poplar trees were all starting to turn wonderful shades of gold and yellow. And secondly, I was sure that as a result of the USA terrorist attack, Karimabad was virtually empty of tourists in comparison with the overwhelming numbers that were there when I was in Karimabad previously (there was no-one else staying at the Garden Lodge). The locals had specifically commented on the effect of the attack on their trade and were very despondent about the future of tourism if the perception of Pakistan as a radical Muslim state was perpetuated. I did a final pack-up in the evening preparing to get away to Gilgit early in the morning. I had supper at the hotel again after I had a bad rip-off experience taking milk tea at the Ultar restaurant which advertised local Hunza speciality dishes – I wouldn’t be going there for supper! I was sure the Gilgit/ Islamabad flights had not been operating with the bad weather we had been experiencing. If the Sunday flight I was booked on didn’t work, I’d have to take an overnight Natco KKH bus to get to Islamabad on the Monday morning. The TV in the Garden Lodge was on all day and every evening, but despite it being satellite TV, it could only pick up a Russian programme. The hotel proprieter, a very nice white haired gentleman, spoke Russian and a little English. He had tried to pick up the BBC shortwave news for me on his transistor radio, but with no success – an interminable fiddle with all the associated atmospherics and about every other language imaginable!

And lastly, another viewpoint! About midday on Friday I saw a pretty young girl obviously coming back from school among a whole lot of her classmates. She was perhaps about seven years old and was dressed in a smart blue school uniform. She had her school books in a satchel on her back, on the outside of which were inscribed the words “WELL DONE BIN LADEN”.

You see this is Pakistan!

Saturday 22 September

I was again woken by the muezzin and getting up a little later, found that we actually had a clear sky! The first sunlight on the summits of Rakaposhi and Diran quite magical.

I paid the hotel, carted my stuff up the road and caught a Gilgit minibus right there. I was away from the Karimabad turn-off on the main road by 06:30 and in Gilgit by 09:00. Taking a Suzuki to the Taj Hotel they gave me a room to store my gear while I walked down to PIA to confirm my ticket for the flight early on Sunday morning. PIA said two flights had already gone off that morning and on the last one leaving at 11:00 there was already a waiting list of ten people – the big backlog was from all the lousy weather we had been having. I’d have to hold thumbs for Sunday. I confirmed my room at the Taj and had some breakfast then went to look for Noor Raja at Future Communications, caught up with the e-mails sent to me and sent my own off to Sandra via Barry Futter confirming I was back from the Batura and was safe and sound. I phoned Nazir Sabir’s office to confirm my movements and after spending the afternoon exploring Gilgit some more, had a relaxed supper at the Taj Hotel.

Sunday 23 September

It dawned another clear morning and I got going early after being woken by the muezzin. I caught a Suzuki to Gilgit airport where I had to wait a while because I was a bit early. The whole airport was crawling with police paying minute attention to security and the checking in of baggage. You are allowed 20 kg of hold baggage and only a briefcase, camera, etc carry-on luggage, so I was rather worried when I had to put my two main bags as well as what I thought could be hand baggage AND my ice axes and ski sticks on the scale, giving a total weight of 46 kg! But it was accepted, though I eventually had to pay Rp 400 (Rp 20/kg) for the excess. There was a bit of a delay boarding and taking off – I was surprised to see some empty seats on the plane (a Fokker two-engined high wing ± 50 seater). Some last good views of Nanga Parbat with the plane flying well below its summit – the mountain completely free of cloud. A little further on, I also saw some magnificent looking smaller (6 000 m) glaciated peaks, now quite snowed over, to the south of Nanga Parbat and the KKH, as well as beautiful valleys with lots of lakes and forests in between.

We arrived above Islamabad at about 09:00 and were held circling the airport for about 15 minutes – I think because of all the activity of the military aircraft (Transalls and C130 Hercules that we could see at the airport when we landed). My luggage came off very quickly and I wheeled it to the rank outside the terminal where I caught a taxi to the same small guest house (Midway Guest House) on the road into Islamabad I’d used on my arrival. Arriving at the hotel I found it had been taken over and was under new ownership – the rooms now done up more nicely, but slightly more expensive (Rp 1 200 plus tax per night for the room only). Being a Sunday I decided to remain at the hotel all day, rather than try to go into Islamabad, where I was told most shops (and Nazir Expeditions) were expected to be closed. However, I walked back along the road going to the airport, into a trading area where I could buy some bread, fruit, etc. Quite a scruffy area and a noticeably less friendly atmosphere than up north – several people asking me if I was American! I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at the hotel watching US television and a film.

Monday 24 September

I had breakfast at the hotel and then went into Islamabad – by catching minibuses, buses and Suzukis (which are really rather replaced with small baby taxis here). This was all quite complicated – I had to catch about five “legs” to get to the G9 city block in Islamabad – the address I had on the card for Nazir Sabir Expeditions given to me by Nazir’s office. This cost only about Rp 20 and was an experience in itself with all sorts of people crammed into the vehicles! Hardly any of them could speak English (they would probably mostly speak Urdu). But everyone very helpful trying to assist me catching the right bus! When I eventually (about 1½ hours after leaving the hotel) arrived at the address on the card, I found that the Nazir Expeditions office had moved to a new address in Block F8! So I went down the road to the nearest PCO and phoned the office, Atta Ul Haq arriving shortly afterwards in one of Nazir’s vehicles to pick me up.

I spent a couple of hours in the office, first saying hello to some of the good friends from our April trip, among others Shukrulla and Imain Baig as well as Mushir Anwar, who was the Manager in the Islamabad office, and Suldan Kahn, who had been so helpful organising my money on this trip. But, best of all, I discovered Nazir had not gone to Germany after all – it appeared that he had picked up a whole lot of problems extracting two of the company’s Japanese trekking parties from Concordia on the Baltoro glacier, with a lot of pressure being applied by Japan following the USA terrorist attack. The second party had been seriously late getting to Concordia, so Nazir had to organise a military helicopter to fly them to Skardu and then on a commercial flight back to Islamabad. All this had happened when Nazir was supposed to be flying to Berlin, so eventually he had to say he could no longer go. However as a result, it was now great to be able to sit down with him and talk about what I had done on the recce – I think he was particularly interested, because the Karambar, Malangutti, Yazghil and Yukshin Gardan glaciers were all areas he had not been to himself. I said that I would send on photos to him by e-mail. We also made contact with Manzoor Hussain, Secretary of the ACP, who was away when I arrived in Pakistan, but couldn’t raise Amir Janjua who we established was apparently away from home at that moment. I arranged to see Manzoor on Tuesday to fill him in on my trip.

After a light lunch with Nazir I sat down and sorted out my money with Suldan – Nazir Expeditions had really been incredibly helpful extending the Rp 30 000 credit to me and allowing me to settle up only at this stage. After going through the inventory and, adding in the cost of my Islamabad/Skardu flight that Nazir had paid for, we arrived at an agreed total of Rp 29 976 which I then drew on my Barclays Debit Card.

In our earlier discussions Imam Baig said he had come across David Hamilton’s trekking party (Hans Scheffler’s party) in Skardu on or about 19 September, which suggested they probably must have returned home rather earlier than scheduled.

At last taking my leave I said a final goodbye to Nazir, thanked him again for the incredible help he had extended to me and, after also greeting all these other good friends, caught a taxi to the supermarket bazaar at about 14:00, where I had a look at some of the bookshops and also visited the Maharaja shop where Sandy and I had bought quite a lot of really nice things in April. I finally caught a taxi to get back to Midway Guest House (easier than my morning journey!) and had supper at the hotel again.

My flight out of Islamabad the next morning ended what was for me a quite remarkable experience – one that had by far surpassed the expectations of what I hoped to achieve when I planned this recce.

The Batura Glacier

Part of Sheet 1 of the Karakoram Orographical Sketch Map

Published by The Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research Zurich, Switzerland

Map 4 - Kuk Sar Gruppe

Chronik der Erschliebung des Karakorum Teil I – Western Karakorum

Wolfgang Heichel

Map 4 - Batura Gruppe

Chronik der Erschliebung des Karakorum Teil I – Western Karakorum

Wolfgang Heichel