Read Thieves, Liars and Mountaineers: On the 8000 Metre Peak Circus in Pakistan's Karakoram Mountains for Free Online
Authors: Mark Horrell
hope the moulded soles from my other boots will help.
I spend the remainder of the afternoon lying in my tent reading my book, every so often going to the dining tent to fill up my mug with copious quantities of tea and coffee and walking across the moraine to urinate. Tarke tells me off for emptying my pee bottle outside my tent on the wrong side of camp – one side of the moraine has been designated the peeing side, while the other side is where snow and ice is gathered for drinking water. My tent is upstream from the rest of camp, but a good 50 metres above the next campsite down. By the time my pee has soaked through the moraine then frozen and merged with the ice below and slowly moved down the valley at the few inches a day the Abruzzi Glacier moves at, the neighbouring campsite would have long since packed up and gone. The chances of somebody digging out my undiluted pee in future years seem fairly remote, but camp rules are camp rules and from now on I obediently cross the campsite to empty my bladder.
12. Puja at Base Camp
Monday 22 June, 2009 – Gasherbrum Base Camp, Pakistan
Another beautiful morning, and I wonder how long the good weather will last. At breakfast Phil outlines our plans for this morning. By tradition the Sherpas won't put foot on any big mountain before they've conducted a puja, or blessing ceremony, for our success and safety on the mountain.
Sympathetic as always, Phil says: “It's bulls—t really, but if we bring five superstar Sherpas with us to help us climb the mountain, we've got to let them have their way.” Then he adds: “After the puja, anyone who wants to can put their climbing kit on and we'll head up onto the ice for a couple of hours.”
The puja is due to take place at 9am, which means we probably won't get started till 10, by which time the sun will be high and warming the ice, creating a risk of serac towers in the icefall collapsing.
“Will the icefall be safe this late in the morning?” I ask Phil.
“Icefall?” he replies. “This ain't a f------ icefall, buddy. This is a snowdrift.”
I smile. It reminds me of a conversation I overheard between Phil and Arian a couple of days ago about the high altitude drug Diamox.
“Is Diamox safe, Phil?” Arian asked.
“What do mean is it safe?” Phil replied. “Do you think it's going to give you herpes or something? Course it's f------ safe!”
In the absence of a lama, or Buddhist monk, Serap Jangbu conducts the puja for us. The Sherpas have erected a cairn with a flagpole at the highest point among the moraine ridges of our campsite. Our ice axes and crampons have been piled around it along with various foodstuffs: potatoes, cereal, Tibetan bread, etc. For about ten minutes Serap kneels in front of the cairn and chants while the rest of us sit behind in a wide arc. When he finishes chanting the other Sherpas unroll prayer flags from the flagpole and extend them outwards to attach to smaller cairns around the campsite, like spokes of a wheel. We're given handfuls of rice and tsampa, which we toss into the air with a cry of
lakalu
, which means “victory to the gods” in Tibetan. This is to acknowledge that the fate of our expedition – whether we reach the summits or merely survive to climb another day – is in the hands of the mountain gods. As Phil said, it's bulls—t, but for sure we're more likely to succeed with a happy and confident Sherpa team, so the puja certainly serves a useful purpose in that respect
Ascending the icefall with Gasherbrum I up ahead
After a day of rest our short walk up into the icefield fills me with anticipation for the next few weeks and the climb ahead of us. As we weave around and over crevasses and seracs, Gasherbrum I all the while ahead of us, we gradually round a corner which brings Gasherbrum II into view. We can see all the route above Camp 2 up a snow shoulder and then in front of a prominent triangular rock face which forms the summit pyramid. The final
I spend the remainder of the afternoon lying in my tent reading my book, every so often going to the dining tent to fill up my mug with copious quantities of tea and coffee and walking across the moraine to urinate. Tarke tells me off for emptying my pee bottle outside my tent on the wrong side of camp – one side of the moraine has been designated the peeing side, while the other side is where snow and ice is gathered for drinking water. My tent is upstream from the rest of camp, but a good 50 metres above the next campsite down. By the time my pee has soaked through the moraine then frozen and merged with the ice below and slowly moved down the valley at the few inches a day the Abruzzi Glacier moves at, the neighbouring campsite would have long since packed up and gone. The chances of somebody digging out my undiluted pee in future years seem fairly remote, but camp rules are camp rules and from now on I obediently cross the campsite to empty my bladder.
12. Puja at Base Camp
Monday 22 June, 2009 – Gasherbrum Base Camp, Pakistan
Another beautiful morning, and I wonder how long the good weather will last. At breakfast Phil outlines our plans for this morning. By tradition the Sherpas won't put foot on any big mountain before they've conducted a puja, or blessing ceremony, for our success and safety on the mountain.
Sympathetic as always, Phil says: “It's bulls—t really, but if we bring five superstar Sherpas with us to help us climb the mountain, we've got to let them have their way.” Then he adds: “After the puja, anyone who wants to can put their climbing kit on and we'll head up onto the ice for a couple of hours.”
The puja is due to take place at 9am, which means we probably won't get started till 10, by which time the sun will be high and warming the ice, creating a risk of serac towers in the icefall collapsing.
“Will the icefall be safe this late in the morning?” I ask Phil.
“Icefall?” he replies. “This ain't a f------ icefall, buddy. This is a snowdrift.”
I smile. It reminds me of a conversation I overheard between Phil and Arian a couple of days ago about the high altitude drug Diamox.
“Is Diamox safe, Phil?” Arian asked.
“What do mean is it safe?” Phil replied. “Do you think it's going to give you herpes or something? Course it's f------ safe!”
In the absence of a lama, or Buddhist monk, Serap Jangbu conducts the puja for us. The Sherpas have erected a cairn with a flagpole at the highest point among the moraine ridges of our campsite. Our ice axes and crampons have been piled around it along with various foodstuffs: potatoes, cereal, Tibetan bread, etc. For about ten minutes Serap kneels in front of the cairn and chants while the rest of us sit behind in a wide arc. When he finishes chanting the other Sherpas unroll prayer flags from the flagpole and extend them outwards to attach to smaller cairns around the campsite, like spokes of a wheel. We're given handfuls of rice and tsampa, which we toss into the air with a cry of
lakalu
, which means “victory to the gods” in Tibetan. This is to acknowledge that the fate of our expedition – whether we reach the summits or merely survive to climb another day – is in the hands of the mountain gods. As Phil said, it's bulls—t, but for sure we're more likely to succeed with a happy and confident Sherpa team, so the puja certainly serves a useful purpose in that respect
Ascending the icefall with Gasherbrum I up ahead
After a day of rest our short walk up into the icefield fills me with anticipation for the next few weeks and the climb ahead of us. As we weave around and over crevasses and seracs, Gasherbrum I all the while ahead of us, we gradually round a corner which brings Gasherbrum II into view. We can see all the route above Camp 2 up a snow shoulder and then in front of a prominent triangular rock face which forms the summit pyramid. The final
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