Thieves, Liars and Mountaineers: On the 8000 Metre Peak Circus in Pakistan's Karakoram Mountains (4 page)

Again we rise bleary eyed at 5.30am and obediently begin packing away our things, but today proves to be a very different day from yesterday and perhaps we should thank our lucky stars for the striking porters.

I hear Phil's voice outside the tent: “Mark, come outside. There's a great photo of Masherbrum!”

I hurriedly put on my boots and climb out of the tent. The sky is completely clear and a shaft of golden sunlight is touching the north face of picturesque, pointed Masherbrum, rising above the Baltoro Glacier on its southern side. It's one of those days when there are not enough superlatives to describe the scenery around you, and I end up using the word “amazing” as freely as Gordon uses “cleavage”.

“It's the 19 th ,” says Phil. “I've got to hand it to Jamie for calling it. He said the weather would improve on the 19 th .”

Phil's business partner Jamie McGuinness has been sending him weather reports from Kathmandu, and several says ago he said the weather would improve today. Assuming this wasn't a lucky guess, the fact that we're getting reliable weather reports is one more factor greatly in our favour for the climb.

Along with Arian, I'm the last of our team to leave camp at 7.30. For the next three hours we amble slowly up the Baltoro Glacier in the direction of Concordia. Every step is a photo opportunity and our cameras are constantly out of their cases. The dusting of snow has covered the glacier moraine in a white carpet. To our left is the impressively steep Muztagh Tower, and behind us to the right, the snow pyramid of Masherbrum. Up ahead, the skyline above Concordia is dominated by the steep trapezoid of Gasherbrum IV. While the name “Gasherbrum” has been variously translated from local languages as “Beautiful Mountain” and “Shining Wall”, most people seem to agree that of the seven Gasherbrums, it is to the distinctive Gasherbrum IV that the name originally refers.

As we approach Concordia, the massive dome of Broad Peak hoves into view, and to the right Mitre Peak pricks up like a needle. I arrive at Concordia, the junction of glaciers, at 11am. To the north Broad Peak and the jagged outline of the much smaller Marble Peak stand as a gateway to the Godwin Austen Glacier, at the end of which rises K2, the steep triangle with a fearsome reputation. The Abruzzi Ridge, angling down from the right of the summit and supposedly the easiest route up K2, looks horribly steep. It's not a mountain I will ever be tempted to climb, but to look upon, it's one of the most impressive mountains I've ever seen. This is definitely in my top ten places to sit and have lunch.

K2 (8611m) and Broad Peak (8047m) from Concordia

As we're leaving Concordia Arian and I are invited for tea by the Italian-funded Baltoro Glacier clean up team, who will be spending five months here cleaning all the camps between Askole and K2 Base Camp of detritus left by previous trekking and mountaineering parties. They are keen to tell us about their work, which involves not only litter picking, but a programme of education for porters and tour operators. They have a display containing examples of some of the rubbish they've picked up this year. Sad to say empty gas canisters, beer tins, coke cans and batteries can only have been left behind by tourists. Unfortunately, they're not allowed to clean up any military waste. Our liaison officer Major Kiani, who is sitting and listening nearby, tells us that the military are the biggest polluters in the area, but have little sense of environmental responsibility. He seems annoyed and embarrassed about it.

For Arian the meeting is something of a result. A student of environmental sciences at the University of Christchurch in New Zealand, he is currently doing his masters dissertation on the somewhat specialised subject of waste management on 8000 metre peaks in Pakistan. While the focus for the rest of us is on getting to the summit of G2, Arian is planning on cleaning up Camp 4, which apparently contains all manner of abandoned tents and mountaineering waste. As well as allowing him to interview them and get some decent video footage, the Baltoro clean up team also offers to send porters up to G2 Base Camp to take his rubbish back to Askole where they have an incinerator, and send him copies of the reports they will be writing, to provide data for his dissertation.

By the time we leave Concordia at 1pm, we're a long way behind the rest of the team.

“Do you think Gordon will poke fun at us if we arrive in camp behind Bob,” Arian asks.

“He wouldn't be Gordon if he didn't,” I reply.

Concordia marks a junction for expedition teams. Trekkers and those climbing K2 and Broad Peak head north up the Godwin Austen Glacier to their respective base camps, while those climbing the Gasherbrums branch south on the Upper Baltoro Glacier to Gasherbrum Base Camp. Halfway between the latter and Concordia is Shagring Camp. I arrive there at 3.30, and the advantage of my late arrival is that all the porters have got there ahead of me, and given my team mates time to pitch all our tents before my arrival. Before retiring into mine, I have tea and biscuits in the dining tent with Phil, Philippe, Serap Jangbu and Tarke.

“Did you get to see K2,” asks Phil, “or had it clouded over by then?”

“We had a brilliant day,” I reply. “We saw K2, Broad Peak and, apparently, G2 as well.”

This last detail had been provided by David Hamilton, leader of the Jagged Globe G2 expedition. There was a point short of Concordia where several of the Gasherbrum peaks were visible in a line behind the more prominent G4. I felt sure G2 or G1 must be among them, so asked David when I bumped into him at Concordia, knowing him to be something of an expert on the Karakoram. Phil and Serap Jangbu are insistent the peak in question was G1 rather than G2, much to my amusement.

“Well, one of you superstar mountaineers must be wrong,” I say. “Fat chance we have of reaching the summit if you can't even agree which mountain we're supposed to be climbing. Looks like either us or Jagged Globe are going to end up climbing G3!”

To provide the icing to my entertainment Phil then falls off his chair. I roar with laughter, but Philippe, who is too polite, and Serap and Tarke, who presumably don't want to laugh at the boss, remain silent.

A short day today, setting off at 6.30am and continuing up the Upper Baltoro Glacier till it turns round a corner to the left and becomes the Abruzzi Glacier. Here Gasherbrum Base Camp sits on a long finger of moraine at the foot of the icefall which is the South Gasherbrum Glacier. Camp 1 lies 900 metres above us up the icefall in the Gasherbrum Cwm. Surrounded by the seven peaks of the Gasherbrum group, Phil says it's one of the most spectacular settings he has ever been to.

From Base Camp, however, the main point of focus for the Gasherbrums is Gasherbrum I, the highest of them at 8068m, and for now that is enough. Above the icefall the southwest face rises 3000 metres above us in a sheer wall of thick snow. It's one of those mountains you look at and think, “I can't believe I'm going to try and climb that – I must be crazy!”. Of course, all mountains have many facets. From the summit a steep ridge leads down to the left, and our ascent route lies behind it and hidden from view. Even so, it is understood to be extremely steep, and it will be by some margin the hardest peak I've ever attempted. Only time will tell whether it will prove beyond me.

I reach Base Camp at about 10.30. Serap Jangbu, who set off early to reserve a location for us, has chosen a spot right at the very top end of the moraine, as close as possible to the route through the icefall. We spend the next couple of hours clearing snow away, choosing and flattening pitches and putting our tents up. In order to make Base Camp as comfortable as possible for us we now have a tent each, and I choose a pitch close to the edge of the icefall and angled in such a way that my front entrance looks straight up at G1. It's a great location, though somewhat cloudy this afternoon.

We're going to be here for the best part of two months, so it's important we're happy with our tents. Gordon isn't quite so fortunate with his choice. The expedition team below him have asked him to move because they're concerned he may urinate in the snow outside his tent, which stands at the top of a snow slope they're using as their water source.

“Every time I step outside my tent, I see someone with binoculars looking up at me and checking I'm behaving myself,” he says.

Ian has spotted tracks in the snow outside his tent, possibly those of a pika, though it seems extraordinary that anything could live up here where there's absolutely no vegetation.

“Don't worry, Ian,” I tell him, “the footprints are much too small to be a yeti.”

“Besides, they don't eat Englishmen. They'd far rather eat a nice juicy corn-fed American,” says Gordon, pinching Cassidy on the arm. For sure she'd make a better meal than the tall gangly Ian, and everyone chuckles.

Shortly before lunch we say goodbye to most of our porters, who turn around and head straight back down the Baltoro Glacier to Askole. We could never do the expedition without their help in bringing our several tons of supplies up to Base Camp, but I certainly won't miss them now they're gone. 130 of them feels like a small noisy town, and it will be so much more peaceful now that it's just us and our kitchen crew ensconced at Base Camp.

For the first time in over a week we don't have to get up at the accursed hour of 5.30, and I savour my lie in till 8am when breakfast is served, even though it's -5º C inside my tent and we still have nearly 3 kilometres of vertical ascent to go.

It's a beautiful crisp, clear morning and I have a great opportunity to take in our beautiful mountain surroundings. From the summit of Gasherbrum I an easy snow ridge leads to the right behind 7069m Gasherbrum South. This is the route by which the mountain was first climbed by the Americans Andy Kauffman and Pete Schoening in 1958, but is now out-of-bounds and has been so for many years after the Pakistan Army put a camp at its base, about half a mile away from us close to the head of the Abruzzi Glacier. Above the army camp the gently crevassed though fiercely avalanche-prone snow slopes of 7424m Sia Kangri rise up at a point very close to the disputed borders of Pakistan, China and India. On its right flank is the Conway Saddle, dividing it from 7300m Baltoro Kangri, also known as Golden Throne. Beyond the Conway Saddle is another pass leading onto the vast Siachen Glacier, famously the highest battleground in the world where Pakistan and India meet head-to-head over disputed Kashmir. Baltoro Kangri rises directly above us on the opposite side of the Abruzzi Glacier, and is one of the closest mountains to Base Camp. Frequent avalanches tumble down its slopes, sending a noisy rumble across the glacier to disturb our silence at Base Camp. To its right sits the pointed snow triangle of 7668m Chogolisa, where the great Austrian mountaineer Hermann Buhl lost his life in 1957 just two weeks after completing the first ascent of Broad Peak. In front of Chogolisa, the Upper Baltoro Glacier vanishes round a corner on its way to Concordia. Immediately above Base Camp, and divided from Gasherbrum I by the South Gasherbrum Icefall, is 7004m Gasherbrum VI, the second smallest of the Gasherbrum Group. From where we're camped it has the appearance of a brown rock trapezium surmounted by a steep snow crest.

Today is a lazy rest day. In the morning I sort my climbing kit out. I have some new anti-balling plates to fit to my crampons, to prevent soft snow building up on my feet and rendering the crampons useless. Unfortunately I discover I've bought the wrong plates and have to improvise a solution involving chopping my old plates in half and keeping the toe end while fitting the new heel ends and a rubber concertina to the central bar of the crampons. This should hopefully be effective in the short term and last the expedition before the toe end of my old rubber plates disintegrate like the heels did. I also insert new soles into my mountaineering boots. I still need to find a new sock solution to prevent the boots ripping the skin off my heels like they did in Nepal last month, and I 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.