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Dreaming of Virgin Peaks Skardu, Pakistan - Saturday, June 17, 2000
More driving today. The KKH divides below the city of Gilgit. We took a right at the fork and came into the steepest portion of the valley yet. At one point we stopped and I tried out one of the cable Tyrolean traverses that accesses the far side of the river valley. A single cable stretched perhaps 125 yards across the river, wrapped around huge boulders on either side. A short wire hung from a steel pulley was wrapped around a log and padded with rags. I tied myself onto the seat with some twine and made sure to hold on tightly to the cable as I pulled myself out over the river. Even in the middle of the valley, the wind felt as though it were coming out of a hair dryer. To think this was the bridge to someone's home. Any antics we may report back via satellite pale in comparison to the daily routines followed by the people of the Indus River Valley. The land there is unbelievably harsh, the people remarkably resilient, usually, but not always, friendly. Zahid once told a story of a female tourist taking a joy ride on a similar cable traverse. She made the mistake of going all the way across. Locals on the far side held her hostage, demanding a hefty ransom. After several hours of this, a Pakistani special forces soldier happened by. He crossed the cable by hand and liberated the woman with a gun. Or so the story went. I stopped halfway and turned back. I walked back up the talus to the air-conditioned van, having received my daily diversion. Steph was feeling a bit sick. The rest of us were merely tired of riding in the van. Jimmy speculated on our prospects for finding suitable climbing objectives in the Kondus, alternating between optimism and despair. We really don't know what we'll find. Dave listened to a Guns 'n Roses tape he bought in Islamabad for two bucks. I imagined the countless horrible fates I might suffer were I a kayaker on the Indus. The AC fan belt broke, so our driver pulled off (rather, stopped in the middle) of the road and fished the mutilated belt free. Pakistani men wandered by with friendly smiles and waves. We continued on, some of us pouring water on our heads to keep cool. It was still far better than last year, when I took the 20-hour public bus back from Skardu. Local buses weren't built with long legs in mind. We arrived in Skardu in the late afternoon. We got three rooms in the Indus Hotel: two for us and one for our gear. We ate some food and went to sleep early, happy to have arrived. It is cooler here. The hotel staff is friendly, the food excellent, the prices much more reasonable than the more popular and always crowded K2 hotel. We'll buy food and make other arrangements here before taking jeeps into the mountains. Climbing is still far off. I feel healthy but soft, like a veal calf confined to a tight place for too long, eating, sleeping, and doing little else. I dream of virgin peaks. — Brady Robinson, MountainZone.com Correspondent
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