DISPATCHES

Davis

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Even so, he enjoyed the ride in Nazir's private car, complete with flower garlands around his neck and full military entourage. Meanwhile, back at the Indus Hotel in Skardu, Jimmy, Brady, Dave and I were jumping up and down at the good news and making frantic plans to get out of town, finally, after 10 days in Pakistan.

We loaded up three Land Cruiser jeeps and sped off to Kapalu, the town where we had an appointment to meet with Brigadier Muhammad Tahir, the commander in charge of the Kondus Region. We'd slowly been getting the picture about this trip; even though we were now holding all of our requisite pieces of paper and permits, as soon as we tried to enter the military zone we were going to run into some serious opposition. The Kondus has been completely closed to all foreigners for about 20 years. Every police chief in every village, and every military officer at every checkpost along the way was going to want to keep us from going in. This land is their domain, and they couldn't care less what the Ministry of Tourism says. So the chance to meet with the Brigadier General who "owns" this area was nothing short of a miracle, especially as we'd been told that, in his youth, he'd been a liaison officer on three of Reinhold Messner's expeditions, and therefore loved climbers. Too good to be true, but there you have it.

In Kapalu, the very first police administrator took one look at the Kondus permit and tried to deny us. Obviously he didn't know that in 10 minutes we'd be meeting with the Brigadier. His senior officer did, however, and immediately said, "If Brigadier Tahir approves, I approve."

Our reception with Brigadier Tahir himself can only be described as dreamy. If this were a novel, no one would believe this part. We were escorted through a garden, complete with a giant parachute umbrella, into a room with sofas and armchairs. The Brigadier, a big hefty man with smile lines around his eyes, looked completely at home in a polo shirt and jeans. He seemed delighted to meet American climbers, and to reminisce about his expeditions with Messner. He told us several anecdotes about Messner's trips to K2 and Nanga Parbat, and made sure to tell us which books Messner mentioned him in. Our acquaintance with Galen Rowell served us well yet again—Galen seems to be universally worshiped by influential people in Pakistan. The Brigadier also loves to take photos of peaks, and showed us his prized photos and his camera.

As we discussed where we might see the best rock, he whipped out a laminated map marked SECRET, so he could point out peaks. We all looked at each other, wide-eyed, as he nonchalantly waved his hands over it. Then, as servants revolved in and out with snacks and coffee, he told us that he planned to send an officer with us to clear up any troubles we might have travelling through the checkpoints. "But don't worry," he said expansively, "the officer will camp with the military and leave once you are safely in the Kondus. I know how mountaineers are. You don't want him to interfere with your privacy. And any peak you see on the left of the glacier, you can climb. When you are there, don't worry about permits, or me. Do as you like."

We all gaped. "When you come back, you can stop by and write down what you climbed and what you named it, so we know what to call it. You may see cartridges and shells on the ground, but just ignore them. And there is one peak you will see near Karmading. It is very beautiful, and I always look at it and think it would be perfect for climbing. So perhaps you will like to climb it first. And when you are climbing this tower, give me a tinkle and I will drive out in a jeep and watch you climbing on the wall."

Suddenly, everything was easy. I didn't even have to dress like a man. In fact, everyone ended up thinking that the boys were women, due to their ponytails. Our accompanying officer, Johar, or Johar Superstar, as Jimmy was calling him, turned out to be indispensable in getting us in here. The first checkpoint we went through, about an hour out of Kapalu, had a sign saying "No Foreigners Allowed." Naturally, we all took pictures of each other standing next to it. But in the next village, they did not want to let us go on. We were escorted into an office, and men took turns copying out Brigadier Tahir's letter of free travel by hand (there are no copy machines in that village) while others scrutinized every letter of our permits and passports and talked to Zahid and Johar in Balti.

Later, after we were finally allowed to pass on, Zahid said that he and Johar had to do some "very strong speaking" (Balti for getting aggro) and that the men did NOT want to let us go on. Zahid told them that Brigadier Tahir said we could go through. If they wanted us to return to Kaplu and tell Brigadier Tahir that this village elder was a bigger man than Brigadier Tahir and the Minister of Tourism, then so be it. The elder backed down.

Rock started to appear everywhere about a half hour before we reached Karmading. Jimmy and I started to go ballistic with the soft cover on top of our jeep and almost killed ourselves opening the back door and hanging out to look up, until the driver stopped and took the top off. We stood up as we drove, hardly able to believe what we were seeing around us. There were rock walls everywhere—a sport climbers paradise—peaks all around, and mind-blowing high rock walls peeking out from impossible-looking valley areas. As we entered Karmading, we saw one of the most beautiful granite pillars I've ever seen staring right at us— without a doubt, Tahir's Tower.

We drove up the road even farther, leaping around the jeep to look at the rock towers lining the glacier on our left, and the insane-looking high snowy peaks looming above way up and right. Although the rock looked awesome everywhere, it all seemed really hard to get to. And the altitude and the diesel fumes was starting to make us sick. We went as far as we could and looked wistfully at the rough terrain that led out onto the Kaberi Glacier. Now that we were finally here, we weren't sure what to do first. We stopped for a powwow and realized that Dave was looking really sick. He'd been feeling a little ill all day, after a terrible breakfast experience in which he'd discovered rat shit in his corn flakes. We immediately decided to lose some elevation and return to camp down by the village of Karmading. That might help him recover, camping down at 9,500 feet, and then we could really explore the options of Tahir Tower and recon up the other valley out of town. Tahir Tower was definitely the most striking single tower we'd seen yet, and to do a recon out on the Kaberi would take us at least a week of trekking out on the uneven glacier.

As I write, we've established a Base Camp across from someone's field just out of the village. Most of the people have never seen foreigners before, and the children come and crowd just to watch us eat dinner. The women keep shyly sneaking up and telling Zahid they want me to come out to meet them. We have nice exchanges where I smile a lot, tell them my name is Steph, and feel very irritated that I can't speak Balti. They won't talk to the guys, ponytails notwithstanding. Today, the men carried an iron bed over to our camp with a very sick man in it. As we rather helplessly tried to diagnose him, we realized that Dave was also getting even worse. It was like a Wilderness First Responder's (WFR) nightmare scenario. We ended up sending the jeep we'd retained for recon to take the man back down to Dansam, one of the military posts, where they have a hospital. He looked pretty bad, and we felt sad not to be able to do more. Jeepless, Jimmy, Brady and I made Dave as comfortable as we could, and then set out on foot to the road which leads to Tahir Tower and the Saltoro group.

As we approached Tahir Tower, we all started basically freaking out. The thing is completely beautiful, unclimbed, and it's literally right off the jeep road. How can that be? Everything we've gone through to get in here starts to seem worth it! The rock is a pale, sheer-shaven gray, and looks remarkably like the stone on El Cap. As we got closer, we worried because it's so clean, it's almost devoid of crack systems. But as fate would have it, there's one line which shoots straight up the center, and it appears to go all the way up. We have no concept of how big the thing is, but we're guessing anywhere from 2,000 feet or more, starting at an elevation of about 11,000 feet.

It seems insane to find an unclimbed granite tower with one single splitter going straight up the middle, and right off the road, no less. How can this be? In the year 2000, how can any climber score such a prize? Am I still having the same dream which started when we stepped into Brigadier Tahir's reception room?

We moved further up the valley, past the base of Tahir, and we were astounded by even more beautiful high peaks in the distance; unfortunately, those are right in the zone of fighting between the Indians and Pakistanis, and therefore completely out of the question.

All excited, we hurried back to Base Camp, trailed by a mass of little boys, and found that Dave has a fever of 103 and hasn't been able to eat all afternoon. So as usual, we're at a crossroads in decision making. We're pretty worried about his condition, but reluctant to put him through the jeep travel back to Skardu. We also don't want him to miss out on Tahir Tower. Another night of uncertainty. But as usual, tomorrow something will definitely happen.

— Steph Davis, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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