DISPATCHES

Davis

After two more days of climbing and fixing, we were all ready for a rest today. Dave made an incredible recovery from a severe bout with the flu yesterday. He hiked up to the base of Tahir, jugged 1000 feet and led a flaky, runout 5.10 death pitch. His gear seemed to be basically a pecker [a small piton] and a 1/4" bolt placed on lead halfway through the crumbling slab. While he experienced that adventure, Brady and I jugged and hauled all the static lines up the route, only to rap back down a few hundred feet to the right, making new anchors and fixing the lines there in preparation for our first hauling party.

So anyway, we were all ready to rest today. And I guess the old woman gave us a few extra prayers for free, because I woke early this morning to the sound of gentle rain on my tent. Instead of being forced out of my Bibler-turned-hothouse at precisely 6:33 am (which is what time the sun pops over the mountains), I luxuriated in my sleeping bag until 10, at which point Zahid panicked and made my coffee for me and brought it over to my tent. Usually I'm in the cook tent at 6:34 begging for hot water so I can make coffee RIGHT AWAY.

It stayed cloudy and drizzly all day. After being in a convection oven down here for the last week, we were all ecstatic at the cool temperatures and the mandatory rest day. Luckily all of the Balti women I've recently befriended are also saying prayers for us now too, so hopefully the clouds will stay with us.

Jimmy, Brady, and Dave worked on PR today. The special forces officers came cruising up in their jeep. They can't resist visiting as much as possible especially now that there's actually some climbing to watch, and they use some surprisingly technical climbing skills to maintain their high posts in these mountains. They bring gifts of things like Pepsi and mango drinks, and today they brought a book, "War Above the Clouds; Siachen Glacier" about the war against India on the Siachen Glacier for me to look at, as Zahid told them I really like reading. The book was fascinating, and I read the introductory essay about this very area and these very soldiers, and then looked at all the photos, many of them the same views we're seeing here.

I have to confess, I know almost nothing about the war in Kashmir and this region, which seems pretty ignorant considering the war is the reason this trip was so difficult to do. But after reading about the conflict, and discussing it with the officers here at our camp, I felt pretty angry. Everyone agrees that all the fighting is about a small section of glacier, about 47 miles long and 2 miles wide according to the officer (or was that kilometers? No matter; the point is that everyone agrees the area itself is insignificant.), a "bone of contention, literally," in his words.

No one can even live in the disputed area, as it's just a piece of glacier. However, the neighboring Balti people all consider themselves Pakistani, in lineage, culture and religion. The disputed area has long been treated as Pakistani by the rest of the world, in terms of mountaineering permitting and UN recognition. So it seems outrageous for the Indians to perpetrate this foolish, unwinnable war for a tiny piece of ice that is useless to everyone. Yet they won't leave the high passes, although the soldiers suffer and die at altitudes up to 22,000 feet even in winter. And the Pakistanis naturally refuse to relinquish what seems to be historically and rightfully theirs. It all seems so wasteful and sad.

While I read the book and actually learned something about the area I'm now in, Jimmy, Brady and Dave turned back into NOLS instructors and began giving anchor and rope clinics to the officers, who were eager to learn all they could. These men are incredibly quick, and I'm sure that clinic the boys gave them will directly help the soldiers stationed here in this harsh mountain environment.

The day before yesterday I'd made friends with four women who came to say "a special hello" to me. At first they didn't believe I was climbing Tahir Tower too. Only when I gave them a mini gear demo myself, showing them my harness, shoes and jumars, did they actually believe I was climbing with the guys. Then they got really excited. Today I looked up from writing in my journal to find six girls clustered at the back window of my tent, and eight women crouching in my vestibule.

Since my conversations with them mostly consist of smiling and saying salaam alaikum (hello), and pointing up at Tahir Tower and nodding, I did that for a while. Then I showed them pictures of my dog. I'm not sure what they think about that. I was disconcerted when about twenty more women and girls poured into the vestibule, especially as this is a bivy tent. Feeling claustrophobic, I got out, and saw a dozen more approaching.

Evidently, Zahid had told them they could come see me climbing yesterday (usually there are about forty people in our base camp watching when we go up on the wall), but they weren't able to get out of the village. So today they all told their husbands they had to go out and collect wood, as an excuse to come down here. They were terribly disappointed when it began to drizzle and we took a rest day. So instead they wanted me to come to their village.

I jumped out of the tent and set off in the giant caterpillar procession of women with baskets of twigs and brush on their backs. They were all shouting and laughing, the littlest girls jumping up and down with glee, because I was coming to the village. I couldn't help but laugh too, they were all so excited and happy, although I must admit I wasn't sure what they found so exciting about me, as I can't even speak Balti. Zahid came along as well, as I wanted a translator and he hadn't yet met with the people of Khorkondas village either. So off we went, in a big laughing parade. I looked back and saw Jimmy and Brady looking jealous.

I had forgotten to grab a head scarf when I left my tent, and the women began to get agitated as we reached the military checkpoint (a rather extravagant term for two canvas tents with a few guys drinking tea and shoeing horses on the dirt road), telling Zahid I REALLY needed a scarf. He took his off his head and gave it to me, and as soon as I covered my hair the women all got happy and cheerful, clapping their hands and tugging my arm and saying "gasha!", which means beautiful.

We flowed through the heart of the village, on narrow dirt pathways lined with houses built of stones, mud bricks, basket woven twigs, and wood beams. The village headman usurped me from the girls, and led me with a cluster of boys and men higher above the village to see their sulphur hotspring. They are very proud of it, and have made a pipe conduit which carries the hot water down to a shower and bath house, located in a place of prominence right beside the mosque.

As we walked up, I turned my head and caught a glimpse of an incredible rock tower set on the Saltoro Glacier. I began basically freaking out and wanting to climb it, but my enthusiasm was tempered by the discovery that even the villagers are no longer allowed to take their herd animals there because it's a pretty hot military zone. Still, I could hardly wait to get back to base camp and tell the boys about it. Now that we've made such good friends with the special forces officers and are naming our tower after Brigadier Tahir, maybe we'll get some extra consideration? But then, being in a firing zone near the line of control doesn't sound so appealing.... I keep forgetting what a crazy trip this is.

Back in the village, the women invited me up a wooden ladder and into a tiny dark room that reminded me of a Patagonian climbers' hut, but smaller and darker. They wanted to make green tea for us. We sat on old pieces of cloth on the dirt floor, and as my eyes adjusted to the dark, about twenty people crowded in. An old woman sat behind me, and kept tugging on my arm and speaking to me, smiling ecstatically. Zahid translated our conversation about how many brothers and sisters I had, if I had parents still, if I was married, if I had children. She tugged on my arm and pointed across the room. "Her grandchildren," Zahid said.

"Gasha!" I said. She looked thrilled. Then she tugged on my arm again and pointed to the woman next to me who was pouring water into the blackened pot sitting on the twig fire. "Her daughter," Zahid said. "Gasha!" I said, feeling pretty satisfied with getting so much use out of my vocabulary. She clasped her hands together and rocked her head back and forth smiling beatifically, looking ready to faint with joy. "Tell her I have one grandmother too, Zahid."

Her daughter and son-in-law insisted that we take a gift of five eggs after we finished our tea, and then Zahid got anxious to get back to camp and start dinner. I was touched by the gift, after having seen the poverty of the villagers' homes, and how hard they work to till their green fields in this high mountain desert. Back in the States, the four of us climbers pretty much qualify as skitters. None of us has even had a permanent residence within the last six years, if you don't count vehicles.

The only way we can afford to come on an expedition like this is through the generosity of basically the whole climbing industry — the Polartec Challenge and American Alpine Club grant committees, NOLS, Patagonia, Five.Ten, Black Diamond, Sterling, Clif Bar, A5, Mountain Hardwear, Colorado Custom Hardware, Met-Rx, Smith Optics, Cascade Designs — you name it, they probably helped us with gear or funding.

But the irony is that compared to the people here, we're incredibly rich. These Baltis scratch out a living, and sometimes can't even afford the two-hour drive to get free health care from the military hospital, even if they're close to death. So the gift of eggs from my Balti hosts was incredibly generous, and they would not allow us to refuse it. I thanked them profusely ("saddam besum!"), and we left the village, walking through rows of smiling, shouting Baltis. As we wound out through the fields, another small group of women stopped us. They all tugged on my arm and my scarf. "They wery happy you are wearing the scarf. They say it is wery beautiful, and they are wery wery happy," said Zahid. Evidently the scarf is a big deal.

We walked back down the road, feeling happy and at ease. "They are all our friends now, Zahid. A few days ago when Brady and I walked to that valley through the village, everyone was yelling and I was afraid. I thought they were angry at us. Well maybe because I didn't have a scarf."

"Yes sir. Wery good willage. Good peoples. Now I am happy here. First many peoples coming to Basecamp, and I not sure if they are good. Now I wery happy. Maybe we buy a goat for killing and the peoples wery happy."

We walked down past Tahir Tower. "Sir, willage people name this not Tahir Tower. Local name means blood, coming down, tower. But they happy with Tahir name, honoring Brigadier General. Wery important."

Hmm. Tahir Tower or Blood Oozing Down Tower. It does have a certain ring to it. We'll have to think about that....

— Steph Davis, MountainZone.com Correspondent

Email this story to a friend