DISPATCHES

Anderson

Personally we packed extremely light, the clothes on our backs plus some foul weather gear, a toothbrush, and a sleeping bag. But the physical demands of living on a wall necessitate bringing a ton of extra gear.

First there are the two portaledges, hanging cot-like sleeping contraptions that can be suspended almost anywhere on the wall, then food for 10 days for four people, 10 ropes, almost a hundred carabiners, pitons, stoppers, hexes, cams, webbing, hammers, computer, satellite phone and batteries for both and then there is the water.

With no natural water source on the wall we have to haul all of our water. Due to the hot temperatures we brought enough water for each team member to drink a gallon a day, so approximately 40 gallons and at eight pounds a gallon, our water weight alone is over 300 pounds!

Imagine you had to move all of this stuff from one apartment building to another. Maybe you would borrow a friend's pick-up truck and make two or three trips and due all the loading and unloading yourself -- fairly strenuous, right?

Now imagine that your new apartment is located 1800 vertical feet above your old apartment and you have to climb up, then haul the 1000 pounds of gear hand-over-hand up a granite wall in Pakistan. Let the hauling begin!!

With four people we were able to split up tasks and make efficient use of our people power. First we hauled all of our gear up 800 feet to a small ledge. Then Brady blasted up to our proposed new high camp to set up rigging for our portaledges and to organization for our arrival. Steph, Jimmy and myself took up the task of hauling three quarters of our gear the remaining 1000 feet up the wall.

Our plan for the remaining stuff would be for Jimmy and myself to return tomorrow and haul half of it, while Steph and Brady climbed several pitches above our new high camp. The next day the teams would flip-flop jobs, thus moving up the wall and splitting up the work and climbing tasks.

To actually haul up 1000 pounds of supplies hand-over-hand, would not only give you blisters, but would be quite dangerous. We used a technique called space hauling which is similar to the old dumb waiter elevators (we're the dummies).

Basically the haulbags are tied to one end of the rope which goes up to a pulley and then the three of us are clipped to the other end of the rope as counter weights. Since we weigh more than the gear we are hauling, the haulbags are brought up with theoretically little effort on our part.

However, the bags get stuck every corner and roof and when the bags are raised up to the pulley the three of us have to then ascend back up the rope, so we end up jugging twice the distance of the actual haul!

— Dave Anderson, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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