DISPATCHES

Chin

"Huh?!!...here, in the middle of camp?"

"Yes, why not?"

"Uhhhh... sure?"

The Captain motioned for a guard standing nearby to hand over his weapon. The Captain handed the rifle to me and I took it with unsure hands. I was bit nervous standing there with a fully automatic weapon surrounded by Pakistani Special Forces men in the middle of Dansam Siachen Born Military Base. I looked up again; Dave looked fairly terrified that the Captain had allowed me of all people to hold a loaded gun.

"NO, NO! Do not point it over there," the Captain ordered, as I watched several soldiers duck for cover. He pointed up towards a huge cliff. "Over there."

I pointed towards the cliff and fired away. I staggered back. The Captain smiled as he disarmed me. Within seconds, he popped out the clip, checked that the chamber was empty, flipped the clip back in, locked the safety and threw the rifle back to the guard. The guy disarms terrorist and saves hostages for a living. I tried not to look too stunned or impressed.

"Ah, very nice," I said. Dave looked a lot better now that I was disarmed. The soldiers looked relieved, too. Later, I got to experience their angst, when Steph picked up the rifle and made a small joke about "nobody better mess with me!"

Being back on the ground was getting more ridiculous than anything I had experienced hanging 3000 feet off the deck. After getting off the wall, Steph, Brady, Dave and I had been invited to spend an afternoon and evening at the Dansam Military Base. We were, supposedly, the first civilians to ever visit the base.

During our stay in the Kondus, we had befriended the Captain of the Special Forces Group and several of the men. They stopped by on several occasions for climbing seminars about anchors, knots, rappelling techniques etc. and also to check on our progress on the wall.

The Captain always brought gifts of sodas and cookies. They had all been fairly convinced that we were not going to be able to climb the tower. Now that we had, we were small celebrities and they treated us as such. We got a nice tour, inspected their high altitude gear and had a huge feast.

Spending time with the Captain and Major of the Special Forces was educating, even though we were not always sure what questions were appropriate to ask and what questions we might get shot for knowing the answers to. We all found common ground with the officers on topics such as marriage, freedom and what we all thought were the important things in life. We ended up staying late and spending the night.

Today, we just said goodbye to the Brigadier after a nice dinner at our hotel. Tomorrow the team splits up. Dave and Steph are heading home and Brady and I heading north for a bit more exploring and climbing. It is always hard to break apart a close knit team that has been living, eating, breathing and hoping together for such an intense period of time. I am anticipating a bit of separation anxiety and already look forward to seeing them again soon for more adventures.

— Jimmy Chin, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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