DISPATCHES

Heilprin

	In Pakistan

A series of minor mishaps — the most serious involving the temporary loss of a $15,000 satellite phone and nearly two dozen cartons of Camel cigarettes to encourage the camel drivers — beset the 18-member expedition from the first day on and caused some tensions to surface.

But starting the second week, the team has begun to coalesce. The two days spent in Kashgar have included a day spent shopping for fresh produce and other supplies.

"We are actually on schedule, which is totally amazing. And we're actually in good spirits," expedition leader Jeff Alzner, recovering from making final preparations in the past several weeks, told the team in Kashgar. Then, he added: "We have to remain friends."

Expedition co-leader Wayne Wallace, who also had exhausted himself during the last days leading up to the expedition's launch, recounted a hilarious dream from the night before that he had been "battling dinosaurs to get the expedition off the ground."

"Oh, there's no symbolism there," Mike Bearzi, one of the expedition's most experienced climbers, wryly chimed in.

Part of the struggle involved the digital technology. Intended to join the expedition with computer users everywhere, the sophisticated equipment — and presence of team members with an observer's role — had the ironic effect of briefly splitting apart the team physically and philosophically.

First, several members took later flights from New York City to Islamabad to help prepare the expedition's web site. And at JFK, one of the expedition trucks filled with gear was towed from outside the Pakistan International Airlines terminal. A $70 fine was paid.

Then the satellite phone that provides the key link for the expedition to communicate was inadvertently left behind at the airport. It took a week to get the phone back, delaying the sending of dispatches on the expedition's progress.

The glitch with the phone resulted in some tense confrontations over whether to delay the expedition once all the members had arrived in Pakistan, staying at a hotel in Rawalpindi that is the chaotic and sprawling neighbor to the more modern Islamabad. Although the communications equipment is essential to the expedition meeting the demands of tens of thousands of dollars of sponsorship contracts, changing the itinerary could have been difficult and expensive.

"This is a K2 expedition. This is not a phone expedition," Alzner snapped at one point. Later, in a calmer mood, he explained: "There's a little bit of an edge to keep going, to keep on schedule. Losing the satellite phone was bad, but a satellite phone isn't going to help us climb the mountain."

At a team meeting, Heidi Howkins, the expedition's sponsorship coordinator who hopes to become the first American woman to climb K2, asked the members to wait for her before crossing the Chinese border. There also was some discussion over the six canisters of oxygen the team is bringing to the mountain for medical purposes; the expedition hopes to reach the summit without bottled oxygen or high-altitude porters.

Howkins contacted her fiancé who rushed from Connecticut to the airport and found the phone beside the X-ray machine at JFK where it was left. He put it on the next flight and Howkins remained behind in Islamabad to pick it up.

Meanwhile, Alzner had bought 22 cartons of Camel unfiltered cigarettes to help keep the approximately 25 camel drivers happy on the trek toward base camp. He feels they are essential to getting the drivers, leading a pack of some 75 camels, to stick around and help carry loads up the mountain.

But the cigarettes were left by mistake on the plane after the 16-hour Pakistan International Airlines flight. After filing an official complaint, the cartons that had gone on to Karachi were sent back to Islamabad and returned to the expedition. Meanwhile, another 18 cartons also were received from the later members arriving from New York.

As the expedition wound its way up the Karakoram Highway, the spectacular overland route to China through some of Pakistan's most beautiful mountains, Howkins had to play catch up. Accompanied by Greg Ritchie, who along with Jeff Rhoads is filming the expedition for National Geographic, Howkins navigated the dangerous highway by night - at times taking the wheel herself.

But even before they got out of Islamabad, Ritchie was detained and questioned for about an hour by Pakistani police for filming just outside the airport's cargo area. "I was off making new friends," Ritchie said with a laugh, "while [Howkins] was in customs."

On the bus ride, expedition members gawked at sights such as 8,125-meter Nanga Parbat's towering North Face and the magnificent massif of 7,788-meter Rakaposhi. They stopped for all-too-frequent photos, got to know each other in endless conversations or partied in the rear of the bus. Nights were spent at surprisingly comfortable hotels.

"I feel like a kid pulling into the Disneyland parking lot," expedition co-leader Wayne Wallace marveled at the highway's breathtaking scenery. Mike Bearzi, one of the team's most experienced climbers, mused that one glacier descended like an "emissary" from the hulking white presence of mountain and clouds above.

The Pakistani driver at times reached speeds of up to 110 kmh on the two-lane road, straddling the Indus River, where vehicles often played a game of chicken and just barely avoided each other with seconds to spare.

About half the team fell ill during the nearly 800-mile ride from Rawalpindi to Kashgar, incurring at least a brief bout with some form of gastrointestinal distress, headaches, altitude sickness or mystery bugs.

In the town of Aliabad Hunza, another problem arose. The plan had been to pick up 475 new Epi-Gas canisters, which contain a butane propane mix, for high altitude use in cooking and melting snow. But the office of Nazir Sabir Expeditions, which is handling most arrangments, only had old canisters, and some team members worried that some of these were less than full. New ones cannot be bought in Pakistan. Despite the canisters' "dubious quality," Alzner said, there should be "more than enough" since only 300 are needed for the climb.

The team drove over the 4,733-meter Khunjerab Pass, the highest paved-road international border crossing in the world, and through two major mountain chains, the Pamirs and the Karakoram. The peaks jutted like sharpened teeth from the fertile plain, where yurts and primitive buildings housed yak herders, farmers and camels. A pack of seven sport-utility vehicles, led by a Chinese police truck with sirens and lights blaring, made for an odd sight amid the desert landscape and dunes resembling Utah or Nevada.

Though the expedition passed over the Chinese border without waiting for Howkins and Richey, it finally met up with the two while passing through Chinese customs. Howkins also had lost her American passport, but had her British passport with all the required visas as a backup.

And after a competitive game of high-altitude basketball pitting the K2000ers versus Chinese Customs (Bearzi suggested throwing the game), the expedition — which had budgeted $3,000 for the border crossing — avoided paying any duty fees.

The Chinese team had the home-court advantage, of course, playing at 3,200 meters. Led by the expedition's translator, Xie Qian, a 21-year-old Beijing university student otherwise known as Michael, the Chinese stuffed the hoop a few more times than the Americans. "We'll ask for a rematch on the way back when we're acclimated," Wallace vowed.

About half the expedition's $250,000 budget has gone to China for all the team's travel expenses including the cost of a liaison officer, hotels and a $1,750 climbing permit.

"I'm a little worried that after all of these struggles everything is going so well," Wallace joked soon after arriving at Kashgar, a surprisingly busy oasis city that for 2,000 years has been an important destination on the ancient Silk Road trading route.

Moments later, he laughed when the team discovered that one of the Chinese trucks carrying the expedition's climbing gear had broken down about 200 kilometers away. It was exactly as Alzner, who was suspicious of the truck's condition, had predicted. The truck arrived the next morning.

— John Hielprin, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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