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Tagne 2001 |
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Dan's DiaryDay 10 - Saturday 7th July 2001
I woke up to find all that was separating me from the hungry orifice of a donkey was a 0.5mm thick piece of canvas. I lay there not moving listening to the sound of the donkey tearing the grass and munching away. After a while the noises became more distant and I was thankful the animal had moved away from the tent. The usual cry of "Good morning Sir" came from Sonam, as he brought us each a cup of tea, telling me that it was 6am. I wanted to say "It was until you started shouting" but I refrained from doing so. With no chance of getting any more sleep I got up, washed and packed my sleeping bag into my rucksack. Cornflakes, roti and cheese and tomato omelettes were eaten for breakfast. Andy was not feeling too good again. He had a throbbing head. Porters took down his tent with him still packing slowly inside. The horsemen brought the donkeys down to the camp. The bells around the donkeys' neck clanged noisily as they approached. The sun soon came up over the valley side, only a few high sparse clouds shared the sky.
We left the camp at 7:55am and walked through Batal. Narinder had already set off up the road and was out of sight. We crossed the old bridge. The river waited excitedly 150ft below to catch us should one of the many warped or broken planks give way. On the other side the road climbed steadily up the side of the valley. Two jeeps passed us churning up clouds of dust. I took a deep breath and looked away until the clouds had settled, only to be hit by the exhaust fumes that still hung in the air. We soon left the dirt track and ascended a steep path. Our pace immediately slowed as we struggled to get enough oxygen into our lungs. We joined the road higher up having taken a short cut, missing out a hairpin bend. A bit further on and the road split. We thankfully took the lower rocky track, which had recently been extended as far as the Chandra Tal. The road deteriorated as we walked further and further along it. I was beginning to think that if it got much worse there wouldn't be a track there at all. The road kept ascending gradually, taking its toll on Andy, Steve and Alan, all of whom dropped back. I was walking with Jon just behind the lead porter as we rounded one bend. To our surprise, a man, who turned out to be German, stood with his pants around his ankles looking away from us. I wanted to retreat back around the corner, embarrassed by what I'd seen, but our porter just kept on walking, not even breaking stride. Jon and I followed on. I tried to keep my eyes on the road ahead, but sub-consciously you could see him out of the corner of you eye. By the time the man had realised we were approaching we had almost reached him. Knowing it was too late and we'd seen everything there was to see he half-heartedly covered himself up, hoping to regain some self-dignity. We acknowledged each other's presence by an exchange of hellos and kept on walking. Jon said to me in a quiet voice "Do you think we should tell him there are more people coming?" Jon was of course thinking that the chap might not have finished what he was doing, and once we were out of sight may have continued only to be disturbed again by Alan, Andy and Steve who had dropped some way back. "I think he'll find out soon enough" I replied, trying not to laugh.
We stopped at 9:20am and waited for Alan, Andy and Steve to catch us up. We admired the views across the valley and looked at the road ahead, which could be seen for at least 6km, etched into the side of the valley. Andy was in a go-slow no-stopping mood. He kept going, refusing to stop. We soon caught up and passed him as the road dirt track continued endlessly through the screes. The many channels of the braided river wove endlessly across the valley floor far below the road. After an hour or so the dirt track climbed up into a small valley, separated from the main valley by a mound of debris. We stopped for another rest at 10:50am. An eerie silence told me there was something missing. At first I couldn't work out what it was but suddenly it came to me. For the first time in three days we couldn't hear the roar of the river. It was a welcome change but it took a bit of getting used to. The clouds were gathering and a slight wind had picked up. Andy had kept on walking and before long the rest of us were heading after him. Andy had stopped by sharp bend in the road, unsure whether to take the road or a path, which went straight on. The lead porter showed the way was up the steep dusty path. The path went straight up the slope while the road zigzagged backwards and forwards in a series of hairpin bends. The ascent was hard, each step causing me to pant for breath. I kept my rhythm going to the top where the path entered another small dry valley to the side of and running parallel to the main valley. Jon asked me if I thought we should stop and wait for Alan, Steve and Andy. Wanting to get to the campsite, and believing they weren't far behind us I said that we should keep going. We cut across a grassy meadow, which the road went around before rejoining the dirt track on the far side of the meadow. I stopped just before a bend in the road and turned around to see how far behind the others were. Steve and Alan had only just reached the top of the steep ascent and Andy was nowhere to be seen. I stopped and waited expecting Andy to reach the top at any moment. It wasn't until Steve and Alan had crossed the meadow and almost reached me by the time Andy came into view. He didn't stop at the top of the steep ascent but kept plodding slowly towards us. Knowing that he was safe I set after Jon and the lead porter who had kept walking along the road. The wind picked up and started blowing the dust around. The dust covered everything. My leather walking boots looked more like suede and the dust stuck to the lip salve and sun cream I had applied to my face. I had never swallowed so much dust in my life. Every time I breathed dust rushed in, the grit grinding between my teeth. I made good ground, almost catching up with Jon and the porter. They stopped on the side of a small dusty hill, just above the dirt track. I reached them at 11:45am and found a flat boulder to sit on and rest. On the other side of the hill was the Chandra Tal. Its deep blue waters sparkled enticingly in the midday sun. Steve and Alan arrived some five minutes after I had and our porters jumped out of the back of a passing jeep. They left our rucksacks by the road and came up to see us. Andy turned up a long time after the rest of us and collapsed wearily in the dirt. He expressed his unhappiness at being left so far behind, which I think the rest of the group thought was a bit unreasonable since we had regularly stopped for him to catch up and when he had arrived he had just kept walking, leaving us behind. Sonam arrived shortly afterwards. Alan, Jon and I went to the top of the hill, separating the small valley we'd walked along from the main valley. From our viewpoint we could look right down on the river in the bottom of the main valley. It was a long way below us, its noise barely audible. On the far side of the valley the "CB" range of mountains dominated the skyline, their glaciers feeding the main Chandra River. We returned to where everyone was resting and awaited Andy's instruction to move.
At 12:30pm Andy's authorisation to carry on was given. We descended down the slope to the end of the road, which turned into a car park for the jeeps. The descent continued down to the lake. The stream flowing from the lake was crossed via stepping stones and the path taken along the shore of the lake, over a stream flowing into the lake. We sat on the far shore of the lake and had lunch. The hard-boiled eggs were not cooked all the way through, so after eating the good bits I made do with cheese spread in my rotis. A shepherd on the other side of the lake brought his sheep down for a drink. Not long after the sheep had moved on our donkeys came and passed along the other side of the lake. Our porters soon loaded up and followed the donkeys. Narinder, who had made friends with the resident shepherds living in a stone hut by the side of the lake, went for a swim in the lake. He dived in and swam a couple of strokes out before the cold set in and he turned around and jumped out. We walked around the lake following the rocky path at 1:30pm. The wind had picked up again and the cloud cover was now total. The mess tents were already up by the time we got to the campsite at 1:55pm at the other end of the lake. A nice flat grassy meadow by the side of the lake was our home for the night. Andy and Steve collapsed in heaps while Alan, Jon and I set about putting our tents up. The horsemen were no fools. All they had was a blue tarpaulin and a stick to live under. They had placed their shelters behind the stone seats that were dotted around the side of the lake, protecting them from the wind, which gusted across the lake. As soon as it was up, Andy retreated to the white tent, ill. Jon, Alan and I attempted to play Frisbee but it turned out to be too windy. Tea and both sweet and savoury biscuits were served at 2:30pm. Cricket followed with the new gaffer-taped tennis ball. It wasn't long before the porters came and joined in. We had several innings each, stopping only to add more gaffer tape to the ball when it started to come off. At 4:30pm we had had enough of cricket. Cards were played in the mess tent. Alan had his customary good luck but then lost spectacularly. Would this be a sign of things to come?
Tomato and vegetable soup came at 6pm, but Andy did not join us. More rounds of cards were played until 7pm when the evening meal was served. Rice, pea soup, dhal and peppered potatoes were on the menu along with a very nice, nutty cake for pudding. Andy came and ate a little but was feeling worse than ever. Sonam brought a Sikh doctor to come and have a look at Andy. The doctor had been spending the evening with Sonam and was staying at the other end of the lake. He took Andy's pulse and talked to him about his symptoms. The doctor recommended Diamox and Ibuprofen. We thanked him for his assistance and he returned to the other tent. Jon went off to get the prescribed drugs from his medical kit in his tent and Andy took the stated doses. Screaming started coming from outside. At first I thought it was someone playing around but then it happened again. The yelling continued in a random pattern, similar to how a cow moos, with long drawn out groans. The noise continued for some time prompting thoughts of what on earth was going on. I didn't dare go outside and take a look, frightened of what I might find. Sonam came to clear away the dishes and told us it was Narinder screaming in his sleep. We all laughed. (Quietly.) Andy drank his hot chocolate. Not long afterwards he walked out of the tent and could be heard throwing up. He retreated to his tent. We discussed what we would do the following day. One idea was to ascend a nearby scree ridge from where we should have been able to see Tagne. Although I wanted to do this, I decided I would probably need a rest day afterwards, a rest day we didn't have. So I resisted the temptation and decided to spend the day around camp. I read some more of the instruction manual for the altimeter watch and some parts of a mountain medicine book, before retreating to by tent for the night at 8:45pm.
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© Copyright Steve Jolly 2001. |
