Tagne 2001

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Dan's Diary

Day 16 - Friday 13th July 2001

Heading straight for the top

We got up at 5am, or were supposed to, to go on an acclimatisation walk. It was actually about 5:15am by the time I made it out of the tent. After a visit to the toilet tent I set about packing and bandaged up a cut on my finger. I lent Steve my spare walking pole and picked up the breakfast Sonam had brought us. We left Base Camp at 5:45am. There was just enough light to be able to walk over the scree without using a head torch.

By 6:18am we had reached Upstairs. The path up to Upstairs already felt familiar and had been well trodden. We had managed to walk fairly continuously completing the journey some ten to fifteen minutes quicker than the previous day, proof if ever we needed it that we were acclimatising well. Steve changed into his stiff boots, leaving his leather ones with the kit bags in the shepherd's shelter. We scrambled up, and traversed across the rocky staircase, following the cairns we'd built the previous day. Some had seemed a little precarious, as if they were going to fall over at any minute, but amazingly they were all still standing. We traversed across the slope towards the first gully, before turning and heading straight up the valley side. Loose scree covered the slope and threatened to slide every time you trod on it. The pace was slow as our bodies struggled to adapt to the lower oxygen levels. Steve found it hard going and before long we were stopping every fifty to seventy five metres of vertical ascent to wait for him to catch up and have a rest. Every step we took required concentration because once you started sliding who was to know where you'd stop? As we got higher up the side of the valley, the gradient increased and we were forced to zigzag. Care was now needed to ensure that those in the lead didn't dislodge scree on to other members of the group below. Patches of large rocks that were relatively firm but likely to wobble came interspersed with patches of small scree that moved down-slope under the weight of your foot.

Sitting on the "summit"

As we neared the top, the gradient decreased slightly and the threat of sliding down the slope vanished. I was able to relax a bit and didn't have to concentrate on where I was putting my feet every step. The scree was small and provided a firm even base. I thought I could see the top and made a beeline for it. As I approached so I found it was just another undulation on the slope. After crossing another two of these undulations I reached a high point from which, ever direction you went you had to go down. Although we wanted to think of it as a summit, really it was just a high point on a ridge of a 5800 metre high mountain. The others arrived not long after me eager to know what height we had reached. The altimeter watch read 5000m while the GPS suggested it was around 5105 metres. (It later turned out that the GPS was probably correct.) We looked at the stunning views up the valley towards Tagne, which was covered in cloud, and up the ridge to the 5800m mountain above us, only partially hidden by cloud. Down in the valley we'd trekked along, the Chandra river flowed 1000 metres below us and the peaks on the other side of the Topka Yongma valley shone in the sunlight from a hole in the clouds.

We sat on the scree top at 9:30am and ate our breakfast. Sonam had put together some Rotis in a napkin for each of us. Unfortunately the damp air caused the tissue to stick to the rotis and took ages to peel off. Inside were three rotis, one filled with Jam, one with cheese spread and one with peanut butter. We swapped the ones with fillings that we didn't like amongst ourselves. A chocolate bar, a hard-boiled egg, dried fruit and nuts all followed. It started to drizzle, so I put on my waterproofs, which duly made it stop.

Chilling at the top

We lay on the flat top and acclimatised the easy way. Andy reckoned navigation was easy, saying that you just dropped down the valley until you got wet, then turned left. "What happens if it starts to rain," I thought, "then you'd get lost." (Andy was of course implying that once you hit the river in the valley bottom you head downstream.)

At 10:45 Alan, Jon and I turned around and headed back down the way we'd ascended, leaving Andy and Steve to doze a bit longer. I had anticipated that the descent would be worse than the ascent had been, as they usually are, but to my surprise it wasn't as bad as I had thought. It was a case of one large side step, and a small slide with the loose scree. Side step, slide, side step, slide, I found myself keeping to this rhythm. Alan managed to find an accumulation of scree, which when he stepped on it, slipped further than he was anticipating. He overbalanced and was sent down-slope a couple of metres on his backside. We lost height rapidly, but as we did so the gradient increased. Our pace slowed as we took more care in what we trod on. We made our way towards one of our cairns, which could be seen further down-slope. On reaching the cairn I was glad to be back on what was theoretically a path, and although in practice just as unstable and exposed as the screes it conned my mind into thinking it was relatively safe. The path was followed across to the rocky staircase, which was then descended. I turned round suddenly on hearing the sound of falling rocks and stones to see Jon teetering on the edge of a ledge. He regained his balance and moved away from the edge. With that minor scare over we reached Upstairs at 11:45am. After a five-minute stop we continued on down to Base Camp arriving at 12:15pm.

Dan poses on the newly-cairned traverse

The chef had the kettle on and before long cups of tea and a plate of peanuts was heading our way. We sat in the mess tent and told Narinder where we had been and what we had done. He asked us what we had planned for the following day and suggested load-ferrying.

Andy and Steve could be seen crossing the screes into Base Camp at 1:05pm. They arrived some five minutes later. A spicy rice mix with just about every vegetable they had chucked in was served for lunch at 1:15pm. Steve didn't join us for lunch. He went and lay down in his tent with a stiff neck and a headache. I informed Andy of the plan to load-ferry on the following day and then we played cards for a couple of hours.

By 3:40pm, we'd had enough of cards. Andy went to read his book in his tent. I fiddled about with the altimeter watch and discovered that it was Friday the thirteenth. If I'd known that when I'd woken up I wouldn't have bothered to get out of bed! Tea and biscuits were served at 4pm. I perfected a way of eating the biscuits - dip them in your tea and then in the sugar bowl: soft on the inside, crunchy on the outside, yummy. The biscuits brought Andy and Steve out of their tents. Steve, Jon, Alan and I played cards again while Andy continued to read his book.

Come 6pm and the soup was brought to the mess tent. It was green today. An hour later and the main course followed. Rice, cheesy peas (peas mixed with cubes of white tasteless cheese) and a spicy bean mix was on the menu with jelly for pudding. The cheese, although nasty compared to English cheese, was surprisingly popular and everyone wanted more. After all this was the first time in two weeks we'd had cheese.

Steve stands on the bluffs above "Upstairs"

Having eaten, we discussed our plans for the next day by candlelight. We talked about load-ferrying, but Andy claimed it was a rest day and was annoyed no one had told him. I considered telling him that I had told him and only six hours ago but then realised it wasn't worth arguing over. Andy retreated to his tent refusing to help us load-ferry the following day and take a rest day the day after. Steve, Alan, Jon and I all decided a rest day was best after load-ferrying and therefore decided to load-ferry the next day. I cut prussik loops for those who needed them, sealing the rope ends in the candle flame. I went to bed with burnt fingers at 8:45pm.