Tagne 2001

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Dan's Diary

Day 24 - Saturday 21st July 2001

Andy and Steve return to Base Camp

Tea arrived as usual outside the entrance to our tent at 8am. I had been up long before to empty my bladder. I had tried doing my sleeping bag zip all the way up. Knowing this would make me too hot I thought it would make me sweat. I was hoping this loss of liquid would prevent me having to get up at the crack of dawn every morning to empty my bladder but it hadn't worked.

I eventually summoned the energy to move at 8:30am. I drank my cold tea and then visited the toilet tent. After fighting with the tent door zip, which had long since given up working properly and now blatantly refused to do up for me, I did battle with the many resident flies. I ended up squatting down with one hand holding the two sides of the zip together so the wind didn't whip them apart, the other hand keeping my trousers out of the line of fire. My mouth was kept firmly shut so flies didn't fly in and my nostrils closed to the potent odours. My forehead leant against the pole of the tent for balance, while I prayed that it didn't give way sending me into the pit below. Afterwards I set about washing my hair in the bowl of warm water Sonam had brought us. Using soap instead of shampoo was an interesting experience, and probably not one to repeat. On drying my hair stuck together as if someone had poured glue over my hair and let it dry. Also I wasn't convinced my hair was any cleaner than before I'd started. Breakfast was eaten at 9am. Muesli was the cereal on offer that morning. I fished out the sultanas. I am not the world's best lover of sultanas at the best of times but when they are green, as they are in India, I was really turned off them. The milk we had each morning to go on our cereal was warm. This was because it was made up from powder, and thus the water had to be boiled. You only have to have hot milk on cereal once to discover it is not very nice. Hot milk turns cereals into a unappetising stodgy paste, and the Indian cereals were better than most at forming this wallpaper paste. Omelette and spicy noodles followed the muesli. Salt was added to every meal, as I wanted to stay well hydrated.

The pot was covered with slogans and phrases, which read; "Free Flowing Iodised Table Salt" "It does not absorb moisture" "It remains free flowing even in the rainy season". Perhaps the manufacturers would like to come and see our pot. For the salt was forever absorbing the steam from our food, and then clogging up the small holes. Further down the label it went on to say, "regular use of iodised salt prevents Iodine deficiency disorders such as goitre, stunted growth etc."

The manufacturers failed to tell you that while it would prevent stunted growth and goitre it would increase the risks of high blood pressure, heart disease and heart attacks.

After breakfast I set about completing the right hand side of my bench seat along the back of the mess tent. Sonam decided to compete with me by making a bench seat with a backrest outside the door to the mess tent.

Sonam congratulates Andy on the first ascent of Tagne

Around about 11am Narinder could be seen returning over the screes. Sonam shouted to the chef to make a pot of tea. We welcomed Narinder back and he was full of smiles. He had reached the top of Tagne with Andy. Narinder discussed the route they had taken and how difficult it was. They had ascended the scree ridge to join the hanging cwm from the north. They climbed the glacier on the back wall of the cwm and ascended to the col. From there they followed the snow ridge to the top. From the col the ridge had looked impossible to walk along and Narinder had wanted to turn around but Andy had persuaded him to go and have a look. They discovered a small icy slope up the back of the rock band, which they climbed. Along the ridge in the other direction from the col was an easy walk up to the false summit, which could be seen from Base Camp. From the summit they had abseiled over the rock band and down into the cwm, taking the right hand ridge.

Alan returned half an hour later and told us his news. Peak 6250 was a non-starter but peak 6030 looked climbable and interesting. We ate tea and biscuits as we continued to catch up on each other's news. I finished off the wall and found some large slabs of rock to go on the top. I washed off the dirt with river water so they would be clean to sit on.

Andy and Steve returned at 12:45pm, Steve with a bad cough. We congratulated Andy on reaching the summit and listened to what he had to say. Andy reckoned my seat / wall was the neatest dry stone wall he'd ever seen.

Rice, dhal and potato balls were on the menu for lunch at 1pm. After lunch we discussed and quizzed Andy over the route they had taken. Steve, Alan and Andy, for want of nothing better to do argued over minor discrepancies about the location of the false summit, and whether the north ridge of Tagne was feasible. The arguments stemmed largely from not having accurate maps. The 1851 map showed only one mountain in the whole area. The Leomanns map was better with six or seven peaks but still only had one large glacier at the head of the valley, when there were at least three. Andy refused to agree with the location of the col, on a sketch Alan had drawn, but Narinder thought the sketch was correct. Alan and Steve managed to whet Narinder's appetite by telling him what they'd discovered. Originally he had said he wouldn't go back up to Advanced Base Camp because of all the loose scree. Stories were told throughout the afternoon. We heard how Alan and Steve had struggled to stop melt water from the "dry" glacier seeping into their tent. They had dug channels around their tent to divert most of the water away from the tent. Alan then proceeded to tell us how he saw red balloons and the face and bodies of people carved out of a rocky cliff face. Steve's camera lens had fallen off the end of his camera and into a crevasse. Narinder asked for a Paracetamol. If that's what two days with no one but Andy does to you, I dreaded to think what a week would do!

Fighting over the teatime snakcs

I undertook phase five of the dam project by filling in the double cavity wall with small rocks and scree. I retreated to the mess tent at 4pm where we all played cards. Fried curried vegetables were brought and soon devoured with cups of tea. A dark water laden rain cloud came up the valley. The valley plunged into a cold, semi-darkness as the cloud cut out the sunlight. At first it dropped nothing on us but then, all of a sudden hail the size of croutons were thrown down on us. Everyone dashed around the camp taking in the items that lay outside the tents and the clothing that had been left to air. Almost as soon and as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. The cloud passed and daylight was restored.

At 5:30pm Alan laughed just because he had my geological hammer to hit the floor with simultaneously. We all burst into laughter at the sight of Alan and the hammer was passed around the room so we could all feel the exhilaration of laughing while hitting the ground with a hammer.

Happy Birthday Andy!

Green-grey soup with grated carrot in it arrived at 6pm with popcorn instead of papadums. I passed the time between soup and dinner by making the Tagne teddy a pair of dungarees out of our 3mm accessory cord. Rice, cheesy-peas, peppered potatoes and curried eggs made one of the best meals we'd had so far, I thought. Andy and Alan went outside as it was too dark in the tent to continue reading. Sonam brought Andy's birthday cake around and put it on the table. The chef and Narinder followed him and we sung happy birthday to Andy. The cake was rather impressive considering the chef had only had a kerosene stove to cook on. The cake had the words "Happy Birthday Andy" written on it in white chocolate. Andy cut the chocolate and nut cake and we all had a piece. Andy had also brought a cough back with him. Steve, tired, retreated to his tent while we discussed the various features of head torches. My LED Lucido torch was taken outside and tested against the Petzl Zoom. LEDs won hands down. I covered a large mosquito in wax from a candle before retreating to my tent. There was a fly in my tent. I flicked it against the side of the tent. Two legs and a bloodstain were all that remained on the side of tent. These were left to warn other flies of the dangers they faced. I settled down for the night at 9pm.