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23/01/2014
Woke up to clear skies! Scrouged as many bottles as I could find, and ended up getting 4 litres of water. The trek was going to take all day, starting at 7. Unfortunately however there was only petrol water. Just what this machine needed… The water was stored in an old petrol drum and the water absolute REEKED of petrol. It basically pretty much was petrol. I taped up my shoes and we were good to go. Destination… pretty god damn high!
We snaked up round the mountain, this time with ZILCH trail to follow in waste deep snow. Czech tractor led out but the two guides soon got bored. The little guide, tiny guy of about 15/16 hopped to the front and honestly ate up the snow, doing what ever he had to do get through it, punching and kicking it. The other chilled at the back to make sure everything was cushty. On we climbed at it was real ARCTIC conditions. Unlike before, the sun couldn't be seen and it was really cloudy. We eventually reached an unused tea house and took stock and had some chocy bars. Kurt was carrying a massive back and is a big bloke himself, and was unsurprisingly finding it tough as he kept sinking in the snow. However he doesn't get called Czeck tractor for nothing, and Thomas rose to the occasion and carried Kurt's mahooosive bag on his neck, along with his own, plodding determinedly on towards the top. Was an absolute mind blowing effort. He really kept the moral going for the troops as well, always shouting back encouragement for the group, giving status reports of how far we are, and the obligatory 'we gonna do it!!'
On we went and it really started to come in and the temperature plummeted. I whipped out the michelan man. My beard and tash also got ice in it, and my buff completely froze solid, as if dipped in liquid nitrogen like you see on TV. I kept having to bite it with my mouth and use my tongue to soften it up. My water also completely froze over. There were times where you would look up and just see bellowing icey winds blow over the mountain it would turn into a complete arctic white out where you couldn't even see the person infront of you. We buckled up and got low, braced for it and waited for the visibility to clear. It was real Hollywood stuff, and pure adventure.
We ploughed on and eventually it got sunnier as the day went on. And we were there! We came over the last bit and seen the top, with the sign and its prayer flags!!! WE HAD DONE IT!!! Was such an epic epic moment, one which shall stay with me forever. Everyone hugged each other and we were all buzzing. Haha but Frenchy wasn't anywhere to be seen, and around 20m from the top he shouted up 'I need a s***' before joining us later after taking the highest dump of all time. Haha of all the places and times, funny funny moment!!!
I scoffed every last one of my choate bars and my jaw hurt chewing it as it was so cold and the chocy was so hard. But they tasted unreal!!!
Down we went and it was like telly tubby land, the hills were really rolling. We also noticed that Frenchy was in a really bad way. He had been struggling all day and he said he was starting to feel the altitude. He looked more and more zombie like and had that glossed eyed look that Lawrence had a few days earlier. Was really worried and I honestly thought he was gonna collapse. I threw him some diamox and luckily every step he took meant more and more oxygen in his body.
The descent was also a funny one. I slipped over at least 50 times. The views were amazing though. Everything was covered in snow and you could see so many mountains. I was SO glad it snowed. We stopped at an unused tea house and waited for everyone to catch up. Kurt entered last, saying 'get me off this f***ing mountain', throwing two broken trekking poles onto the floor. Everyone creased with laughter!
We eventually found our hotel and everyone sighed with relief. We all put our things by the fire. We all had a nice room each and we all enjoyed a really nice dinner.
Later on one of the guides got a bit tipsy and started spouting loads of s***e, like how he'd hasn't had a shower in 6 months as its so cold, how he hates Chinese as he is Tibetan and that he has shot a Chinese man before, and that he's a smack addict. Bit random way to end the night! After waiting for the juice to come back on at 9:30pm, I got the wifi on, and also found out Sunderland reached the league cup final!!! I was going home!!!!!! Kurt's into his footy and he was well happy for me. Had an awesome night's kip.
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