In August 2011 two of my friends and I, lured by the promise of adventure and a desire to escape the city, travelled to the distant Shimshal Valley to attempt the 6,050m high summit of Minglig Sar, a trekking peak in the Pamirs.
For, Babar and Asad and I, the journey began in Karachi and ended in the small picturesque town of Hunza after the last leg of our journey – a 24 hour bus ride over the Karakoram Highway (KKH).
Once in Karimabad, we ran about trying to buy last minute supplies: spare parts for kerosene stoves, kerosene, can openers and such while also coordinating with our guide Naimat. He was to lead us back to his home in Shimshal, from where we would set out for a 10 day trek into the Pamirs and hopefully, to the summit of Minglig Sar.
To get to Shimshal, we first had to cross the Attabad Lake which was created after a massive landslide in January 2010. The 21km long lake serene body of water has added to the locals’ difficulties. Since transportation is now dependent on boats, the cost of travel and living has gone up.
On the way to Shimshal, we passed by the Tupopdan Peaks, also known as the Passu Cathedrals. The sun-drenched mountains stand aloof at one end of the lake. It took us an entire day to move from Hunza, over Attabad Lake to Passu and then to Shimshal Village.
We spent most of the night in Shimshal creating porter loads of 20kg each which were to be carried by our porters for the next 10 days over very difficult terrain. We soon realised we were drastically overweight and some very serious ‘load shedding’ ensued that night. We dropped some kerosene, a spare tent, almost all our canned fruit and much of our stock of noodles and soup. We had borrowed the stoves and tents from the LUMS Adventure Society and hadn’t had time to test them out. We worried silently about taking this untested equipment into the Karakoram. There is nothing out there but rock and mountain and a leaky tent at 6000 meters is no fun at all.
Day 1: The journey up to the Shimshal Pass would take us four days. Our bodies were still trying to acclimatise to the difficult terrain. We managed to trek for a few hours on the first day and by the end of it we were totally beat.
A note of advice for novice trekkers: the key to climbing at high altitudes is to walk up the mountain like an old man, take very small steps. You push yourself even a little beyond whatever pace comes naturally to you and you will end up with a nasty headache.
That night we camped on top of a hill overlooking the Yazghil Sar glacier. On that particular night, the weather was clear and the stars shone brightly. We had high hopes for making the summit of Minglig Sar.
We cooked dinner in a shepherd’s hut and soon realised that our primary stove with its double burners was leaking kerosene heavily and could not be used. We resorted to using our backup stove with a single burner which meant dinner would take longer to cook.
Day 2: By now we were acclimatising well. Manzoor and I trekked ahead of the main party, sliding down scree slopes and up narrow ledges with steep drops on one side. We would often lose ourselves in the monotony of placing one foot in front of the other and would stop to catch our breath after every ascent. While resting our chins on our climbing sticks and drawing deep breaths, we would look around at the mountain and gape at the majesty of the Karakorams as the realisation of where we stood sank in.
By the time it was evening, clouds had begun to move in but we were hopeful the weather would hold as we set camp.
Day 3: It started drizzling, making the mountain trek treacherous. Some segments had slippery red clay that would cake our boots, making them lose traction. We were really afraid that someone might slip and fall. I fell thrice on such a red patch but there was fortunately no steep drop nearby, waiting to claim my life.
As we stopped for a breather, our cook Manzoor surveyed the distant valleys we had covered in the last couple of days. Meanwhile, the clouds kept rolling in. It drizzled the whole time and our cameras stayed inside our waterproof bags for most of the day.
Day 4: We approached Shimshal Pass. Resting with us in a Shimshali shepherd’s hut, the porters prepared tea and soup on the stove. By this time, I had pulled a muscle in my neck courtesy of my year round bad posture (read hunched on my laptop) and was in considerable pain.
After lunch at Shuizerav, we ascended a trail to the pass where barren rock and dirt suddenly gave way to rolling parkland, snow capped peaks and hundreds of yaks, sheep and goats.
The plan was to rest for a day at Shuwerth and then spend another day acclimatising by climbing small hills in the vicinity before making the big push for the peak. The weather had cleared up by now and we hoped to drink juice at the summit.
Day 5: We sunned ourselves just outside of the village of Shuwerth. We spent most of the day playing cards and cooking. Yasser, our guide’s brother, hung out with us on our rest day. We introduced him to some very spicy food. The poor kid was stuck with us and ate despite tears streaming down his face.
Day 6: We roamed around and climbed a hill so we could acclimatise to the 6050m summit we would hopefully be standing on in another 32 hours or so. The weather had been very erratic. The sky would change dramatically within the space of a few hours, going from clear blue to murky and overcast.
Yasser and his friend accompanied us on our acclimatisation side-trip. They hopped and ran ahead of us, smiling and laughing as we huffed and puffed our way up to the top.
Day 7: We walked a couple of hours from Shuwerth to the Minglig Sar Advanced Base Camp (ABC) that morning. It snowed heavily, leaving us worried about our ascent. The plan was to spend the day at ABC and start trekking for the peak at 12am. The climb to the summit was expected to take 8 – 9 hours. We would climb the ridge leading up to the mountain’s snow cap where we would rope up, put on our crampons and hopefully reach the summit by 9am.
The weather cleared up in the afternoon and we began to grow more and more optimistic about the attempt. But things changed drastically. Our guide woke us at 11:30pm to come down to the porter shelter for soup. We opened the tent flap and looked out at a raging snowstorm. Due to limited visibility, one of our team members got lost trying to move from our tent down to the porter shelter some 50 feet below.
We hadn’t accounted for spare days in our itinerary and we decided we were not going up the mountain in such erratic weather. Getting stuck in a snowstorm at 6000m wasn’t our idea of fun. Well it was, but we also wanted to come back alive! So we broke out the juice we had saved up for the summit and drank it right then and there. The mountain would have to wait till we came back for it.
Days 8-10: We woke up to find most of the snow had melted around our tent and below. We left the advanced base camp that morning and trekked back to Shimshal Village, pounded by rain for three days in a row. On Day 9, one of my team-members slipped and almost fell to his death into the Pamir River. He was rescued by our very able guide. On the 10th day of our journey, we finally plodded into Shimshal Village, wet and exhausted, welcomed by Shahana’s (our guide’s niece) happy smile. It had been quite an adventure but it felt really good to be under a roof again.
The writer is a photographer, an educator and an adventurer. He can be reached at ahmad@darveshstudios.com
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