Don't race the mountain, otherwise it will win

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I didn't race the mountain and went up it at snail's pace so it didn't defeat me, but there is no accounting for the weather...

Catherine and I joined two others to do a four day trek to climb the local mountain, Stok Kangri, which is 6130m high. We had a Guide, a Cook, and a Donkey-man with about four donkeys to carry our heavy stuff. We trekked up stunning valleys of coloured rocks to a camp at about 4450m the first night (which was the full moon and perfectly clear), then to 'Base Camp' at 4900m for the second night.

We were woken at 12.30am with a cup of tea and set off walking at 1am - and I felt amazingly OK considereing I'd hardly slept. There was a bank of cloud that seemed to be clearing as we set off, so for most of the trek the sky was clear and I could see by the light of the moon. However, just as we started to cross a glacier a big bank of grey cloud appeared, and by the time we started up the steeper part it was snowing on us!

Unfortunately our 'Guide' lost the path and we ended up scrambling up a very steep (30 degrees at least) loose rock / scree slope, each making our own way as best we could. I was not very happy with the situation as any one of us could easily have knocked a rock down on to the ones below, or set off a rock slide. Also it was very hard to walk and requried a lot of energy to get up the sliding scree, which I found hard at over 5500m! Eventually we managed to get across the central section of snow and to a ridge where we found the path that we should have been on. The last part was much easier, even though we were at about 6000m by that stage, as the loose scree was frozen and there was a definite track to follow, even though it was very steep. I took it at a very slow pace and did not have too much problem with my breathing or the altitude. I reached the top at about 7am to find it in cloud and hardly any view at all - I was so disappointed as the main reason for slogging up the mountain had been to get the view (aparently you can see K2 and a lot of the Himalayas, as well as the Stok, Ladakh and Karakoram ranges).

We only stopped on the top for about 10 minutes as there was not much to see and a few people were getting cold (it was still snowing, so the temperature was pretty low). The first part of the way down was the most scary as it was very steep with a steep drop off on one side and the frozen ground which had been easy enough to walk up was another matter when coming down. I could have done with some crampons at that stage, even though it was not on snow, but the Guide had them and was no-where to be seen. I took it very slowly and carefully, concentrating very hard on where I was standing and used my poles for extra security. We then followed the path as it zig-zagged all the way down to a relatively flat section of snow which was easy to cross due to it's crunchy, crystaline nature. Just after we'd crossed the snow we saw the fork in the path which our Guide had missed on the way up.

We got back to camp at about 10.20am. Amazingly on the way down I felt quite energetic, but as soon as I sat down I felt very tired. Jochen, an older German guy on the trek had had problems with his vision at the top and had got very confused on the way down, not recognising me at one stage. I was a bit worried he might suffer from delayed altitude sickness (also he hadn't been able to sleep at the higher camp), so we decided to walk down to the lower camp that afternoon, after we'd had a short sleep.

The next morning I was frustrated to see that the sky was cloudless and the top of the peak was completely clear - argh! Maybe I'll have to go up again to get the views...

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