Rakaposhi base camp

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Friday September 15th

After a few relaxing days in Karimabad it was time to leave for Minapin and Rakaposhi Base Camp trek. We had breakfast, checked-out and then walked down from Karimabad to the KKH. We hailed a Suzuki that was going to Aliabad, a sort of market town with onward minibus to Minapin. It took about half an hour to get there, during which we had to have all our lugages on our knees to be able to squeeze an extra person in. Comfy! Then we had to wait for about an hour and a half for a minibus to leave to Minapin. We passed time by drinking mango juice and looking at the people around. I could already feel a slight change from Karimabad, less women in the street. People were still very friendly, they were trying to help us out as we looked a bit lost.

The ride to Minapin wasn't too hard. After China these 2-3 hours ride are a piece of cake. The scenery was amazing as always, the road a little scary and after we left the highway, extremely bumpy but we reached our destination by around 1PM without any major trouble. I spent most of the time in the minibus reading my new book (Dalrymple: From the Holy Mountain). The minibus dropped us at Diran's Guesthouse which receives good review in the guidebook. We took dorm bed in a room with a swissgerman guy who seemed to have been there for several days already.

The guesthouse is really stunning. It has a big courtyard with apple, walnut and apricot trees. You can pick out whatever you want from the trees to eat. There are a few cows grazing here and there and a few locals working to collect walnuts (since it's walnut harvesting season). Really idyllic place to sit down and marvel at the scenery, or read a book which is what I spent most of the afternoon at. Before chilling out, Jason and I had some curry and chapatis at the hotel restaurant. As we were about to finish we were joined by a german guy named Samuel who spoke with a heavy german accent. He was also heading to the base camp so we told him he could join us.

Rakaposhi base camp trek is said, according to the lp guidebook to take 3 days but we decided to do it as a day trip as we don't have camping equipment and I like to walk more than the 4 hours that the LP says you should walk...

There was a communal dinner in the evening and I was surprised by the number of people: 10-12! The food wasn't too great and I wasn't very hungry but people were interesting. There was a guy who came back from Afghanistan who shared stories about the country, a french guy who lived in quebec before and his australian girlfriend kept the conversation going and interesting. It turns out the french guy lived in Gatineau (albeit on the wrong side of it, in Hull), where I used to live with my parents!

I read some more then went to bed since we were gonna have a long day tomorrow. Before that we ordered breakfast for 6:30 tomorrow so that we could leave early. I realized before going to bed that the daypack I had bought in Kashgar, not two weeks ago wouldn't last the journey up and down so I removed stuff from my backpack and decided to go up with that.

Saturday September 16th

We woke up in time for our breakfast. I had corn flakes with milk (anything else is too heavy for 6:30). It turns out there was another german who joined us, a cyclist I had seen yesterday on the road at the Karimabad junction on the KKH. We said goodbye to the french/australian couple who were heading north to Passu that morning and started attacking the mountain. First we had to get out of the village, following the water channel to the river and then cross a bridge. After that it was steep, continuous, sweaty slope that just seemed to keep on going up and up. I followed Samuel at first but then fell behind him. He just kept going at a fast pace, even overtaking the local who was also going up. That first ascent wasn't too high, maybe 400m. It's just that my pride forced me to try to keep up with Samuel which was just not gonna happen and made the ascent look really hard.

Samuel waited for us at the top and then we walked on a plain that went up slowly for about 30 minutes. We couldn't see Rakaposhi or the glacier yet but the scenery was beautiful, with local people herding their animal around or walking up with a donkey. Mountains landscape like I like 'em. The plain turned more steep at some point but before we knew it, we were at the first campsite (according to LP) 800m up from Minapin, about 2 hours after we left the guesthouse. We stopped there to have some chai at a stone hut which Samuel insisted on paying. We talked and relaxed for a good 45 minutes before heading up again for the last 400m.

We managed to follow the germans for a few minutes but then the two "German Machines" just lost us completely. We went at our pace, which was much slower than theirs. After walking for a few minutes we started feeling a cold wind, coming from above. We were getting near. As I was making my way up the last steep slope, the view of the snow-capped mountains appeared, with more being revealed at every step. But that was not enough to prepare myself for the truly breathtaking view I had when I finally reached the top and finally laid my eyes on the Rakaposhi Glacier. Wow. There is nothing else I can say I was just so impressed I had to sit down for 5 minutes just to stare in amazement.

It was a short walk to the basecamp from there, where I met up with Jason but not the "Machines". We sat around on a crest, eating lunch wondering where the hell the germans went. It was really a great place to sit and enjoy nature. I talked with a Pakistani man in a tent at the Basecamp and talked with him for a few minutes. He told me there was an Hungarian team attempting the, very technical, ascent of Diran (a 7300m or so mountain close to Rakaposhi). He said climbers died on that mountains recently.

After about an hour of waiting for the germans, we decided to go up a ridge, about 200m above basecamp because we had been told the views were even better. We went up there and they were right. Just totally breathtaking. Also we discovered that on the other side of the ridge it was Fall already, the leaves in the tree were yellow and some plants were red. We sat there for about an hour, relaxing and talking. We saw the germans pass by the base camp at some point and shouted them to tell them where they were but they didnd't want to come up.

We decided to go down on the other side of the ridge and walk to the hut where we had chai. It seemed good in theory but in practice we didn't find a straight way back - we had to cross the ridge one more time, find some sort of path and then make our way back to the hut. It was a bit scary as the way down the ridge was really steep and we had to be careful not to fall as we would have nothing to stop us for 200-300 meters. But everything went according to the plan. From there it was all downhill - literaly. A bit hard on the knees, especially since the path is full of little rocks, making every step a potential hazard forcing you have to watch your feet at all the time.

We reached the village by around 5 but had to ask our way around a bit as we were a bit lost but people were really friendly and some man with a donkey cart told us where to go. We met the germans there who had arrived 30 minutes earlier. They told us they had decided to walk a bit farther from the base camp and then they also sat down and ate.

We had another not good communal meal. It was a bit more quiet this time with the french/australian gone. There were 3 chinese girls who were going up the next day whom Jason "practiced" his chinese with. After dinner I shared some canned pineapple I had with Jason and Samuel in the garden. I discovered that Samuel was a fellow biochemist but we refrained from having a passionate discussiong about the Krebs cycle. He gave me some tip on how to buy a sawar kemaaz, the traditional pakistani tunic and trouser combination, since I was planning to get one because I think they look cool.

We had walked about 8 hours that day so we didn't stay up late, especially since we had to catch the 6:30AM bus to Gilgit tomorrow.

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Photos

Rakaposhi Glacier
Diran and Rakaposhi hidden in the clouds in that shot.

Diran
Here's the baby giant

Rakaposhi
You can't see Rakaposhi well because it is out of focus. The colors in the tree/grass was lovely though.

Rakaposhi 3
From the other side of the ridge. It was really beautiful with the red plants, yellow trees, white mountains and blue sky.

View of Nagyr
On the way up to the Base camp

Rakaposhi Glacier 2
With the base camp at the bottom left.

Rakaposhi 2
Here is the giant, briefly removing its cloud cover.

Rakaposhi close up
Here it is.

Rakaposhi Glacier 4
I simply couldn't stop myself from taking a bunch of pictures at slightly different angles.

Comments

[zartash]

hello
i've been to northern areas twice but the way you presented it is really amazing..