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Published: August 8th 2009
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We stayed and chilled at Qayum's for 3 or 4 days. Just relaxing, chatting and sorting out rough travel plans. We jumped on the back of Suzukis (little pick ups with seats in the back) down to Gilgit most days, I bought a shalwar kameez (which apparently lead to me becoming indistinguishable from some of the locals) and we both bought some hiking boots, decent ones, for less than 15 pounds for a couple of treks we had planned out. Gilgit town itself had a really nice feel to it, surrounded on all sides by large rocky mountains, poplar trees dot the hillside and greenery lines certain areas due to the water running down from the irrigation channels. It has one long dusty main bazaar, the smell of kebabs wafting and fruit vendors shouting for business. There's a real cocktail mix of people from all different ethnic groups in Pakistan, from pale skinned Chitralis to those with darker complexions. After a few days of generally just chilling out in Gilgit, and refreshing ourselves in Qayum's glacier melt water filled swimming pool and eating every night at the local kebab restaurant for about 30p, we headed off to do our first trek,
to an area known as Fairy Meadows.
We were up early and grabbed the local transport 2 hours south of Gilgit on the KKH to Raikot bridge, over the Indus. From here we rented a ridiculously overpriced jeep to take us up the jeep road to the trailhead at fairy point. Although possible to walk up, it takes about 4 hours, climbs about 800m, has no shade and generally didn't sound too appealing to us. The jeep ride however turned out to be worth it simply for the experience. This road was INSANE. Only just the width of a jeep, the road was made of gravel and clung precariously to the edge of the mountain side. The jeep climbed higher and higher still with a death defying drop half a foot from where the jeep's wheels were rolling along. To make matters worse, the turning circle was extremely poor and we didn't have a handbrake. So everytime we had to turn to climb higher still, we had to stop, roll slowly backwards towards the edge of the road before accelerating again round the corner.. wheel's spinning. More than one time, Joe and I found ourselves ready to jump out
of the keep to safety! At the trailhead, 2700m in altitude we relaxed for a bit, had a drink and got ready to walk. We came accross an Aussie couple and 2 English guys and ended up walking up with them. The trail followed a thin valley up with wild rose bushes and pine trees dotting the way. It was pretty easy going apart from when a local guy, I couldn't quite figure out why he was there, suggested a short cut and we ended up climbing the side of the valley, which was fairly steep! However, at the top we reached a stunning village, the man asked us to walk in single file and not look at the women working in the fields. The village consisted of little wooden houses surrounded by green maize and paddy fields with women bent over working away, it was literally clinging to the edge of the valley and the views were amazing, Rakasposhi visible in the far distance. An 45 minutes or so slog further through pine forest and we reached a grassy clearing, right on the edge of a ridge. Conveniently this happened to be the local mans campsite. We decided to
stay though as as soon as we said we'd take a look around and see what else was availible, we were offered a nice little wooden cabin for 300 Rupees, so about a pound each.
Fairy meadows, at 3300m, consisted of a small collection of little wooden hut villages built on the ridge of the valley we'd been following up. Snowy peaks surrounded us on most sides and straight ahead, the rubble covered Raikot glacier could be seen perched in between pine woods. What we'd come to see, Nanga Parbat, the 9th highest mountain in the world wasn't visible though as it was a little overcase. But we could wait! That evening we had a nice meal with the aussie couple and english guys. Good food and good conversation, and turned in early hoping to wake and see Nanga Parbat at sunrise. It didn't show unfortunately and it was even more overcast today. Joe and I decided to walk on further though towards a viewpoint over Raikot glacier. It was a nice walk through pine and conifer woods, little mountain streams running through and rocky boulders littering the way. We really began to feel the alititude as we climbed
to the viewpoint, 3800m, but the view was pretty awesome. Raikot glacier stretched out in front of us with the sound of it cracking echoing upwards. Sadly the weather hadn't cleared and we walked all the way back and got another early night hoping for more luck in the morning.
At 5.30am nothing was visible however we woke again at 6 literally to a wall of ice filling the sky ahead of us. Although the 9th highest, Nanga Parbat is the biggest mountain in the world in terms of sheer volume. What an absolutely amazing sight, I never could have imagined the peak being as high as it was, and the morning light reflected on the snow was really something. We spent the day admiring and getting sensible and ridiculous pictures from different places along the valley. Satisfied that we'd seen what we'd come for we made the 3 hour walk back down to fairy point, the hair raising jeep ride again, and spent about an hour on the KKH at Raikot bridge trying to hitch a lift back to Gilgit, but traffic was pretty scarce. I was desperate to hitch on one of the elaborately decorated trucks but
on uphill stretches of road they barely make walking pace so it probably wasn't such a good idea! A bus came through with space and we only payed a hundred each for the journey back. Next up was the polo festival at the Shandur pass.
Just to update on whereabouts, I'm in Calcutta at the moment, and heading south to Bangalore tommorow. Generally knackered and wanting some chill out time I'm thinking of heading to Goa for my last week or so and just relaxing on a beach. Joe is stuck in Islamabad applying for his India visa so hopefully he'll catch up with me soon!
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Dad
non-member comment
Excellent!
I so enjoy reading your blog entries! They're well written and make for very entertaining reading. Hope everything works out with Joe's visa.