Karakul Lake

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It turned out that the abandoned parking lot WAS the correct place to go! They had recently changed it so that all buses to Tashkurgan (border town near Pakistan) left from that new place. The lake is about halfway between Kashgar and Tashkurgan. Bus tickets were around 50 RMB, much better than going with a tour guide who would not let you do your own thing. Also on the bus were some of the hostel crowd, including our funny French friend and also a woman from Los Angeles who sold her property and had been traveling solo for the past 3 years. She had been many places in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. I really admired her bravery and her sign language skills.

The Karakoram Highway was both the most scenic and the most crazy drive I have ever been on. Wikipedia says that it is the highest paved international road in the world (it goes from China into Pakistan). Also: 'Due to its high elevation and the difficult conditions in which it was constructed, it is also referred to as the "Ninth Wonder of the World."' I believe it. The mountains changed from sandy brown and grey to beautiful deep red to some of the tallest snow-capped peaks in the world. As the mountains became more epic, the road became more epically terrible. In many places, recent floods, rockslides and mudslides had either blocked the road or completely washed it away. Many times we had to veer off the road into a one-lane dirt road that had been carved into the mountainside a few days earlier in a rushed effort to let blocked traffic through. Our bus driver was really tough and always wanted to pass the cars and trucks in front of us. Well if I was driving on a one-lane road of questionable stability and with no shoulder and there was a giant truck coming from the other direction, I would not attempt to pass the bus in front of me! Alas, I was not driving the bus, and this guy probably had a lot of experience on the road and with playing chicken with giant trucks. There were lots of random police checkpoints and one time we had to get out of the bus and show an official looking guy in a building our passports. It was a very serious place with signs that told us not to take pictures.

The drive was long. Kayleigh and I fell asleep and I was just waking up when all of a sudden we were there! I remember feeling very strange and disoriented as we stumbled off the bus. The lake was at 3600 meters or almost 12,000 feet. Just a few days earlier, we had been below sea level in the Turpan depression (which has the 3rd lowest place on Earth). Actually we were not aware of this dramatic elevation change until we returned and looked it up on the internet. When we got off, several people came over and tried to get us to stay in their yurt. One guy was really pushy and grabbed at us, but one girl had a nice smile and gently said we could come into their house and then discuss where we wanted to stay. The girl seemed nice, so we went with her. In the summer, the girl, her sister, her brother, her mother and father live together in a stone and mud house. In the winter, they live in Kashgar. They are Kyrgyz and spoke Kyrgyz with each other. The girls go to school in a nearby city and spoke wonderful Chinese, so they spoke Chinese with us. She gave Kayleigh some more clothes. Who knew that Kayleigh is exactly the same size as a typical Kyrgyz man! I was mostly warm enough, but mom you were right, I should have packed a windbreaker.

They served us nasty salty milk tea (probably yak milk with yak butter in it) and stale naan. Actually the stale naan soaked in nasty tea was quite tasty, but separately they were gross. We figured out our arrangements - they would set up the yurt, we would stay in it for two nights, and we would eat with them. We heard it should be ~30 kuai/night, so we bargained it down from 60 kuai/night to 45 kuai/night. When we were chatting later, the girls said people come every few days and it is their parents only source of income. Settled, oriented and warmer, we ventured outside to go ride a camel!

Karakul lake is without a doubt the most amazing place on Earth I have visited! I love being anywhere above the tree line, because wherever you are, you always have an epic view. Muztagh Ata, the 43rd highest mountain in the world at 7,546 m (24,757 ft) , was right across the lake. First we rode camels. They were rugged, wooly camels. I think they might be native to that area, because I saw what looked like a herd the next day. The camel's back swayed about as it walked, tossing us around quite a bit. After we got off the camels, we tried to walk to the snow we saw in the distance. During the trip I learned this fact - when very large things are far away, they look close! On the bus ride over I got really obsessed with the idea of touching snow. Maybe because the summer in Beijing was so damn hot and humid! Kayleigh and I thought the snow didn't look too far away. I said "can't be more than an hour..." However, after 3 hours of camel-ing and then walking, it looked just as far as when we started, and we had to turn back for dinner.

When we came back, they were still working on setting up the yurt and cooking food for us. The yurt especially looked like very hard work. We stood/sat around idly and watched the colors of the sunset light up the clouds above Muztagh Ata, just as the moon was rising over the peak. Then it got cold so we went inside. They had a battery that they charged with a solar panel all day. When it got dark out, they used it to light up their one lightbulb. Despite living in the middle of nowhere, meimei had a fancy cell phone and showed us pics of some famous Kyrgyz people and played us some music. Dinner was a lot of mushy rice and vegetables. They cooked the food and made the tea over a metal stove in the center of the room that burned coal and yak-pattie. The smoke vented through a pipe that went through the top of the roof. I thought we had to eat all of our food to be polite, but I had a hard time doing it. Whenever I managed to drink the nasty milk tea, they always gave me more, even if I said I couldn't drink anymore. Hospitality : ) I liked our Kyrgyz family! After dinner we played cards with meimei and gege and kind of failed to completely learn the intricate rules of the game. We discussed plans for tomorrow. Gege said he could take us to the Muztagh Ata base camp or a glacier on his motorcycle, but it took an hour or two to get to both of those places, and I wanted to spend the majority of the day hiking. I asked how long it would take to get to the lowest point of the snow in the distance. Actually it was a glacier and meimei said it took around 6 hours, but she had never gone.

We packed it in for the night. It was cold, but they had prepared our beds with many kinds of blankets, including regular ones, old army coats, something that looked like a dead yak. They had a candle burning so we could see and our coal-and-poop stove was just about burning out. The golden candlelight on the weaved wooden walls of the yurt and our colorful blankets made it feel like home. We blew out the candle and slept well.

We woke up late the next morning and had breakfast of more tea and stale naan. The milk tea wasn't salty that morning - hooray! The lake was quite busy in the morning. Grazing goats ran around, sticking their noses everywhere, peeking in the doorway. I set off on my mission to touch a glacier. On my way around the lake, I saw two men on horses herding a flock of sheep and also a group of ducks. Farther out was a herd of horses, grazing in the grassy valley. I also passed a village with stone and mud houses like our Kyrgyz family had. Near their village was a Muslim cemetary and also a particularly green field, fenced in by stone walls. I wondered if they maintained it to feed their animals.

Past the flat portion of the hike, I started working my way up. From far away, the scenery looked flattened, so it looked like a straight shot up to the glacier. However, close up, the scenery unfolded into a series of hills. Each hill had different terrain and looked different. I really liked the brown sand with red and deep black rocks sprinkled on top. When I would approach the base of a hill, the Kongur Mountains would disappear behind the hilltop and then emerge as I approached the top. The glacier I was hiking towards was nestled between two mountains in the Kongur range, so I was also walking up towards their base. Being completely alone and trudging up a tall, steep hill which is the only thing you can see in front of you... then having a 7000+m mountain range pop up surprise you... the size and the vastness and the isolation were thrilling and a bit frightening. I was getting closer and closer to the clouds in the mountains. There was generally a clearly marked trail all the way up. When I lost it, it wasn't long before I came across another one. Plus there weren't any trees to get in the way and Muztagh Ata is a pretty significant landmark!!!, so no chance of getting lost! At 12,000 feet I was so easily out of breath and also my heart was often pounding in my chest.

Before, I figured they would have places to buy snacks out there (in China, the wilderness is lined with restaurants and snack booths), but there actually wasn't, just one expensive restaurant/main building that wasn't really open at the time. So all I took to "eat" that day was two bottles of Pepsi. I figured the sugar would give me some fuel. In the main building/one restaurant, they also didn't have bottled water, just boiled lake water. So I filled up a big water bottle with boiling water and made cancer juice. Anyway, if anyone reading this wants to go and do a day of hiking, I recommend bringing plenty of your own bottled water and lots of good hiking snacks.

About 5 hours in, I reached what I believed to be the last kind of hill. It was steep and made of gray crumbly dirt and loose boulders. From far away, it looked like it was just one hill and then I would be right at the glacier. However, it stretched out in front of me as I got closer. Between the little gray hills were many brilliant turquoise ponds, little gems nestled in the barren homogeneous gray. It seemed like the glacier was right there, so I kept going. I was too far along to turn back. But then the terrain got muddier and steeper. The boulders got looser and I often tripped and sent them flying down the slopes. One time while I was walking on a hill, friction was not enough to keep me from sliding down for several seconds before I managed to stop. I cut up my leg a bit. There was so much water and mud everywhere, so the walking was slow and squishy. No trails here. The weather was a pleasant 70 degrees, but the water and mud were surprisingly icy cold. My original snowy-white goal lingered in the distance. I was alone, I didn't have any food, and I was 3/4 of the way through my water. Time to head back.

I was bummed about not making it to the glacier, but one must be reasonable. The way back was as difficult as the way over and I started to climb and slip and climb my way back. Then suddenly I saw in front of me... ICE! Lots of it! Suddenly my journey over the loose rock and dried-out dirt, then the cold muddy dirt made a lot of sense. I had already made it to the glacier!!! It was summer and the ice was melting away, leaving rock and dirt behind. I touched the ice. I made it to my goal after all!

There are not trails on melting glaciers, so I wandered back a different way. I ended up getting to see a terrific gorge caused by a rapid river fed by the melting glacier. When I was climbing earlier I heard rushing water in the distance. The gorge had huge ridges and veins cut by the yearly cycle of melting. Unfortunately I found myself on the wrong side of this gorge and had to take a circuitous route back. The sun set behind the mountains on the opposite side of the lake and brilliant colors and sunbeams extended out from behind the range. The snow on the mountains turned pink and then blue. I felt like it was 4:30 PM after a day of skiing in New Hampshire. Sadly, no hot chocolate or warm car ride home!

The sunset was nice, but it meant that I was running out of daylight (and water)! I finally reached the flatlands, got back to the village, crossed the river, and by the time I was near the lake, I was hiking by moonlight. At 10 PM I was still about an hour away from our host family and they were getting worried, so gege offered to come fetch me on his motorcycle. The nearly full moon reflected across the lake, its white light rippling slightly on top of the quiet nighttime waves. The stars were out and I could see not only the brightest ones all across the sky, but also the little points of light in all the spaces between.

Then I got to ride on the back of a motorcycle! I was starving and inhaled my dinner which was the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. Then chatted with Kayleigh and another girl who had arrived that day and was staying in the yurt with us. Slept very well.

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Photos

No Road
We showed meimei this picture and she said, "my friend's sister died here."

Makeshift Road
When the normal one washed away.

China Mobile Tower
We had excellent reception nearly everywhere in China.

Bridge
Over beautiful blue water.

Muztagh Ata and Karakul Lake
The lake changed colors (reflection of the sky, turquoise, deep blue) depending on the time of day.

House
With solar panels and satellite dish!

Goodnight, Moon.
Goodnight, Muztagh Ata.

Ready for Bed!
In a blanket sandwich.

Goats
Why, hello!