Back in Skardu for less than 24 hours before heading out to Spantik. Now for a recap of the last two weeks:
July 9th, 2021
I am writing this from our first camp, trekking into Laila from the village of Hushe. The previous day we drove 6 hours in Toyota Land Cruisers from Skardu to Hushe. The ride was rough but offered great views.
Once we got to Hushe, we set up camp in the courtyard behind a hotel. Around 4 PM I started to feel sick. It started out slowly, but within a few hours I was very sick. I took a nap over dinner then woke up and proceeded to, for the next 6 hours, empty myself of any food and most water I had in my body (out both ends if you know what I mean…). By the middle of the night, I stumbled out of the tent to go to the bathroom and collapsed to the ground, nearly passing out. Our cook Nahdeel quickly came over, helped me to my feet and sat me down on a chair, where I proceeded to sit in misery for the next hour.
I crawled into my sleeping bag around 2 AM thinking “If I throw up anymore, I might literally need an IV”.
A few days later, Nahdeel said that in 20 years of working with expeditions, he had never seen someone so sick. I think that’s an exaggeration, but I did feel rather sick :/
Our driver from Skardu to Hushe:
Children in Hushe:
July 10th, 2021
I woke up the next morning, very weak but shockingly in decent shape. The night before I was sure we would have to take a rest day, but by 8 AM I was slowly plodding along on the trail to Laila.
Our porters leaving Hushe:
Lunch break reading material:
By 4 PM we were at our campsite. The next day would be a short trek to Laila basecamp at 4200 meters. I was feeling better but still had diarrhea, making it hard to keep any nutrients in my body. I was feeling very dehydrated and ended up not peeing for two days straight even though I was drinking tons of water (TMI sorry).
July 11th, 2021
We trekked the final 5 km to basecamp, set up camp, then followed one of our porters, Rudi (short for a very long name we couldn’t pronounce), a few more kilometers to where we could see the Northwest face of Laila – the face we were planning to climb.
As we turned the corner of the glacier and continued to snake our way through the snow and ice, we caught our first view of Laila. Twenty minutes later we had a full view of the lad back face we planned to climb and ski. There was significantly less snow than we had hoped for, and it quickly became apparent that there was no chance we could ski it. To confirm this, Rudi was adamant that it was out of condition. In 2016, an Italian climber had died skiing the face when, about halfway down, he had slipped on ice and fallen 500 meters to his death. Rudi had headed up the rescue team to carry out his body.
Good thing we lugged our skis all the way to basecamp and had only brought our ski and splitboard boots. Our awesome La Sportiva G2 boots were sitting back in Skardu. We had overcommitted to skiing Laila and should have brought our other boots for just this situation. Oh well, ski boots climb great, they are just a bit uncomfortable; splitboard boots? Not so great, but more on that later…
We studied the face for quite some time; it was quite our of shape – a jumbled glacier lower down with mixed conditions with rock and ice in many spots higher up, but eventually we pieced together a line and even flew the drone over to the lower part of the glacier to scout a spot we couldn’t see from where we were.
Our proposed route:
We turned around and headed back to basecamp as Rudi went higher up the glacier to pick up a load from trekkers somewhere. He would return when we were ready to head back to Hushe a week later. Rudi (in the red jacket) isa legend. When he was younger, he had worked as a high-altitude porter and guide on the big mountains – 8000 meter peaks. He had summited five 8000 meter peaks, including K2, Broad Peak, Nanga Parbat, Gasherbrum I and Gasherbrum II; quite the list.
July 12th, 2021
Today brought clouds and a light pattering of rain. We had hoped to carry gear to ABC (advanced basecamp), at 4500 meters, but waited all morning as the weather stayed dreary. By mid-afternoon, the weather had cleared up and we packed up our 100-liter bags with most of our climbing gear and trekked up to ABC.
July 13th-14th, 2021
Clouds, rain, all around bad weather for two days. We sat at BC; books, Netflix, podcasts, music and chatting with our cook and guide filled our time - and lots of journaling. Most of the above is excerpts from my journal, but there is a lot more ramblings not included. It’s very strange to go from my normal life, filled with work, hobbies, friends, life, but always plugged in, always working to balance work with everything else - to suddenly no work, zero internet, only a satellite messaging device to connect you to the outside world; days spent in camp, waiting out weather, nothing to do but read and think.
Someday, when I am better at turning jumbled thoughts into words, I will attempt to break down the psyche of an expedition: longs periods of waiting, always a scary and potential deadly climb ahead - it breeds a lot of introspection… but enough of that.
The rest of the Laila trip report to be continued, stay tuned.