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Winter
Makalu 2000/2001 12-07-2000 Dispatch
EXPEDITION
TO MAKALU
Up
the mountain with a goat
I
read a description of two expeditions up the then
virgin Makalu with some amusement: a reconnaissance in
the autumn of 1954 and the conquering in the spring of
1955. The equipment included: bombs against
mosquitoes, dynamite to detonate avalanches and large
quantities of French perfumes. However, leaches
appeared a real threat. They abound in the jungle
which finishes at the slopes of the
eight-thousand-meter high mountains of Nepal:
Dhaulagiri, Annapurna, Makalu. Maciej Pawlikowski, a
participant of many Himalayan expeditions, including
the present one, has especially strong aversion to
these creatures. He told us that his colleagues
secured entrances to their tents with salted rings,
however the leeches found their way through the
obstacle and then managed to sneak in through small
holes of the mosquito net. Once they got in, the way
back was not so easy due to their increased size...
The leeches have nothing against Pawlikowski. The only
creature we have met crawled on the mattress occupied
by him just a second ago, after which she did a
strange dance in search of a source of heat which
dragged it to the place. A cold time of year and the
fact that we crossed the jungle mainly with help of a
helicopter made us forget the above described
inconvenience of numerous expeditions.
The
French took goats and sheep with them, they had
plans to kill a yak, build an ice cellar and an
oven to make bread. They had guns and hunted for
partridges in the base. We did not want to set
up a camp fire during bivouac in order not to
give bad example to the people carrying the
equipment. The reason was that we entered the
Barun National Park, which took its name after a
river with source in the glaciers of Makalu not
far from the base of our expedition. We gathered
around an oil lamp put on snow. We all know that
the multitude of expeditions and tourists in the
area of Mount Everest caused a real disaster
there. Forests were cut out to organize camp
fires for tourists and Alpinists which moved the
upper border of woods by a kilometer. We
preferred to freeze enjoying the wilderness and
richness of pine and rhododendron forests of the
Barun valley. The river forms deep and steep
downcast here, thanks to which there is no way
to reach the upper parts of Makalu. You can come
here as if from the side, passing mountain
chains on the way.
Not a
long time after the French came here and set up a base
in the autumn of 1954, their liaison officer died.
Today we suspect that the height illness was the
cause. The symptoms of the illness are lungs or brain
swelling. We also suffer from the initial symptoms of
the illness: enormous headaches, insomnia. We know
that such is the process of acclimatization. The most
important thing is not to give in to apathy, to be
active, force the organism to function. I admire my
colleagues who all, except the doctor, went up in
order to carry as much equipment to the highest point
possible. Nine people marked the route up the height
of 5100 meters. Four of them, Gia Tortladze, Andrzej
Samolewicz, Krzysztof Liszewski and Jarek Żurawski,
will sleep there and in the morning they will try to
go higher and reach the expected place of the advanced
base.
The
government of Nepal considers 1st December the
beginning of winter. We call that date the
official-calendar winter. According to the
Polish Alpinists, winter starts on December 21
(please check that!) - this is astronomical
time. Krzysztof Wielicki, the head of the
expedition, has climbed three
eight-thousand-meter high mountains during
winter. He wants to outsmart astronomy a little
bit and wishes to acclimatize his team a bit
earlier and make such preparations so that the
real climb took place in winter. He does not
need completely exhausted Alpinists.
There
is still no snow but very strong winds bring up mass
of dust making more and more people cough. The summer
monsoon brought very small precipitation. The local
people consider this year dry. The Barun river is
merely a small stream near the place where the base is
set up.
We
constantly discover history here. Three people - two
girls and a boy - from New Zealand visited the base
unexpectedly. The boy's father was here 46 years ago.
Sir Edmund Hillary was the head of the expedition from
New Zealand. They headed towards their beloved valley
of Barun. Hillary was famous for ascending Mount
Everest a year before that. He divided the expedition
into several teams in order to penetrate the area
untouched by a stranger's foot. One day, as he was
coming back from a reconnaissance with a few friends,
a snow bridge took two of them. They fell into a deep
crack in the ice. Hillary broke three ribs while
helping one of them - Jim Mc Farlane, which was fatal
for the whole expedition. Both men got out of the
crack, unfortunately Mc Farlane had his feet and hands
frost bitten. It was his son that came here to
understand his father.
Snow
in the Kingdom : My Storm Years on Everest by
Ed Webster, Peter Williams (Editor),
(Illustrator) This item will be published in
November 2000. You may order it now and we will
ship it to you when it arrives.
