winterk2dis6

It took a whole day to repack the equipment and prepare the cargo for the caravan. Tomorrow we set out farther with off-road Toyotas, towards Karakorum.

Locked up in a can

After less than three days of travelling, the participants of the K2 expedition have reached Kashgar in China. In fact, we should not have arrived here that quickly. In London, we had to face the fact that our flight to the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, with an intermediate landing in Baku, was delayed due to patches of dense fog lingering over that part of Asia. We only took off after dark. There was a snowstorm in Baku, at the Caspian Sea. We had been waiting three hours on the plane on the airfield before we could take off. In Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, our plane was one of the few that landed that day. It was snowing. The fog was getting thicker. There, we met another five participants of the expedition: Jacek Teler, who had arrived two days before with the mission to prepare the transport through Kyrgyzstan, as well as Ilias Tukhvatullin from Uzbekistan, Gija Tortladze from Georgia, Denis Urubko and Vasilij Pivtsov from Kazakhstan. We lost the whole of Zbyszek Terlikowski's luggage, including his personal expedition equipment. Up to this day, we have no idea where it might have landed.

At the airport of Kyrgyzstan's capital, we can hardly see any natives. Western military uniforms are predominant. Just behind the fence begins the territory of a huge American base. Planes taking off from the base at night head for Afghanistan. The US Army soldiers of different formations are not very talkative, similar to the young volunteers from Europe. They do not know much about the world they came to cure. Merely Gustaw, a member of the technical maintenance personnel in the Norwegian contingent, chats willingly with us during the meal. He hangs around the airport bar illegally. "I come here to be able to talk with the wonderful people that I've met in this country. I've been stationed here for three months and have a lot of local friends. This whole operation in Afghanistan is pointless. The Americans want to forcefully introduce their own world order. Nobody likes them in Kyrgyzstan, either."

We pack the expedition equipment onto two trucks and an UAZ and set out the very same day, Tuesday late afternoon, for the Tien-Shan Mountains. The low cloud ceiling, snow, fog and later the night do not allow us to see the Issyk-kul Lake, the second biggest mountain lake in the world after the Titicaca Lake, or the 4000ers we are clawing our way through. The highest pass we master this day is the Dolon Pass (3035 m), enshrouded in a blizzard. On the icy road, a branch of the Silk Route, we pass few trucks loaded with iron scrap being transported to China for sale. I ask the driver whether he knows this road well. "Sure, I've driven it many times". Shortly after that, he adds: "Frankly, it's the first time I'm driving in winter. It's gonna get worse at the place you are going. Why are you doing it?"

We arrive in Narin, 400 km from Bishkek, at midnight. We stay for the night at a little hotel. We eat supper and fall asleep at 2 am. Krzysztof Wielicki, the head of the expedition, sounds the reveille at 5.30 am. We have to hurry. The snow might cut us off from the border Torugart Pass (3752 m). On the road running through wasteland, we pass an increasing number of military posts. They consist of a sentry box or caravan, a barrier and a few cold Kyrgyzstan soldiers who have total power over us. We pass through consecutive barriers, passport and customs controls. Jacek Teler from Częstochowa, who knows and loves Kyrgyzstan, is of great help. For years, he has been organizing tourist and climbing expeditions to the mountains of Central Asia: Altai, Pamir, Tien-Shan, Sayan. He speaks Russian like a native, which earns him respect. "Both here, in Tien-Shan, as well as in nearby Pamir you can find traces of China's vicinity", warns Teler. - "On both sides of the road to the Torugart Pass, we will be passing barbed-wire entanglements, trenches and traces of bunkers, reminding of the old days. Until 1990, this was the borderline between the Soviet Union and China".

Chinese trucks are awaiting us on the Pass. In the rarified air, in the wind and the frost, we repack six tons of luggage. We are delighted to enter the colorful coach. It seems to be luxurious. Our joy is premature, however, since in a moment we are to embark on the most unusual downhill drive one could possibly experience, through mountains that are higher than the Alps: at night, through fog and snow, on ice, without headlights. It starts with a burst tire. Then the headlights "pack up", along with the heating and the pneumatic door opening mechanism. We are locked up in a can. The windows freeze shut with ice immediately and the driver, shivering with cold and falling asleep over the steering wheel, is melting a small peeping hole with his hand, through which he can see a fragment of the winding road, lit by the high beam of the truck behind us. We were driving like that for six hours.

We arrived in Kashgar at midnight Kyrgyzstan time, or 3 a.m. China time. At the hotel, we were awaited by the Hunza who arrived from Pakistan and who are very experienced mountaineering porters.

Thus we were in full force: 23 participants from Poland, one from Georgia and Uzbekistan, two from Kazakhstan and Nepal, respectively, and a liaison officer from China with his cook and porter. It took a whole day to repack the equipment and prepare the cargo for the caravan. Tomorrow we set out farther with off-road Toyotas, towards Karakorum. Then we change to camels. Let us hope luck stays with us the way it has so far.

Written by Monika Rogozinska, "Rzeczpospolita"; translated by "Scrivanek".

Dispatches