The rest
of the day after returning from the summit was spent on relaxing and sleeping,
so when dinner was done people went straight back to their tents. The Topas
group would be leaving that same night for the summit, using the same route as
us, and the weather had improved so much so that for the first time since
Rumbak there was barely a cloud in sight. Everything seemed to indicate that
they would be having a visually better – maybe perfect – summit day as opposed
to our group. But due to the lack of clouds the night ended up being by far the
coldest night on the trip. Looking towards the summit in the morning we
realized that it was the clearest we had seen it yet and a bit of jealousy was
had as the group would have some great views from the top, including K2. But we
consoled ourselves with the fact that our achievement with climbing during a
snow storm and whiteout would be the bigger one.
I woke
up several times during the night and I soon realized. It was quite annoying as
I usually slept though most of the night without problems (except for the night
where my travel pillow had a puncture…), but it was soon clear why this was;
descending from the summit and having the sun occasionally popping out through
the clouds when spending hours on a glacier it is a good idea to apply
sunglasses and sunscreen. In this case 1 out of 2 is not good enough – the sunglasses
do not cover lips, cheeks, forehead… I woke up due to when turning around my
face touched the zipper of the sleeping bag (which was for once completely
zipped). I was far from the only one making this mistake – there were even some
who hadn’t even been using sunglasses. We looked like a group of inverted
raccoons. My face has never been so sore before.
The rest
of the morning went without hiccups and we were soon on our way down,
descending 1300-ish meters in 5 hours to the town of Stok where we were picked
up and driven back to our hotel in Leh. The walk brought us through more parts
of the beautiful landscapes (when thinking of India this is definitely NOT what
I have in mind!) and even seeing a flock of blue sheep (bharal) which to me
mostly look like a mix of mountain goats and impalas. And no – they are not
blue. We were lucky enough to stand within 20m of them for what felt like an
extended period of time, but I must admit that for just a moment, only having
my small compact lens, I was missing my long tele. It is stunningly beautiful
here and absolutely not what I had expected to see.
Also
arriving at Stok we said our goodbyes to our guides and other personnel. They
will be remembered for the high spirits and good humor, and also for their impressive
breakfasts and dinners (plenty of food at both meals, dinners were always a mix
of salads, pastas, potatos, rice, weird tasty concoctions and the occasional
deep pan pizzas, steamed momos and the like). Therefore it was always
surprising that while these meals were so impressive the lunches were merely a
piece of limp deep fried white break, a juice box, piece of fruit and candy. It
was a huge contrast.
Being
back at the hotel we had the obligatory showers. Being a creature of habit when
drying off the first thing I do is to throw the towel in my face and rub. If
anyone was wondering; doing so with a burnt, sore face is NOT a good idea. At
all.
The rest
of the afternoon was spent on having our last walk around in Leh, packing bags
for the trip back to Delhi tomorrow and generally relaxing and enjoying not
having to worry about more climbing mountains in the next couple of days.
Breakfast is at 0430 as we are leaving for the airport at 0500 to catch our
flight.
Clear weather in the morning. Bad timing!
You can clearly see the summit!
Blue sheep.
We came down from the right and turned down the way straight ahead into the shot. When going towards BC we came up from the left.
Just beautiful.
If you look carefully you will be able to see that there are ruins from watch towers/a castle on the top of those two cliffs.
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