24th – New Delhi Airport, aka I Don’t Give A Shit Airport

Arriving at the airport in the early morning you need to get past the guards at the entrance; showing your passport and tickets are enough. One in the group got a bit ahead of us and went through without any problems. When the rest of us showed up the guard looked at us and began waving us away – apparently he wanted us to go to one of the other doors to get checked there instead. On the way over there looking back you could see him letting single passengers in at a time, apparently a large group (of 9) was too much work. His colleague at the other door also seemed perplexed why he hadn’t let us in.

We checked in as a group but had to show documents individually. I asked nicely (despite it being early and only after 2 hours of sleep I can be nice) if it was possible to move/upgrade me to a seat at an emergency exit. She looked up and looked at me as if I had asked her to give me upgrades to 1^st class for all future flights, scoffed loudly and went back to work completely ignoring me from then on. Nice.

We were given name tags for our carry-on luggage, apparently as to confirm that the check-in counter had approved them as carry-ons. The security check went without a hitch, being early there weren’t too many people around. I found my bag lying ready for me after I came through the detector and they confirmed I could take it. We wandered the airport and basically just tried to kill time while waiting for boarding to start.

Entering the plane the security guy flipped when he saw me. Apparently the security check should have given me a stamp of some kind on that luggage tag, but because they seemed to have missed it I must have been smuggling everything from drugs to the entire Taj Mahal and half their nuclear arsenal with me on board the plane. He took me aside, let others on, and asked me to show him the contents. He was a very unhappy Indian guard, but he let me go at last. I had barely gotten on board the plane together with one of the others from the group before they started closing the doors. I hurried to my spot, found it in the middle of everything, but being the last one to enter I just grabbed to two seats at the window next to it instead – the plane had plenty of free seats so you were able to move around and claim different – better – seats if you were fast.

The rest of the trip home was fine. Well, almost. I met a very large hairy Indian guy on the plane. And completely unrelated; a very large hairy Indian guy learned he had to remember to lock the lavatory door when doing his business on the plane. We had a couple of hours in Istanbul airport which were spent on sitting in a café and getting something to drink and eat, and the flight from there was very uneventful. The moment we left India things went much more smoothly. And coming back to Copenhagen everyone got their bags. Success!

Once again big thanks to Susanne, Bo (again), Per (again, and have a great trip around India and Nepal!), Steffen, Christina, Mads, Thomas, Lars, Tina and Annika for being such an outstanding group on this trip. You guys are amazing – and after my recent realization that means a lot to me. I hope we will meet again sometime, that would be awesome!

23rd – The gravestone

Today was a full day free of plans according to schedule, so we were free to do what we wanted. Most of us decided it would be a good idea to spend the day in Agra to see the Taj Mahal, including me, despite it meant that we had to get up early (again).

We were picked up at the hotel and walked to the local train station a couple of minutes away. At 0600 the train departed on schedule and two hours later we arrived in Agra where we were greeted and brought to a small café where we met up with our guide for the day.

After a short coffee break we drove the few km out to Taj Mahal. Tickets were bought and we entered what I realized was a huge complex where the Taj Mahal (which is “only” a mausoleum built by the mogul emperor Shah Jahan for his third wife who died giving birth to their 14^th (!) child) is the center of attention. The area is riddled with huge gates in all four directions where one of them leads to the Taj Mahal, guest houses (“houses” is used liberally, “small palaces” would be more accurate), mosques and other various buildings.

While the Taj Mahal looks amazing on photos I don’t think they measure up to reality. This is a beautiful building with a lot of details you won’t see until you get up close. It’s a huge marble building with lots of carvings, engravings and an impressive amount of inlays. The inlays deserve special mention; the skill required to carve the marble and mount the many small different pieces of gemstones so they fit perfectly, while the end result looks fluid and organic, must be insanely high. It’s an impressive – albeit a quite narrow – skill to possess, and the result is stunning.

We had a walk around in the area, taking the obligatory shots and saw the inside of the main chamber where the wife and emperor were buried. She was buried exactly in the center, he next to her. This is the only non-symmetrical part of the entire complex and very intentional. Symmetry is perfection, and as only Allah is perfect they had to add some amount of asymmetry somewhere, and that was how they did it. We also managed a quick look of the nearby mosque and generally just taking in the views in the park. It was overall very pleasant.

I could have spent the entire day out there (as could others in the group) walking around and photographing the beautiful buildings, but unfortunately we were scheduled to leave for lunch. For lunch we visited a restaurant in a rundown part of the town, but the food was absolutely amazing. As the last real meal we have together in India this was not a bad place to finish it off.

After lunch we continued on to Agra Fort, a large fortification where 75% is still closed to the public as it is used by the military. The remaining 25% didn't make it feel small, though, on the contrary. The place was huge! Double moats and walls, large gardens and intricate craftsmanship appearing in all the buildings to name just a few features seen in the few hours we were there. It was also here Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his 3^rd son for ruining the economy by building the Taj Mahal (he even had planned a similar building in black marble). The “cell” he was confined in was a corner of the fort, beautifully decorated like the Taj Mahal itself and with a straight view to it.

Afterwards we had a small walk in the city center, which wasn't really overly inspiring. Back at the coffee shop we said our goodbyes to one of the group members who would continue on his own around in India for the next couple of weeks before going to Nepal. We returned to the train station to grab a train back to Delhi. This time it was a different train and it took us 3 hours to get back. While waiting for the slightly delayed train we were introduced to the various wildlife on the station; baboons, dogs and rats. Fun times were had!

We were back at the hotel a bit past 2200. Because we hadn't had a meal on the train despite it has said so some of us had a small dinner at the hotel’s rooftop café before retiring. To our joyous surprised they were fast at making it, and it was as usual absolutely delicious.

Tomorrow we are flying back home. We will be picked up at hell o’clock as we need to check in at almost-hell o’clock as we are flying out at way-too-early o’clock. The flight departs at 0600 and we need to be there 3 hours before, so, yeah… But it means that we will be back in Denmark already in the evening so that’s not too bad.

And back at the office Friday. Yay….

One of the entrance gates.

Taj Mahal.

The mosque to the left of Taj Mahal.

Another shot of Taj Mahal, this time from the left.

All this is carved from one piece of marble. It isn't pieces glued onto a block - it is one whole block.

The inlays. Lots and lots of this kind all over the place.

The writing is also inlays. Fun detail; the higher the writing, the bigger it is, so that when you look at it from the ground the size looks the same all the way up.

Taj Mahal as seen from Agra Fort.

The holding cell for Shah Jahan.

One of the many gardens at the fort.

Prison in foreground, Taj Mahal in the background.

22nd – Dust and noise

We were picked up at the hotel at 0500 as planned and as opposed to when flying to Leh we had no problems what so ever checking in our luggage and getting through security. This time we checked in as a group instead of separately as before which seems to have had made a difference – presenting the poor attendants with 11 large dusty bags it seemed as if they just wanted to get rid of us as quickly as possible.

Arriving in Delhi our pickup hadn’t arrived yet but after just half an hour’s wait he finally showed up and brought us to the hotel. The traffic was heavy, slow and noisy – we were obviously far away from the serenity of the mountains and back in the big city!

After a short break we took some tuk-tuks to the Red Fort where we had a walk-around before taking a route through the old part of Delhi, dictated by one’s Lonely Planet guide book. The tour was actually quite interesting and we saw parts that we might not otherwise have seen when walking around in the nicer parts of the city. Among other things we came by a Sikh temple where we got a tour for free for almost an hour. It was unexpected and very interesting seeing the temple from the inside during prayers/service. Very beautiful.

For dinner we ended up in a mogul restaurant which made some delicious food. While not spicy in Indian terms it did have a lovely zing to it that never was too much. Unfortunately my burnt lips were of another opinion, they are still very sore. My face feels OK, now, but due to all the burnt skin that’s peeling off across my face I look like I would be the perfect extra for a zombie movie.

Back at the hotel we had a small drink on the rooftop bar before going back to our rooms. Tomorrow will also be an early morning as we will be picked up at 0500 to be able to get to the train station in time to have enough time in Agra and Taj Mahal.

Walking inside the Red Fort you realize it is quite large.

Very large!

Seeing a Sikh service.

Serious business!

21st – How I turned into a fried chicken

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.

20th – Black, white, wind, snow.

We were woken up at 2330 where we had a quick breakfast before departing for the summit. The weather was great; we could see stars and the moon was clear.

The plan was that we further up would have 2 rope teams. These would require a guide in the front and back which meant that we needed 2 more guides than the primary and assistant that we had had until now. One of them came from the kitchen, a small guy from Nepal (who travel back and forth in the Himalayas to take kitchen/tour work in accordance with seasons) and another one, also Nepali, who had 8 8000m-summits under his belt so far. He was put in front but after having ascended the first 200 meters he was swapped with our usual guide so that we could get back to a more… reasonable and human pace.

We passed ABC and continued up along the glacier in absolute darkness apart from what we could see from our headlamps. We crossed over onto the glacier, and after having walked a bit further the glacier got so steep that we were put together on the two ropes. An incline of 40 degrees would not be a bad estimate as we slowly zig-zagged upwards.

At this point the sun started to give light but what we quickly realized was that we just went from darkness to white. The visibility was down below 100 meters which wasn’t overly impressive, and it didn’t help much that the winds had picked up and it had started to heavily snow.

Still ascending we switched our poles with our ice axes due to another increase in steepness. Also, what had until now been a surface of pure snow and ice had now turned into ice/snow and rocks which we had to scramble across. While this could be intensive enough for my tastes with the rocky nature mixed with crampons, whiteout winds and snow/hail it was still just a warmup of what we would be facing on the ridge. Still app. 300 altitude meters from the summit we were to scramble our way on the narrow ridge with drops on both sides and the weather unchanged. We had some quite narrow parts we had to get by to get closer to the summit and it got a bit hairy at times, despite being tied together.

At one point near the top we saw some of the guides stick their heads together, discussing whether or not the weather was too bad to continue. Luckily, they seem to agree that it was still not bad enough to turn us around (though apparently bad enough that they had to discuss it…).

At 0835, in snow and hail, horrible visibility and high winds we reached the summit, exhausted. The summit was quite small, almost a long and narrow platform. There were snow piled up on both sides, but with the soft rounding of the tops you were actually not able to see where they started and ended due to the massive whiteout so people stayed carefully in the middle. After only a few photos we were on our way down again.

We were going the same way as up which meant the rocks had to be crossed once more. When descending the weather started improving; it stopped snowing and the winds eased up. This meant that you occasionally got a view out on the surrounding mountains on the way down, and what you were able to see was amazing: Huge rock and ice walls and beautiful mountains all around. The clouds were moody, though, so a view one moment could be gone the next. Too bad the weather wasn’t good enough on the top as we could potentially have ended up with some great shots.

We all made it to the summit, and we all came safely down again, though one needed to be assisted down quickly half way down by the guides due to not feeling well at all. Apart from that we all came through scot-free.

I was back in base camp at 1400 as one of the two last in the group with sore feet and thighs but not really caring. The scrambling and weather made the climb more technical than I had mentally planned for, but in the end it was still a success. It is a new personal record for me altitude-wise; last one was Kilimanjaro with 5895m which was beat with more than 250 meters. It is now 6153m, I wonder what should be next?

On the way to the summit. Photo taken by Bo Belvedere Christensen.

Summit! Photo taken by Thomas Jul Andersen.

On the way down again along the ridge. Photo taken by Thomas Jul Andersen.

One of the lucky shots through the clouds on the way down. Photo taken by Susanne Irvang Nielsen.

On the way down. This isn't even the steepest part. Photo taken by Susanne Irvang Nielsen.

19th – Do you know your ABC?

Today the program was an acclimatization walk with glacier training and return to base camp before lunch followed by resting and restitution before the summit attempt at (around) midnight.

The day’s walk would bring us up to 5300m and Advanced Base Camp. Unfortunately it is not allowed anymore to camp at ABC as they got tired of the large amount of trash being left there (though some might also speculate the more people at ABC the fewer at BC where there is a small kiosk where you can buy a small selection of snacks and drinks which would result in a hit at profit). Too bad, actually, as the 400 meters head start towards the summit would have been helpful.

Arriving at ABC we reached the glacier we will be traversing towards the summit. Here we were introduced to self-arrest techniques (extremely basic compared to what we were taught on Elbrus) and introductions to how to react when someone on the rope you are tied to slips/falls.

We came back to base camp at around 1230 where we met the Topas group (Topas and Kipling (who I am travelling with) are basically the two big Danish travel companies that do trips like this) who is doing the summit push the night after us. We had a small talk with them and out of the group of 14 originally they have already lost 2 on the way to base camp. Let’s hope for them that they won’t lose any more on the way to the top. After lunch it was purely relaxation until dinner which was served earlier than usual, and then straight to bed.

Rumors spread quickly; the wounded tourist yesterday hadn’t been as wounded as feared; apparently he hadn’t broken anything. When falling he had apparently panicked and froze, not being able to move or get up, which some people had concluded being broken body parts. Good to hear!

Looking at the weather it seems to be clearing up. The last couple of days we have had overcast with the occasional drizzles (which at BC has been snow). On today’s walk we had snow most of the time and clouds not much higher than where we were. If the weather clears up for the summit attempt we will be getting some great views – potentially including a view of K2 if we are lucky.

We are 200m above BC on the way to ABC. The ridge seen going up behind BC is the one we went up yesterday.

One of the many marmots in the area.

18th – Base Camp

We left camp at normal time despite only having a short schedule for the day which consisted of ascending 500 meters to base camp at 4900m. We arrived at around 1100, keeping to our normal pace of app. 200 m/hr.

Settling in the camp we noticed 3 helicopters circling the area. Rumors had it that a tourist had fallen and broken arm and back, but he had slid down to where the helicopters couldn’t reach him so people were working on trying to bring him to somewhere we they could reach him. After a while the helicopters disappeared and there was very little information to find.

After a short break a few of us together with Bo decided to do a small acclimatization walk on the ridge opposite Stok Kangri. As we didn’t have the “normal” guides with us we approached the ridge with a more liberal speed. When we hit the 5100m mark 2 people turned around – the altitude was getting to them – while the rest of us (3 + Bo) continued. We ended up stopping at 5300m, flying past the summit of Mt. Ararat in the process. We did it in 1:03 – which was double our normal speed. It felt good being able to have ascended that much in so short time, but I must admit I prefer the gentler pace we usually have. It took us 20 minutes to get back down.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and for those not having it done before getting their crampons fitted on their boots.

This is the highest I will have ever slept – the last record was from Kilimanjaro, but base camp/Barafu camp there is “only” at 4500m.

Stok Kangri as seen from 5300m.

Enjoying the view at 5300m.

Stok Kangri and base camp in the same photo. It isn't even that far! 

The paths you can see going left and up from BC is the path to go when going to ABC and/or the summit. Where it reaches the ridge and goes behind the edge is 200m above BC, 200m below from where we are now.