Ascending Mount Shyok

One of the reasons I went to India was to stand on top of a mountain and see the view you think of when you hear the word 'Himalayas' - snow capped, triangular peaks, as far as the eye can see, some of them disappearing into the clouds, all of them majestic and breathtaking. Well now I've done it, and I want to do it again, and again, and again, because it was everything I expected it to be and more.

Team Shyok at the summit - Photo by Cameron Montgomery

The expedition was divided up into phases one to four, with each fire doing something different for each one, and phase three being for 'special tours', where everyone could choose between peak ascents, ice field tours, climbing camps, etc. For tour three, most of the TLs decided that they'd like to do something together; we settled on an ascent of a 5,797m peak down the valley from base camp, that we named Mount Shyok.

Our ascent was to be over three days, with a day to reach our high bivvy spot, a day to summit the peak and return to the same bivvy spot, and a day to return to base camp, feeling elated having summited the awesome mountain. The team was to consist of me, Becky, Steph, Rob, Karl, Calum, Monty, Mark, Imi, Cameron and Matt, with Jenny in charge.

We left base camp on the morning of the 10th of August, walking down the Pensi La past a stupa we'd become quite familiar with after trekking past so much, before turning off to the left and starting our ascent. It really was uphill, and felt almost vertical at times, zigzagging past groups of yaks and avoiding slippery parts of scree, struggling to breathe most of the time. The terrain morphed from rolling grassy slopes to broken scree, then into giant unstable slabs and boulders, changing every time we'd got used to walking, climbing and clambering over it. By 6pm we'd made it to our bivvy spot - a flattish area about 4,900m high, sheltered by a large crag, which when climbed over gave way to the most incredible view over base camp and up along the Drang Drung glacier. As it grew dark we cooked our dinner on our temperamental stoves and bedded down in preparation for our ascent the next morning.

Hugging rocks just above our bivvy spot
Photo by Calum Matthews

Throughout the night I woke to a new view of the stars and moon overhead as they moved across the sky, always feeling warm and cosy snuggled up to the others in my crazily warm sleeping bag. I couldn't stop thinking about what awaited us in the morning, and was both stupidly excited and nervous about what it would be like. I hadn't been above 4,700m before that, and knew that I'd feel the altitude as we climbed higher, but I was ready to push myself hard to get there.

We awoke at 5:30am to find our sleeping bags frozen to our bivvy bags and the sun rising over the mountains ahead of us to the east. After a quick flapjack breakfast we packed our bags as light as possible, leaving our bivvy bags weighted with rocks to dry in the sun, and set off towards the ridge we were to follow to the summit.

On the ascent, hating the scree
Photo by Calum Matthews

I could feel the air getting thinner, making it harder to breathe and causing my muscles to burn like fire as we pushed ourselves on. Even taking two breaths per step became difficult at points, and I found myself staring at the ground ahead and forgetting to take in the beauty of our surroundings. We could see the summit we were aiming for most of the time, and it seemed to taunt us by looking so close but making us slog for nine hours before we could stand atop its snow. 

The morning stretched on and the afternoon began before we attached our crampons, grasped our ice axes and began to follow the edge of the snowline to the summit, avoiding precipitous drops and menacing hidden cornice. We stuck together as a team and slowly plodded up the snow towards the summit, over crests and hummocks before the final lump.

Team Shyok crazily happy at the summit
Photo by Calum Matthews

As we moved up the final uphill stretch and onto the flat summit, it felt incredible. We were jumping for joy, congratulating each other on our massive achievement and taking photo after photo and holding pose after pose. The whole team was elated - we'd managed to reach the summit, and for all we knew we could have been the first people ever to get up there. We hadn't seen a single cairn or path on the way up, and we certainly hadn't seen footprints at the top, so maybe we were!

Our descent flew by, and was much faster than our ascent. The snow fields could be pretty much slid down (apart from the deep patches where we fell in up to our knees and couldn't get out from laughing so much), and our route back avoided scrambling over a lot of scree, instead sticking to the snow. We reached our bivvy spot - having been able to see our brightly coloured bags for most of the day - just as the sun was setting, and enjoyed the dramatically changing colours of the sky dancing behind the mountains as we walked into the camp. We ate dinner in the dark before bedding down again, feeling completely knackered but very pleased with ourselves.

Team Shyok on the descent down the ridgeline
Photo by Calum Matthews

The morning after the ascent we woke to find everything frozen again, and had a relaxed morning enjoying the sunrise and the gorgeous view. We even fitted in a spot of yoga in the four hours we were up there, doing sun salutations and poses, before Calum's glute workout, which in hindsight really wasn't necessary but was fun all the same.

One of the main aims of the BES expedition was to conduct science in a remote environment, collecting data for various scientific projects. One project was looking at the effects of pre-conditioning on altitude acclimatisation. A few of us on the expedition had volunteered for the study, which involved being 'cuffed' (a blood pressure cuff was put around our arm and inflated to a certain pressure for a certain amount of time, to build up toxins in our arm and trick our bodies into acclimatising quicker) before each ascent in altitude, and then tested to see how our bodies had reacted. This resulted in us having to do press-ups as fast as possible for 30 seconds, as well as doing multiple spirometry tests, all at high altitude and whilst knackered. Hopefully some interesting results will come out of this study, which should help with our understanding of altitude medicine.

We descended from our bivvy spot to base camp feeling completely parched, as our water source had been the snow but we hadn't managed to melt very much. Reaching the stream by the Pensi La was a happy moment for all of us, and the 30 minute wait for our puritabs to work felt like hours. We got back to base camp in time for lunch, so we made chapattis on the Shyok stove (which we'd named Tanzin), and then deep fried nuggets of dough, when the mix didn't go so well..

Ascending Mount Shyok was definitely one of the highlights of the expedition for me - what an awesome feeling of camaraderie and achievement. Everest next?

Advance Party reaches Leh

Reaching Delhi, stepping outdoors from the air conditioned airport, the heat and humidity hit us like a brick wall. The advance party of the expedition had now arrived in country, but whilst dogs and people ran around us, the city's dense smog hung overhead like a thick barrier to the calm of nature and the beauty of India. Staying a few short hours in the city before our flight to Leh was more than enough for us - we craved clean mountain air and beautiful views.

Leh, the old capital of the Himalayan kingdom of Ladakh, is nestled high in the Himalayas, a green oasis in the harsh rocky mountains. We were to be staying a week at the Ladakh Ecological Development Group hostel in Leh; LEDeG for short. Food and equipment needed to be bought, stores loaded up onto trucks, and things generally organised before the rest of the expedition arrived and the drive to base camp began. We didn't have much time to feel sorry for ourselves and nurse our Acute Mountain Sickness headaches after arriving at high altitude - a quick morning nap and a cup of masala chai later we wandered down into Leh to get our bearings and prepare ourselves for the days of shopping ahead.

A beautifully shaped and painted wall in a back street in Leh

Small teams of TLs set out into Leh in the following few days to source random items such as eggs, watermelons, sponges, jerrycans and planks of wood. Our team of four was in charge of hardware, which involved searching the town for some very specific items, armed with a questionable Ladakhi phrasebook and lots of rupees. What an amazing way to interact with locals and get to know a town. Next time I'm travelling maybe I should search for 16 metal jerrycans again - I could repeat the surreal experience of ending up in a tiny, dark, windowless store room with a Ladakhi man showing me his 'new' (i.e. really old but apparently didn't leak) jerry cans and arguing over the price. Or I could search for four planks of wood, and end up being driven to the outskirts of town and wandering around a wood yard, chatting to workmen and clambering over hundreds of planks of wood to find the perfect one.

We tried out our Ladakhi on most people, but not much of it has stuck in my head. Shouts of "jullay!" could be heard constantly, everywhere we went - it means "hello", "yes" and "goodbye", and is said all the time, to and by people of all backgrounds, ages and religions. 'Balang' means cow, which you also see everywhere, wandering the streets and looking like they belong there, even on the main bazaar, eating the vegetables the women had travelled for miles from Leh's surrounding small villages to sell. "Kamzang le?" means "how are you?", and is replied to with "kamzang", meaning "yes, good". Our phrasebook also contained "where can one find a horse?" which was sadly too complex to remember, but could have come in handy at some point!

The main bazaar in Leh - prayer flags flying everywhere,
vegetable sellers all around, mountains in the background

Most of us probably pushed ourselves too hard in that week, and also in the weeks to follow if I'm honest. Splitting headaches and nausea were daily occurrences, but we forced litres of water down our throats to try to combat it. The alcohol ban on expedition led to a drinking game: drinking from Nalgenes whilst whizzing down a bumpy road - I love being a child. Our ascent profile for the trip was quite steep; Leh, at 3524m, was a high place to start from, so we had to be careful on our way up to base camp. When the YEs arrived we'd have to watch out for and monitor cases of AMS, and our ascent up to the Pensi La was deliberately broken down into three days to minimise risk from our 1km height gain.

We could feel the altitude as soon as we reached the airport - our lungs felt as though they weren't working quite as well, carrying rucksacks felt harder than before, and walking uphill felt like sprinting uphill. We walked up to a cafe just below the palace in Leh on our first afternoon, and really felt like we deserved the masala chai by the time we got there. We had beautiful views over Leh from the tiny windows, and enjoyed sitting on cushions on the floor, chatting about our expectations for the trip. Our hostel was just below Shanti Stupa, a white domed stupa on a hilltop, built to promote world peace and prosperity and holding the relics of the Buddha. It's a steep walk uphill, and felt like climbing a mountain the first few times we went up before we'd acclimatised - I'm sure I'm not the only one who was slightly worried about the real mountains to come after getting completely puffed out on the way up.

A surprisingly stunning view over Leh
from the toilet at the palace cafe

The food in Ladkh is incredible, and not what I'd expected from India. Because of Tibetan influences, the food is beautifully fragrant and fresh. Vegetarian stews such as thukpa, served with khambir, a soft flatbread, were exactly what we needed after a long day. In town we bought momos, beautifully comforting steamed dumplings served with spicy dipping sauce, and drank mango lassis from a rooftop restaurant overlooking a busy street and a monastery. Monks are everywhere in Ladakh - both obviously important wizened old men, ushered through crowds into monasteries, and young boys wearing trainers, jumpers and beanie hats, carrying iPhones. They welcomed us into their monasteries many times throughout the expedition, greeting us and helping us, spreading their kindness and generosity.

Dogs also run rife in Leh, as they do in Delhi (except these were much fluffier, hardier mountain dogs than those in the city). They're a real nuisance, and their population is getting out of control, but no solution has been reached by the governing authority. They bark and fight until 3am, making sleeping very difficult - and that's on top of the scary periodic breathing due to the altitude from whoever you're sharing a room with - and occasionally get vicious and attack people. Whilst shopping in town we began to be followed by Fluffy, who obviously didn't have any doggy friends; he'd be barked at and chased as we walked around the town, but he just wouldn't leave us alone. He was welcomed into our team at first, but when the other dogs wouldn't let us go up a path to a monastery because of him we decided we should probably try to lose him. About twenty corners and a few quick jogs later we were four again (and also slightly lost..).

Shanti Stupa in Leh - LEDeG hostel was just below this

Leh is a paradise for westerners attempting to 'find themselves' - the number of people wearing floppy hippy trousers with dreadlocks told us that - so there are a lot of yoga retreats held there. We attempted quite a few yoga sessions throughout the expedition, which at times felt pretty special. In Leh, we held some early morning sessions, involving lots of sun salutations and pose holding, but out at base camp and even on some of our long treks we managed to fit some in. Stretching out our backs after a long day of carrying our rucksacks, watching the sun go down and listening to the flow of the river beside us towards the end of the expedition will always stay with me, especially the comedic value of not being able to breathe and trying to hold poses in a down jacket and mountain boots.

Sitting outside in my garden with a cup of coffee and the dog at my feet, it's hard to comprehend how far from Ladakh I am right now. Fighting the post-expedition blues is harder than I'd expected. Time to pack for California!