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After two weeks of trekking through
the Himalayas in the Ladakh and Zanskar regions of India, we
wanted to try out some real high altitude mountaineering. Stok
Kangri is a popular climb for mountaineers coming to Ladakh due to
its relatively easy access from Leh, the capital of the region and
the generally stable and dry weather prevalent in the summer
months. Plus the summit tops out just above 6000 meters - easy
pick!
The route up to the summit of Stok Kangri (6120m) from base camp,
photographed on flight Leh-Delhi
We
stocked up on food in Leh the day before we were going to start
the climb. The climb is completed by most in 4 days, where the
first two days are spent ascending slowly to the base camp at
5000m and days 3 and 4 are spent summiting and hiking back down to
Stok in the Indus valley. We figured it would take us these 4 days
but we bought food for an extra day just in case. In addition, we
got us some old rental crampons and ice axes at a climbing store
in Leh.
Rent-a-donkey in
Stok
We
got pretty sick of carrying our heavy packs just by walking down
to the bus stand in lower Leh, so when we arrived in Stok (3000m),
we decided to support the local economy and hired two donkeys. It
was so much better not having to carry all that crap!
The trail up to Camp
1
We
had to wait a little till the donkey man got our animals all
loaded up with our gear. The donkeys were pretty small and looked
totally overloaded, but we were assured this was normal :-) We hit
the trail at 11am and walked up through interesting canyon
landscapes. To our surprise we arrived at the first camp
(4500m) already after three hours. Most people opt to stay here
for the night in order to acclimatize better.
The lodge at
Camp 1 on the way up to Stok Kangri
Peter and I still felt pretty good at this stage and after a quick
noodle soup lunch decided to continue walking to the base camp
(5000m). We told ourselves that the trekking from the previous two
weeks should have acclimatized us well enough to the altitude.
Another two hours on the trail and we finally arrived at the
basecamp. We kind of lost track of our donkey man and his animals
the whole day and we were relieved to see him at camp chatting with his colleagues.
The "settlement" at basecamp
The
camp looked really crowded, there were tents everywhere! There was
a group of English high school kids who had just come down from
the summit and looked really knackered. They said the climb was
fairly non-technical, just really exhausting due to the altitude.
Here are some impressions from the evening at camp.
After a five-course deluxe dinner (tuna and spaghetti) we talked
to some of the guides who were gonna lead up the other groups
tomorrow. Most of them decided to leave camp around 1am and since
we didnt feel like walking in a large caravan of people, we set
our alarm for midnight. Just before hitting the sack, we spotted
some rare blue sheep close by. It was tough getting some sleep at
5000m elevation. And it was even tougher getting out of our warm
sleeping bags in the middle of the night! We tried to chomp down
some Indian fruit cake that expired exactly one year ago. It was
kind of gross but it was the only breakfasty thing we could buy in
Leh a day earlier. At 00.30 am we were finally ready to begin the
long climb to the summit of Stok Kangri. The first stretch was a
fairly steep gradual climb up the moraine of the glacier flowing
down the valley to the East of the summit. It took almost an hour
to get up it and the air started to feel really thin already. But
what a view we had! Despite the darkness, the summit of Stok
Kangri was visible in the back-end of the valley. It looked dark
and scarry! Looking in the other direction, you could even see the
lights of Leh. Peter had fought like a warrior getting up that
first steep pitch and he was still short of breath even after a 15
minute break. He said he felt like crap and decided to call it a
day. I took his camera and continued solo on the trail up the
valley. After another hour or so I reached the glacier. I knew
from the descriptions that I would have to cross it somewhere, but
the trail kind of lost itself in the moraine gravel and there were
no other climbers ahead of me whose headlamps I could follow. I
had absolutely no idea where to go! So I decided to wait for the
next group and just follow them up the summit. I waited for almost
45 minutes and it got pretty cold. The first group that passed me
were some Israelis with two guides. Cool, they would know where to
go! The Israelis turned out to be really nice and had no problem
with me walking along with them and their guides. It turned out
that the glacier crossing took place several hundred meters above
the position where I first tried it. Good thing I decided to wait!
The glacier was pretty harmless, at least in the dark no major
crevasses were visible. The trail then zick-zacked up the scree slopes straight towards the summit of Stok Kangri.
Early morning on the
way to the summit, ca. 5600m
At
elevation 5400m the trail started to become snow-covered. The snow
was frozen rock-solid and I was happy to have some crampons with
me. At this stage the air got noticibly thin, really thin! Ten
steps and then 1 minute pause. The summit started to look really close yet
our progress was so slow. Its tough on your mind!
Man, the sunrise was
unforgettable!
By
sunrise, I had been climbing 5-6 hours and I started to feel the
exhaustion. The incredibly pretty sunrise helped a little bit to
overcome the pains of exhaustion.
The summit pyramid seen from elevation 6000m
The
final hundred vertical meters went over rocks but I was too lazy
to take off my crampons. Sometimes the crampon even made it easier
to climb over the frozen gravel patches now and then. For the last
one hundred meters it almost took me one hour!
Finally at the
summit!
I
reached the summit almost at the same time (7am) as one of the guides and
one of the
Israeli dudes. What a feeling it was to stand on top of that mountain!
The views were stunning 360 degrees around. Now and then a cloud
would stray over the summit, but most of the time the sky was
clear offering great views of the Indus Valley and Leh to the
North and the massive Himalaya Range to the South. Here are some
summit impresions.
After more than an
hour on the summit I got pretty cold and became restless. The
others were still waiting for one more guy to arrive so I headed
down by myself. The snow had gotten pretty soft by now and I
glissaded down the mountain on my butt whereever it was possible.
There were still quite a few people going up, most of whom
hadn't even made it up half way when I passed them on my way down. Glad I was going down and not
up! After a 3.5 hours knee-killing descent I finally made it back
to camp where Peter was still sleeping in our tent. All in all I
had climbed for almost 12 hours non-stop and was totally dead. I
passed out on my therm-a-rest in front of the tent for almost two
hours. After another hour resting we decided to go down to the
lower camp at 4500m to get some proper
oxygen for better sleep. We helped to load our donkeys and stumbled down to Camp 1.
Never been so tired in my whole life! Again I just passed out and
got woken up intermittedly by one of the donkeys trying to eat
from our food bag.
Not knowing that we
were gonna have donkey steaks that night
The
500m vertical difference between Camp 1 and basecamp was extremely
noticable by the quality of sleep I got that night. 4500m felt
like oxygen paradise all of the sudden. The next morning we got up
early so we would be able to catch the 9am local bus from Stok
back to Leh.
On the way back to
the village of Stok
Down
in Stok, we had just enough time to say goodbye to our donkey man
and his animals. His friendly wife and kid were already waiting
for him and they were obviously happy to have him back.
Happy to have
daddy back
Back
in Leh we had a cool view of Stok Kangri in the evening sun. Cant
believe I had been up there the day before - what an experience!
View of Stok
Kangri from the town of Leh
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