When man meets mountain...

Serious mountaineers can take up the challenge of conquering the unclimbed world's tallest peaks that crown Pakistan.

There is a Zen question I read somewhere: 'The Bodhisattva of Great Mercy has a thousand hands and a thousand eyes; which is the true eye?'

The answer given was in Two Zen Classics, translated by Katsuki Sekida, Case 37, Joshu's Oak: 'I could not understand this for a long time... when I looked at the pine trees bending before the cold blasts from the mountain, I suddenly realised the meaning. You see — all the boughs, branches, twigs, and leaves simultaneously bend to the wind with tremendous vigour.'

I have visited the tourist hill stations of Murree and Nathiagali a number of times — and every time I have journeyed into the thick forests surrounding these areas I am reminded of these words.

The scenery is breathtaking. Travelling further north it becomes ever more beautiful — and lethal.

Pakistan is where some of the worlds' tallest mountain ranges: the Hindukush, Karakoram and Himalayans converge.

Unfortunately media blitz has all but obliterated from the
world's eyes the unbelievable beauty of the 'Land Where The Mighty Mountains Meet'. In fact Northern Pakistan hosts the greatest global concentration of the highest peaks in the world. This includes: Five peaks at over 8,000 metres elevation — counting the world's second tallest peak K2; 29 peaks more than 7,500 metres and 121 peaks more than 7,000 metres.

Second tallest peak

Of these there are many peaks that remain unclimbed — a great challenge for serious mountaineers!

K2, although the second tallest peak in the world, is also considered the most challenging to conquer — hundreds have accepted the challenge. Many have lost their lives with only a couple of hundred completing their journey.

Reinhold Messner called K2 the 'Mountain of Mountains' after his successful ascent in 1979. K2 lies in the heart of the Karakoram Range and can be seen in its entirety from Concordia, which is also the K2 Base Camp. It is at the head of the Godwin Austin Glacier that merges with a second glacier at Concordia to form the famous Baltoro Glacier.

Four 8,000m peaks sit within a radius of 13 miles from Concordia (K2, Broad Peak and Gasherbrum 1 and 2) — there truly is no other place like this on Earth. K2's north face is one of the biggest mountain walls in the world.

The eastern wall of the mountain has a terrace two thirds of
the way up which is called K2's Arm. K2 remains unconquered during the winter months. Only eight women have been able to climb K2. There are a few mountaineers who have climbed all fourteen 8,000 metre peaks — no woman has completed this gruelling challenge yet.

No Pakistani woman has yet climbed K2 successfully either. However, the Alpine Club Pakistan, in collaboration with The American Alpine Club and a number of government authorities — have proposed running training camps in mountaineering and rock climbing for young women in Pakistan so hopefully this challenge will be taken up soon!

K2 and the 8,000m peaks are not for the faint hearted though — the failure statistics speak quite clearly. Having said this there are a number of companies that specialise in holiday packages for North Pakistan. One of these — KE Adventures — started its' worldwide network of trekking and adventure-holidays from Pakistan. The website says, "The classic approach to K2 and Concordia, the challenging trek to K2 by way of the Gondoro La and the magnificent crossing of Snow Lake and the Hispar La are absolute classics of world trekking."

Walking below 6,000 metres

The Government of Pakistan has defined trekking as 'walking below 6,000 metres.' The trekking season is usually defined as between May and October — there are also three types of trekking areas designated by authorities: Open — tourists are free to trek in these areas without permits or mountain guides.

Restricted — tourists must obtain a trekking permit from the Ministry of Tourism; it is mandatory that a licensed mountain guide be hired, a personal accident insurance policy must be bought for the guide and porters and briefing de-briefing sessions must be attended at the Ministry premises.

Closed zones are adjacent to the country's borders — for safety purposes no trekking is allowed in these zones.

In today's world where man seems invincible and has reached beyond the skies and to the bottom of the oceans it seems incredible that there are places he has not yet commercialised. We are after all talking about the tallest mountains in the world — wonders of nature — not the creation of man. It is equally easy to forget the deep roots of these majestic peaks. The cost of these giants flexing their muscles was witnessed globally when on October 8, 2005 there was a massive earthquake in Northern Pakistan leaving 79 thousand people dead (official count) and an approximated 3.3 million homeless.

Elements outweigh the feats of man

The faces of many valleys have changed; many villages were swallowed whole during that devastating time. Yet the survivors wanted only to return to the climate they know, the way of life that is subtly different because in the background stand these enchanted mountains. In a place where the elements outweigh the feats of man, roads are often washed away by flash floods or are
destroyed by landslides.

Even the horror of the earthquake cannot lessen the allure of the sentinels of Heaven — it must then be an exhilarating feeling to stand in extreme cold and hear nothing but the sound of wind. That and the sight of an immovable, unemotional, snow capped guard in front of you. To breathe distilled air.

Once you visit this area you cannot forget it — as American mountaineer Greg Mortenson discovered. In 1993 he was descending from a failed attempt to climb K2. Along the way he wandered away from his group into a desolate area. With no food or water he was lucky to eventually stumble into an impoverished Pakistani village where he was nursed back to health. Whilst he recovered Greg noticed the village children using sticks to write in the sand — the villagers were too poor to even afford one dollar-a-day salary to hire a teacher. When he left he promised that he would return to build the village a school and so began his mission to build schools in the remotest mountain regions of Pakistan. This is captured in his book, Three Cups of Tea.

Wonders of the world

There are now a number of professional organisations that handle the vast traffic of tourists that pass through the Northern Areas. The tourists who do travel here from all parts of the world unfortunately do not always leave without a trace — they often leave behind them ugly waste that mars what is otherwise untainted territory.

The Adventure Foundation in Pakistan alone has organised a number of clean up operations in the mountains. The latest reported on their website was a cleanup of K2-Concordia where a team collected 300 kg of waste material.

These wonders of the world cannot be rebuilt — we owe it to the future generations of Pakistan and the world to make sure we leave them as we found them.