Llew Wanders the World

I was happy to be back in Gilgit, and especially happy to be back at the Madina Guesthouse, whose staff and owner made the otherwise pleasant-but-boring town a great place to be.

My first order of business was to sort out where I’d be going next and how I’d be getting there. I initially expected that I’d almost certainly be heading straight to Lahore and the border so that I’d catch Donnie, a friend from Atlanta, before he departed India. A check of my e-mail revealed that he was already gone, and gave me the flexibility to consider some more time in Pakistan.

I’d really been hoping to cross the Shandur Pass between Gilgit and Chitral, a difficult but legendary journey. In addition, this trip was the only sensible way for me to get back to Peshawar and re-visit my wonderful friends there. Earlier in the trip I’d been foiled by snow on the Shandur, as well as on the Peshawar-Chitral road. Things still sounded pretty grim for this trip; jeeps were not running across the pass, and although the Chitral-Peshawar road was supposed to open any day, it wasn’t quite passable yet.

Nonetheless, I started making investigations to see if there was ANY way to make the journey. In addition to my own interest, I was also considering Nick, my friend from Karimabad and Passu who’d be arriving in Gilgit the next day. Nick had mentioned that he very much wanted to get over to Chitral as well.

I spent the afternoon wandering around town, asking advice from a number of different sources. Though the details varied a lot, there was a general consensus amongst all my advisors: Shandur WAS closed to jeep travel. Jeeps WERE running to the last towns before the pass. Walking over the pass WOULD be possible (though how long it would take and how difficult it would be was uncertain.)

I decided to wait for Nick’s arrival and see what he said. If he was interested in giving the walk a try, off we’d go. If not, it would be a quick flight down to Islamabad then away into India.

I spent the rest of the day talking with a young Belgian who was trying to arrange some treks for himself and was running into the same problems I had, namely the snow line was still very low, making pass crossings difficult and limiting him to short walks up valleys and then back again without crossing any passes.

That night, I lay in bed, listening to the call to prayer from nearby mosques (a very common sound in Pakistan, of course) and feeling very, very happy and lucky to be able to have made such an incredible journey.

The next day was one I looked forward to for a couple of reasons. First, Nick would be arriving and the future of my time in Pakistan would be decided. Second, it was Sunday, the day for High Tea at the Gilgit Serena Hotel. Nick had explained this wonder to me, and I’d been salivating at the thought of it for more than a week!

I spent the morning doing a bit more research and relaxing at the Madina. In the early afternoon Nick arrived and expressed not just agreement with, but excitement at the plan of the hike over the pass. We did a bit more checking around and found ourselves a jeep that was headed to Teru (last stop before the pass) the following morning. But before setting out, we had other business to attend to.

I put on my least shabby clothes (my Shalwar Kameez.) Nick and I, along with Patrick and Marten (Swiss and Dutch respectively) shared a taxi out to the Gilgit Serena, the fanciest hotel in town, a four star establishment. We headed up to the dining room and discovered that we were early for the start of tea, but even the brief glimpse at the buffet had my intentionally deprived stomach grumbling.

A nice sit in the Serena’s garden and it was 15:00, time to start. As the tables in the beautiful dining room filled, we noted lots of military names on the reservation cards (Major this, Captain that, etc.) and lots of western clothes on the men (barely a shalwar kameez in sight.) This provided some interesting insight on how one gets ahead in Pakistan.

Over the next two hours we gorged ourselves on the absolutely incredible spread put out by the hotel. The dessert table was the best of all, with each offering being replaced by something else equally wonderful as it was finished. I won’t go too much further in explaining how wonderful the meal was, except to say that they had trifle, TRIFLE! and that by the time we were done, I was scarcely able to move. For a mere 150Rs (about C$3) we’d stuffed ourselves to bursting at the best hotel in town. If you’re ever in Gilgit, make sure you’re there on a Sunday, and don’t miss the Serena’s High Tea.

The next morning Nick and I made our way to the jeep stand and found our vehicle waiting, almost completely (over)loaded. Much to our surprise, the jeep left almost precisely on time, and with a mere three people in each of its wide row of seats. This was positive luxury!

And outside we had scenery to match. The Ghizer river valley was much wider and greener than the Indus, despite the Ghizer being a mere tributary of that great waterway. About an hour into our trip we stopped in a tiny village for chai and breakfast. The meal of hot nan fresh from the tandoor and delicious milk tea, along with the beautiful, idyllic, green village would have been worth the trip in its own right!

We headed on up the valley, and it just got prettier and prettier. One question remained. Why were we in a jeep? The road had actually been paved and very smooth for the entire trip. After our lunch stop in the town of Gupis we found out. Carrying on past the beautifully coloured Phandur lake, the road soon turned rougher.

The worst moment came as we crossed the spot where an avalanche had swept over the road. Most of the snow had been cleared, but as we crept past the Jeep gave a sudden lurch to the right. The snow and/or mud underneath had given way and the jeep leaned at a precarious angle out over the river, made still more worrisome because of the huge load on the vehicle’s roof. All of the passengers began to disembark, ready to walk over the blockage and lighten the vehicle. Nick and I were about to join them when the driver indicated that we, as valued guests, didn’t need to walk. Erm… Thanks, but really we’d rather not…

After a couple of minutes of spinning tires and pushing the jeep was dislodged and we continued on towards Teru. As we climbed higher and higher up the valley, its beautiful greenery began to disappear, and snow-capped peaks became more and more prominent around us. The road got much rougher as well, but we still arrived in Teru at the pretty decent hour of 17:00.

At Teru it seemed as though the entire town (or all of its young people at least) had come out to greet us. One of the first to greet us was the chowkidar (caretaker) of the NAPWD Inspection Bungalow. These buildings are resthouses meant for visiting officials, but they’re often let out to tourists when they’re unoccupied (and by the look of Teru, I didn’t imagine it got much use.) The chowkidar also offered to prepare us some simple food at night, and gave some advice on how to approach the walk over Shandur (most importantly, he explained that we would need to start very early. No later than 04:00, or the snow would be melting when we arrived at the top of the pass, making walking difficult.)

Having dropped off our packs, Nick and I went out for a walk around the dozens of spread out stone buildings that made up Teru. Everywhere we went we were accompanied by loads of children and teens, eager to have more and more photos of ourselves.

When sunset came we returned to the bungalow. We’d had great luck so far, getting a jeep straight to Teru, finding a nice place to stay and getting some good advice about the trip to come, but in the evening things took a turn for the worse. My stomach had been troubling me for a while, and that night it got much worse. I felt very, very bloated and was plagued by awful stomach cramps. Concerned about my condition, Nick went out looking for the Chowkidar and/or a friendly English-speaking passenger from our Jeep ride who had insisted we call on him if we needed anything at all.

Nick was gone for a long time, and by this point I’d already taken the first of my emergency antibiotics/antiamoebics (I’d picked these up in Gilgit before departure, just in case.) I hated to resort to them so quickly, but Nick and I were now on fairly tight schedules, and couldn’t afford to be sitting around in Teru for a few days to recover.

Nick returned with the Chowkidar and our dinner. They’d managed to scrounge up some medicine for me, although it turned out to be exactly what I’d brought with me. Thankfully I was beginning to feel better already, and was able to finish off half a big chapatti, if not any of the Dal. Before heading to bed, we made the decision to set our alarm for 03:00, and if my condition continued to improve, to set out for Shandur top shortly after.

Much to our relief, my condition HAD continued to better. Though I wasn’t 100%, we did a bit of final packing and set out on the jeep road towards the Shandur Pass.

The road across Shandur isn’t well traveled, even in the summertime, save for one special time of year. Each year, sometime in the late summer, it plays host to what has been described as “the most spectacular polo event in the world.” Representative teams from Gilgit and Chitral, along with thousands and thousands of fans meet on top of the 3800m to decide who are the greatest polo players in Northern Pakistan. Polo has been played in the area for hundreds of years, but this tournament, contested for about 100 years running, is the highlight of the polo calendar. Indeed, the Shandur Polo Festival has become the place to be seen amongst Pakistan’s elite, with the date frequently being changed at the last minute to allow attendance by the president or other luminaries. July, and its accompanying pleasantly warm polo weather were still a long way off, as we’d learn during the next two days.

We started walking in the dark. The moon was still just up, but it was only a crescent and there was some dust in the air. Thankfully Nick had a good headlamp, as mine (purchased in Luang Prabang, Laos) had almost given up on functioning. We walked along the roadway for half an hour or so, making only one stop to shed our boots while crossing a wide ankle deep stream of icy cold water.

We soon realized that we hadn’t been walking along the road after all. We could just make out its shape, and they accompanying hydro poles perhaps 30m below us down a steep slope. In what may have been a foolish decision, we decided to head straight down the slope in the near-darkness instead of retracing our steps. I made it down okay (if ungracefully, sliding on my bum) but Nick slipped as he was climbing down the steepest, bottom part of the hill. He received a nasty bruise on his leg, but fortunately he was otherwise okay.

We reached the village of Barsat at about 04:15, just as the sky was beginning to lighten. Barsat was truly the end of the line. Jeeps would have had trouble making it there given the road conditions, and it was the last settlement of any kind until we reached the police checkpoint at Shandur Top, 23km further on.

At 05:30 we stopped for breakfast (chocolate and dried fruit) before taking the last fork in the road and heading up the valley towards the pass itself. The valley was absolutely beautiful in the early morning light, and the walking was fairly easy as well. There was a lot of mud, and some snow as well, but almost all of this was still frozen from the night’s cold.

Our walk was slowed by my having to take several toilet breaks (my stomach was still feeling a bit poorly) but we made great time, reaching the end of the valley just after 08:00. We’d walked the first 18km in about five hours, including a half-hour breakfast stop. But by this point the sun was already starting to impose itself on the snows, and things would get much, much harder.

The trail had been fairly flat all morning, but at the end of the main valley it took a sharp right turn and started to climb steeply up alongside a small creek. Some of the braids of the stream were absolutely beautiful, their bright colours and vigourous plant life showing how quickly life could return to the highlands once winter had run its course. As we headed up towards the pass we saw the only fellow walkers we would encounter: 5 Pakistani men headed towards Gilgit looking for work. We bid each other good luck and carried on our ways.

The first part of the climb to the pass was the steepest part. The altitude made it a little bit difficult, but it really wasn’t that hard. It was AFTER the steep climb that we really started to get bogged down. The steep slope had ensured that most of the snow had been shed already, but when we got to the flatter sections the road had been completely covered and there were some very deep drifts along its path. Worse still, we began to punch through the icy crust on top and sink deep into the soft stuff beneath. Trying to combat this, we left the trail and walked higher up along the sides of the mountains, but this scarcely seemed to help. We still had to regularly cross small valleys with snow in them, and many of these had hidden streams flowing at their centres. The walk was becoming harder and harder, and by this point our feet were soaked and freezing. In addition to my continuing toilet breaks now we needed to rest regularly just to thaw out our toes on the sun-warmed rocks.

Nearing the very end of the climb we came to the realization that however difficult the walk along the road might be, it couldn’t be any harder than what we were already doing. We gave up on the hillsides and headed back down towards the road itself. For a while this worked wonderfully. There were several road cuts whose tops were free of snow. We even began to enjoy the walk and scenery for a while again.

It couldn’t last. We’d decided to carry on following the road and its cuts, neglecting the footpath that led off away from them. This was a mistake. After the cuts ended, we were spit out into a vast field of snow with virtually nothing to guide us. We knew we had to follow the axis of the path, roughly parallel to the footpath off to our right, but that was all. Worse, the snow had become very soft indeed, and we punched through it up to our thighs or even waists with almost every step. A few hundred metres of walking took a seeming eternity, and Nick began to express doubts about whether we could actually make it. I’d been optimistic all morning, and still was. We had lots of time I thought, and it was only another 3 or 4km to the checkpost. As the impossibly difficult walk continued, however, even I began to wonder whether we should start trying to find a (probably non-existent) spot to pitch our tents and then continue following the next night’s freeze.

Despite my concerns, I was keen to at least head over to the trail on the snow that we’d declined to take earlier, and see if the walking there was any easier. The 200m over entirely open country between the road and footpath was perhaps the hardest walking I’d ever done. Much to my relief, the packed down snow of the path was somewhat stronger than that long the road and was able to hold some of my weight.

I started moving along as quickly as I could manage. Nick had fallen behind a bit, but I knew that every minute we were out there was one more minute for the sun to melt and soften the snow. And already my feet were sinking into it every few steps. It was becoming more and more difficult to pull myself back up onto the hard surface of the trail as I sunk in up to my waist time and time again.

If I was having a hard time though, Nick was having a absolutely nightmarish one. He was falling further and further behind. His greater weight meant that he fell through the surface at almost every step, and the fact that he wasn’t quite as fit or acclimatized to altitude as me made it harder and harder on him.

By the time we’d been on the snow path for forty minutes he was far, far behind me. We both stopped and yelled back and forth, trying to decide what to do. After considering all the options we decided that I should go ahead as fast as I could and try to return with some help from the checkpost. I promised that after arriving and shedding my pack, I’d come back myself to help him out if I needed to.

It was a shame that the walking was so, so difficult. It made it hard to appreciate the sublime beauty of the 10km long Shandur Pass as we headed across it. The entire pass was covered in snow, the only signs of colour coming from small, steep portions of the mountainsides and the pale green of the three lakes on the pass top, each of which had almost, but not quite, thawed out from the winter’s freeze. The whole place seemed one vast, arctic wasteland with no sign of civilization, or indeed, life of any kind in sight. When we DID stop to admire the place and think about it, we felt incredibly privileged to be there. In an ordinary year, perhaps 100 people and no more than five or six foreigners would see the Shandur Pass in the state it was in during our walk.

The walk got harder and harder for me, and I fell through the top layer more and more often. On two occasions the instability of the surface and the weight of my pack combined to topple me face down into the snow. Finally, however, I saw the buildings of the checkpost in the distance. I yelled out joyfully to Nick, who could just barely hear me, but who I’m sure was even more delighted than I.

The checkpost was still a couple of kilometres off, but with a target to reach for, and some patches of shallow snow along the roadside (the trail had rejoined the road) I made somewhat better time. I moved quickest when I simply gave up on trying to stay on the surface and plowed my way through the shallower patches at top speed. This was very hard on my feet, however, dropping the temperature in my boots to near 0 over and over (for some unfathomable reason I hadn’t put on my gaiters before setting out that morning. But truth be told, given the amount of snow and their low quality, I think it would have made little difference.)

Finally, I made it near the checkpost. The road was exposed here, and I blazed along, covering the last few hundred metres very quickly. I was overjoyed to see three Pakistani men standing by one of the buildings waving at me as I approached. The last few metres would be the worst of all, however. The clear section of road didn’t lead all the way to the checkpost buildings, so I had to follow a small stream down. At the end of this was a large patch of mud. It looked like it MIGHT still be frozen, so I took one tentative step forward. And sunk knee deep into a muddy, slushy, frigid mess. The men at the post tried to direct me around, but the other routes were longer and little better, covered in metre deep snow as they were. I gave up and decided to just push on through the muck. It was only about 10m across, but by the end of it my shins and calves were numb and every trace of sensation had been removed from my already dulled feet.

The men on the far side pulled me up out of the mud and greeted me with a friendly smile and a “asalam aleikum.” I’d promised to go back for Nick, but I couldn’t bring myself to go until I’d thawed out my feet. As such I happily accepted the cup of tea I was offered and collapsed into a chair where my hosts set about removing my boots (this was just too much, but they managed to get one off before I convinced them that I could do it myself.)

After a bit of time warming my feet in the sun and by their cooking fire, I explained that I had to go back and get Nick. “My friend is sick,” I said in Urdu. (I didn’t know the Urdu words for “utterly exhausted and very cold,” so sick was the best I could do to explain that he needed help.) I’d put my socks back on and was picking up my boots when one of them indicated that I should stay in the chair, pointing to another fellow and saying “he will go.”

I’d been entirely prepared to head back into the snow myself, but I must admit that I was very very happy and relieved when they offered to do so.

The man grabbed a walking stick and set out sprinting through the miserable arctic wasteland. As he went, I changed into clean dry clothing, and started to talk with my hosts a bit more. Their English was almost as limited as my Urdu, but I learned that they were from the Chitral Scouts, a light infantry branch of the Pakistan Army. They spent the entire year upon Shandur Top and were very happy to see Nick and I, if only as some break in their routine. They also confirmed that, as we’d expected and sort of secretly hoped, we were the first foreigners to have made the crossing that year.

Before much longer, Nick arrived alongside his guide who had very, very generously carried his pack for the final 800m or so. It was 17:00. The first 18km of the walk had taken 4.5 hours, the final 10km, 9 hours. But we had made it.

The Chitral Scouts could not possibly have been better hosts. They provided us with several cups of hot tea, and kept the fire going so we could warm ourselves next to it. When we asked about a place to set up our tents, they emptied out a room and gave us not just two beds, but piles of blankets and down sleeping bags as well. They even offered us some of their dinner, but I thought we’d already taken enough from them and cooked up our full stock of instant noodles, much to their amusement (though we had plenty they stuck to the dal and chapattis that they ate twice a day, 365 days a year.) Chicken flavoured broth and oily processed noodles had never, and probably will never taste so good as it did to Nick and I that night.

Quite understandably we went to bed early, exhausted from the day’s ordeal, and readying ourselves for an early start the next morning. Before we slept, we noticed light snow falling outside.

The next morning we were very happy to discover that it was only a small flurry. Our hosts/saviours had woken up at the same time as us, and while we packed, they prepared us hot, sweet tea to enjoy before departure. We thanked them very, very profusely, leaving behind all of the food we had left (a lot of dried fruit and candy, a few packs of instant noodles) in hopes that they might enjoy at least a bit of it as a variation in their diet.

We set out at 05:30 (our hosts told us we didn’t need to leave QUITE so early this time, despite the fact that a 03:30 start hadn’t been near early enough the previous day.) Almost immediately we ran into trouble. We could hardly find our way back up to the highway! Seeing this, one of the scouts came out to join us and, to our amazement and delight, accompanied us all the way down off the pass to Laspur.

We rejoined the highway near the sign marking the very top of the pass and started to speed along. The road itself wasn’t visible, but we were able to walk along the top of a concrete retaining wall beside it at a very good pace. All good things must come to an end, however, and soon we were back on the trail of hardened snow that we’d followed the previous day. It was somewhat hardened, but despite this and our guide’s prodding at it with his stick we still found soft spots and sunk into it occasionally. This happened to Nick more than the guide and I, as the guide was lighter and had no pack, and I walked behind Nick, carefully avoiding the spots that he’d punched through.

Thankfully we’d crossed most of the pass’ 10km the previous day, and soon came to the start of the climb back down. The last 100m or so before this was some of the toughest walking of all, however. The snow was very soft and deep, and had several streams concealed underneath. A couple of times during this portion, one of my legs would plunge into the damp snow, followed my other as I tried to climb out. This would pack the snow all around the first leg, pinning it in place. If there hadn’t been someone to give me a hand up, it’s possible that I would have been stuck there for good!

Despite the difficulty of the final test, we made it. A valley full of light snow and mud has never been a prettier sight. With the completion of the pass crossing we’d moved from Gilgit District in the Northern Areas to Chitral District in Northwest Frontier Province.

Having reached the valley, we left the road behind, following the stream at its centre instead. Our guide set a blistering pace, which was very hard on the knees, but which got us down to the bottom in next to no time. Just outside the town we passed through several glades of trees that showed prime examples of the interesting methods of firewood gathering in the area. Trees are allowed to grow for a few years, then limbs are cut off for use as firewood, but the bult of the tree is left in place (presumably to help stabalize the ground and break the wind) for a few more years to re-grow its limbs.

Not long after the trees began to appear, livestock followed, and then other people. We’d arrived at Sor Laspur. Before we’d even had a chance to properly thank him our guide started sprinting up the valley again, intent on an early return to the checkpost. It wasn’t even yet 10:00.

We sat out on the verandah of the town’s one tiny hotel, took off our sopping boots and just basked in the sun. We were invited inside for some tea and biscuits by the owner, but quickly returned to the warmth of the sun. As we sat, waiting for some sort of transport to appear, we watched the men of the town unloading parts for a very large bandsaw into the front yard of the hotel, which was already strewn with logs. They were removing these from a trailer behind a tractor using only prybars and brute strength, and I was almost waiting for the moment when one of the massive pieces would fall, crushing a limb or worse. Thankfully it all went okay.

A jeep appeared in town and we learned that while it would be heading back to our intended destination of Mastuj, we still had a while to wait before departure. We sat around and talked with the town’s school children all dressed in their school uniform of orange shalwar kameez. While they were obviously curious, they remained very polite and quiet throughout our stay.

Finally 13:00 came, and with it, the departure of our jeep. It was raining lightly by now, and we were riding in the un-covered back, but with what we’d been through over the past couple of days that was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

The Mastuj valley was incredibly beautiful, and its people perhaps even MORE friendly than those we’d met in the Northern Areas. During the ride (and the long wait in a village chai shop along the way) we received three offers of accommodation in various villages, as well as an invitation to tea in Mastuj from several Pakistani men out visiting schools as part of the Aga Khan Education Project.

The road back to Mastuj was incredibly rugged. The jeep bounced along, making unbelievably tight turns and steep climbs down towards culverts or fords, then clawing its way back up again. There were times that it was hard to believe a vehicle could actually move along such a thoroughfare, but it did all the same. In one particularly memorable moment, we came across a bridge to a very tight set of switchbacks up a hill. Instead of making a very sharp right turn off the bridge and heading up the hill, the driver made a shallow left, put the jeep in reverse and went up the first switchback BACKWARDS. Upon arriving at the top, he put it into forward gear again and continued along in normal fashion. None of the other passengers seemed to even blink at this.

The rain had stopped, the valley was as beautiful as any I’d seen in Pakistan and the road continued to be its unbelievable self. It was a very, very memorable ride.

Upon arriving at Mastuj, the AKEP folks took us back to their office, made us tea, and even insisted on having Nick e-mail his family while they found an open hotel for us. We couldn’t have got better service if we’d booked a package tour!

Tea and talk completed, we found our way through the spread out town to our hotel. The Tourist Garden was a delightful place, and we had it all to ourselves. Indeed, we had the entire town to ourselves. As at Shandur top and Laspur before, we were the first foreigners to visit in several months.

We spent a wonderful evening in the garden, talking with the owner and recounting our exploits. Indeed, the talk (as it would a few times in future) bordered on boastful, but if you can’t boast about something like that, what can you boast about?

Later in the evening we, along with the owner, were astonished when his third guest of the year arrived. He was a Korean gentleman, perhaps 40 years old who had come up from Chitral town and was considering the same journey we’d just made in reverse. Nick and I did everything we could to convince him not to go, ESPECIALLY not alone. He didn’t even have proper hiking boots, and didn’t seem to have much in the way of warm clothing either. Furthermore, while he was very well traveled, he didn’t seem like he was prepared for serious trekking. In the end he decided that he’d carry on to Laspur the next day, check out the situation there and consider hiring a guide. I can only hope that he’s okay…

After watching the wonderful sunset on distant Tirich Mir, we finished off our evening with a delicious dinner and yet another well-earned sleep.

The next morning the cloud had cleared and the mountains were doing their absolute best to convince us not to leave Mastuj. Which isn’t to say that there had been any landslides or avalanches or anything. The views of the mountains, with wisps of clouds floating around their coloured bulk, and the sharp contrast of shadow and light, were just incredible.

But leave we did. And things didn’t disappoint from then on. The mountains we passed through on the way down to Chitral town were perhaps the most beautiful I’d seen in Pakistan. The contrasts of colour along the road

Sadly, I was stuck in the middle seat of the jeep and didn’t get any good pictures of them, except when we stopped at a nice, but unremarkable spot for chai. (Only in northern Pakistan could you call a place like that “unremarkable.”)

After our chai stop the road improved considerably, and the colour disappeared from the mountains. We arrived in Chitral and were dropped off at the front door of our chosen hotel. It wasn’t a big town, and wasn’t quite as beautifully situated as some we’d visited, but it was still something of a relief to be back in civilization.

Two big thank yous this time:
First to Nick. Without his presence I never would have even considered making the trek across Shandur, and without him alongside me, I don’t know if I could have finished the immensely draining walk.

Second to the Chitral Scouts. The four men stationed at Shandur Top truly went far, far, above and beyond the call of duty when they did so, so much to help Nick and I on our journey. We both owe a permanent debt of gratitude to them.

Tags: Pakistan

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