Stok Kangri Trek July 12-21, 2017

Everyone was stoked about the trek! (pun intended)

Preparation

Safety

AMS (Acute Moutain Sickness) is the most common altitude related sickness. You have to really be aware of all the symptoms and take corrective actions immediately. I found this excellent (and rather scary) guide about Travel at High Altitude. It talks about everything that can go wrong and how to detect and treat any issues. I read it thoroughly and even carried a printout with me for reference. We also started on a Diamox regimen before the trek to deal with high altitude. Diamox essentially forces the kidneys to excrete bicarbonate which re-acidifies the blood and balances the effect of hyperventilation at high altitude.

Gear

We stayed in the Yarol guest house today. There were three rooms for the eight of us. Rooms were ok but the hospitality was simply superb. Our hosts were really nice and took good care of us.

Food was simple but tasty. It was mostly cooked using the vegetable garden right outside. We could taste the freshness

Kanika and Anu decided to go harvesting and plucked some radishes etc. from the garden. They were really tasty but with three people sharing a room, we didn’t dare to each too many radishes ! 🙂

We also did some last minute shopping in the market today. Most importantly, we rented down jackets. They will only be needed for the final summit but we had to rent them from Leh.

Day 2: July 13, 2017. Stok Village

 We drove from Leh to Stok Village today. Stok  Village is the starting point of the trek. It is at a  slightly higher altitude than Leh (11,800 ft  compared to 11,500 ft). We passed the Indus  (Sindhu) river, namesake of India along the  way.

Day 3: July 14, 2017. Stok Village

We saw some spectacular views along the way

The flowers below are of the rose family. They only have one layer of petals. These are called Sia. The name Siachen literally means abundance of roses.

We finally reached Mankarmo camp after about 7 hours of walking. The luxury of guest houses is gone now. It’s time for tents, sleeping bags and dump toilets. There was a common kitchen tent for food. Freshly cooked hot food is the one luxury we can still enjoy.

After a short rest we did our acclimatization trek to prepare ourselves for tomorrow. The timing was perfect. We saw the mountains change colors in the evening light. It was surreal.

Our guide checked oxygen levels for everyone in the group. We were all ok. However, he gave me some oxygen in the hope that it will help me sleep better. It didn’t help 🙁

Day 5: July 16, 2017. On to Base Camp

After four sleepless nights and two days of fever it is getting harder for me. Today’s plan is to go up to the base camp. Base camp is at 16,300 ft. So it is an elevation gain of 2,100 ft – similar to yesterday but in half the distance (about 5km) so it is going be much steeper !

After some rest it is time for another acclimatization trek

We got a small taste of what is in store for us. We did a small part of the summit trek. At 16,000+ feet even walking is a challenge. This short, 3 hour trek proved to be quite draining.

By the end of the day I was feeling really tired. The combination of multiple days of lack of sleep, fever, high altitude and no rest is proving to be almost too much to handle. At night our guide took our oxygen levels and pulse. My oxygen level was I think in the 65-70 range which was barely in the acceptable range. However, my pulse was around 80 which the guide said was much lower than what it should be. He said it should be over 100.

Meanwhile one member of our group, Anu who had been bravely struggling with altitude sickness all along, started feeling some pain in the back of her head. This is supposedly a sure sign of AMS so it was decided that she will have to head back immediately. She had to pack up her bags and leave the base camp around 9:30pm. We were all hoping to summit as a group and it was really disheartening for everyone.

As much as I wanted to summit, I also did not want to take any unnecessary risks. So I asked the guide if I needed to head back as well. He suggested that I give it one more night and make a decision tomorrow.

Day 6: July 17, 2017. Base Camp

Day 7: July 18, 2017. Summit Tonight?

Soon thereafter I saw Aditya coming down with one of the guides. He was able to come down really fast, ahead of the rest. Around 10:30-11am the rest of the group also made their way back. However, it was not all good news.  One of them got seriously disoriented and had to be brought down on shoulders for the last 2-3 kilometers. He was immediately given oxygen and then sent back to Stok Village on a horse. Others made it down on their own but were really exhausted. Their verdict was clear – it was a really hard climb and with me being at half-strength due to fever, I should not attempt it.

I was now in two minds but wanted to keep my options open. I decided to do another training session with my guide for roping up, using crampons and using ice axe.

After that I retried back to my tent. There my niece Kanika encouraged me and said I should at least give it a shot.  I decided to delay my decision until evening. I slept for most of the day. When I woke up at around 6pm, I found that it had been raining hard for a few hours which is very unusual for this region. To make matters worse, my shoes were outside the tent and were completely soaked now. I asked the guide if it was still possible to summit tonight because it was raining heavily. He said let’s wait until 8:30pm to see how the weather unfolds. In the meanwhile I was desperately trying to dry my shoes. It will be impossible to use wet shoes as most of the trek was going to be in sub-zero temperature. I remembered an advise from one of the guides earlier – he said sometimes the mountain simply doesn’t want you to climb and you should bow down to its wish. Could it be that I was not meant to summit? Lack of sleep, non-stop fever, bad weather, wet shoes, friends with my best interest in their heart telling me not to do it – was this all a sign? And to top it all, I was now all alone. After months of planning, training and coming this far with friends, the thought of summiting alone felt more like a task now. I am seriously considering giving up.At 8:30pm I look up at the sky and there is no rain. Somehow I have also managed to dry my shoes sufficiently by now. My guide says we can go if I am up for it. I had to make an instant decision and decided to go for it. It took my another hour to collect all my gear and put it all together. Kanika helped me a lot.

Finally I spiked myself with some medication to fight my fever. At 9:20pm I took my first step. And I knew immediately that I was going to go all the way.

Day 7/8 : July 18/19 Overnight Summit Trek

The first thought that came to my mind as soon as I took that first step was that IT WAS NOW MY TURN. The mountain had thrown all possible obstacles in my way but now it was my turn to conquer it. I was carrying a picture of my family – I looked at it and felt the kids urging me on – “dad, you can do it!”.

The trek has to be done overnight because most of the trek is on ice and during the day time the melted ice makes it really treacherous. Therefore ideally you have to start the trek at a time when the ice is frozen again and have to finish it before it starts to melt!

The whole ascent can be thought of as four segments:

1. Base Camp to Advance Base Camp (ABC). I reached ABC in about 1:50 hrs (11:10pm). It got super cold by this time and I had to put some hand warmers in my gloves.

2. Going across a long glacier. We lost our way a bit here but got back on track. It has to be navigated carefully to avoid any crevices and thin ice. We also had wear crampons to get a good grip.

3. Climb from end of glacier to the Stok Kangri shoulder. This is an incredibly steep climb (see picture below). Every step takes an effort. I tried to find the right pace at which I could continue to walk without stopping frequently. At sub-zero temperatures you need to conserve body heat. Every stop causes a rapid heat loss. I reached the shoulder at 4am. We took a 20 minute break here before going for the final assault.

4. Stok Kangri shoulder to the top. My guide told me that the sunrise will be at 5:30 and we were going to reach the top too soon. So we decided to slow down but still reached the top at 5am. It took exactly 7:37hrs for me to reach the top. We were the first ones to reach there. Soon other climbers joined us.

Trek path overlayed on a satellite image. You can see the glacier, the ridge from shoulder to the peak and other geological features. The actual trek had a lot more snow than shown in this image.

We waited for about 30 minutes at the top for the sunrise. Then took some pictures. LOTS of pictures 🙂 We stayed at the top for an hour then headed back at 6:10am.It took me a few tries, but I managed to do my headstand on the top again :)Views are supposed to be spectacular here. Unfortunately the fog never cleared up enough to get a clear view.

My guide was carrying some food in a hot case and gave me a warm, boiled potato. The combination of warmth and carbs was just what I needed! I have never tasted anything better in my life 🙂 🙂

Day 8 : July 19. From Stok to Stok in one day!