Tianshan Hike Day 2: A Leisurely Stroll
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 in: News
The morning found us in only slightly better shape than the previous night. I rolled out of the tent to see Dan stoicly upright, sitting by our boiling coffee reserves on the side of the hill. Our run-in with altitude sickness had convinced us we probably weren’t going to see what was beyond the mountain pass we’d set as our goal, so we grabbed a couple snickers bars and a bottle of water and set ourselves upon the hill that had defeated us the day before, just to get a better view of the rest of the hike. After a grueling 20 minutes of trudging up the slope, the land leveled out into an expansive green meadow, starkly contrasting the stone cliffs reaching for the rolling clouds floating by. Nestled at the base of one rocky outcroppings was a small hovel surrounded by grazing horses. We admired their location, flat and sheltered from the harsh mountain wind, and climbed ever further to get a better lay of the land.
The view was dazzling, but another hill stood in out way of getting a full view of the upper valley. We turned around to see someone emerge from the hut, dressed in army fatigues with the distinct flat cap often worn by Uighyr or Kazakh men. I wasn’t quite sure how he would respond to two outsiders traipsing about the land he lived on, but there was no ignoring him. I turned to Dan and lightly suggested that if he shot me or something, to just run for it.
Turns out he was a Kazakh horse and sheep herder, a man of few words, but spoke some Chinese. He didn’t seem too surprised or perturbed by a pair of waiguoren walking around the mountains. We commented on how beautiful the landscape was, and that we were jealous he gets to call this home. He smirked knowingly and shuffled off direct his horses to graze further up the valley, leaving us to our own devices. The top of the hill on which we stood gently joined with the next ridge, with a deep ravine below that cut between them, creating an impressive obstacle to the “direct route.” Our view was impeded, so we soldiered forth, following the trail the horses took along the higher ridge. When we arrived at the highest point, the entire upper valley lay before us. The ground leveled off and was dotted with clouds of sheep and lamb. It was one of the most peaceful and pastoral mountain scenes I’d had a chance to witness. The winters here must be bitterly cold, but for now, this was paradise.
To the left was a fork in the mountain stream, leading around a corner to a section of the valley obscured from view. Contrary to our expectations, the hike (or perhaps it was the view) had invigorated us, and we decided to push on, just to get to the top of the next hill. When we arrived, we felt stronger and more confident, so we pushed on to the next hill, and the next. Each minor accomplishment propelled us forward, like a series of magnets accelerating our ascent towards an unspoken goal.
When we got to the end of the meadow, we were already physically exhausted, but our determination had been forged in the series of small hikes that had led up to this moment. It was almost unnecessary to ask each other, but we did anyways. “You want to go on?” “Let’s just see what’s on top of this pile of rocks.”
The rocky bit was slow-going. The visual texture of stone hid multiple small ridges we had to conquer to get to the “final push,” a steep scree slope of loose rocks into which our feet dug deeply, making us take three steps for each progressive one. The final slope was the most challenging; our muscles screamed for oxygen as we climbed ever higher, and the tough path was unforgiving. Our “mini-goals” were reduced to stones a few paces apart. Baby steps. We tried not to cast our gaze up towards our goal, which seemed within arms reach, yet infinitely distant. The horizon was closing in on us, and just as we began to wonder if we’d been moving at all, the ground gave underneath us and flattened out mercifully, giving us room to collapse. We’d made it.
The view at the top was well worth the energy. The valley we’d just crossed stretched out peacefully in the late morning sun, and we could almost make out the windmills all the way at the base of the opposing mountain range. Over the ridge was another gorgeous valley, even more devoid of man’s presence than the one we’d just traversed. A mountain stream cut through the bottom, carrying with it the melted snow from the top of the impressive peaks facing us. The only thing missing from the scene was the lake we’d expected to see. Our original destination, Tian Chi, was nowhere to be found. No matter, we had already abandoned our gear at “base camp,” so there was no intention to carry on to the next valley. Our discovery only reassured us that we’d made the right call not to proceed any further. Our lack of maps only furthered our resolve; we’d shifted our goals and met them, we couldn’t have been prouder of ourselves. We shared our victory Snickers at 4,200 meters above sea level, and we ruled all that we could see.
Reaching the top gave us such an energy boost that we found ourselves running back down the slope, cutting deeply into the gravel. I suddenly remembered running down the side of cinder cones with my brother in the Lava Beds. We reached the bottom of the slope in a fraction of the time it took to climb, slowing to a heavy gait as the rocks grew in size but not stability. This would’ve been a bad place to sprain an ankle.
We stayed high, trying to maintain a steady drop in elevation to avoid any further climbing up on our way out. Our route back gave us a better view of the rest of the valley where the river forked to the north-east, and we caught sight of a turquoise mountain lake at the base of the peaks feeding the mountain stream. We would have gone to investigate but having exhausted our food supply, we desperately needed to get back to camp quickly.
The return quickly became a plodding march, our stomachs clawed at the back of our minds, demanded reward for our accomplishments. We cut through the herd of sheep, scattering them to the wind. We noted with a bit of disgust how nimble they were on the slopes as we lurched forward. The Kazakh’s son was on the hill where we’d first met his father. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old, but his face was hardened and bitten by the wind. Deep crevices had already formed around his eyes, either from too much smiling or squinting in the sunlight. Given his demeanor, we guessed it was the latter. I asked him if they lived here year-round, to which he replied they only spent two months in this valley before the weather got too bad. Dan wondered what they did to entertain themselves in that little shack for two months, but it was beyond the grasp of our imaginations.
Our camp was harder to find than we’d expected. We climbed down much further than we thought we’d need to before I spotted a familiar rock and found our tent where we’d left it. We gratefully dove into our rations and ate the share of fruits and nuts we should have taken with us up the hill before passing out on the side of the mountain. I woke up an hour later with a sunburnt nose and a smile on my face. We broke camp and set off to get back into the valley. I’d spotted a more gradual slope leading down to the river, and we discovered the Kazakh’s trail which followed the path of least resistance down the ridge. Finally back on somewhat level ground, we walked until the sun set before leaving the road to find a suitable place to spend the night. A flat patch of earth rewarded us with a comparatively comfortable place to sleep, and after enjoying a cup of hot noodles (perhaps the best cup noodles of my life), we promptly rolled into the tent and succumbed to the exhaustion we’d been ignoring.
Quite an account. Almost feels like I was there.