The enjoyment of an experience is more about who you do it with more than what you’re doing. Our trip was uncomfortable Type II fun bordering Type III fun. I am grateful for the American crew we had to be able to commiserate and laugh about the ridiculousness of what we were experiencing. The crew consisted of Billy, Jasmine, Joe, Colleen, and myself. Billy is my best friend from high school. He’s married to Jasmine, and at their wedding last summer is where I met Joe and Colleen. Colleen is one of Jasmine’s childhood best friends and Joe is her husband. It is through them that Billy, Jasmine, and I even got the opportunity to come to Pakistan.
I learned that what I had thought this trip would be was very far from the truth. This trip was different than anyone expected, but since I was the furthest from the source, the idea in my head was the furthest off from reality. What I thought and had sold friends, family, and work is that the son of the UK ambassador to Pakistan was getting married in Islamabad. Then afterward, the wedding party was heading to the North for sightseeing and hiking. The connection was that Joe was friends with this son because of his international development work. We were going to have special visas as a guest of the UK ambassador. The tour was going to be top of the line because we would be traveling with VIPs throughout the country and I’d be rubbing shoulders with Pakistani big wigs. I assumed we were flying into Skardu and just doing day trips from there as our base. After the main tour ended, some of us were going on a guided trip up Khosar Gang. The reason we were going up Khosar Gang was that while it was a 6000m mountain, it was not technically difficult, and was well traversed. While there were elements of truth to all of this, the reality was far different than the picture in my head. Something I knew before leaving was that I was going on a normal tourist visa and not anything special. At the time that didn’t throw up any red flags in my head.
Part I: The Tour
At 6am PCT on Saturday March 26th, I departed my apartment to begin a marathon of travels to Pakistan. Flew PDX to SFO, had a 6 hour layover, then had a 16 hour flight from SFO to Doha. 3 hour layover in Doha, then flew Doha to Islamabad. Arrived in Islamabad at 1am on March 28th. It’s 12 hours ahead of Portland, so it was 1pm on the 27th in Portland when I arrived, concluding 31 hours of continuous travel. I was surprisingly awake, but I think part of that was adrenaline. Walking out of the terminal in Islamabad, everything became very real. I was the only white person in a bustling airport. I knew coming into this trip that it was when I arrived in Islamabad, I would be most vulnerable for something negative to happen to me. The plan was for someone from the Marriott to be waiting for me with a sign with my name on it. This was set up by Billy and Jasmine. When I walked out of the terminal, there were no signs with my name on it, and I had no way to contact Billy. I also wasn’t sure if there were multiple Marriotts in Islamabad. Worst case, I knew that everyone would be back at the airport in a few hours for a flight that I thought was at 7 to Skardu. Luckily, after half an hour of pacing back and forth in the pickup area, a small Pakistani man in a Marriott uniform ran up with me with a sign with my name on it. We got into his bus and drove to the hotel. The ride to the hotel I noticed a large police presence and a lot of road closures. At the time I did not know this, but apparently the day before, there had been a protest with 300,000 people protesting the government because of a planned vote of no confidence for the prime minister. The protest had closed the highway. I had looked into the political situation prior to leaving the states. There was tension, but nothing that from what I was reading seemed abnormal for the country. I got to the hotel at 2:30am, got to Billy and Jasmine’s room, said hi, then passed out for 4 hours. We had all thought our flight was at 7am, but earlier that day, Billy and Jasmine had found out that we just needed to leave for the airport at 7am and that we were going to Gilgit instead of Skardu. This was the first example of poor communication and changing plans that proved to not be an exception for the trip.
We got up at 6:30am and had an amazing all you can eat breakfast at the hotel. Whenever I go for long periods of time with minimal sleep, I make up for it by eating ridiculous amounts of food. I think my body burns way more calories when it doesn’t have time to recover. Billy, Jasmine, and I left for the airport to meet up with the wedding party at the airport for our flight. Once there I got to meet the remaining cast of characters for the trip. It was great seeing Joe and Colleen again. I then met Irfan and Maria, the bride and groom from the wedding the weekend before. Irfan is the son of a Pakistani diplomat that was stationed in Munich. He spent early youth in Pakistan, but mostly grew up Germany and works at State Street in Munich. Maria is Russian and also works at State Street in Munich. Colleen is good friends with Maria and worked with both Maria and Irfan at State Street in Munich. That is when I learned it was Colleen, not Joe who was the connection for the wedding. There was a German woman named Bettina and a Chinese woman named Shu that were also State Street friends. Victoria was Maria’s sister. There were two German guys, Felix and Titus, who were Irfan’s dancing friends. Apparently Irfan would go out to dance without Maria, and would be with just men. It was a puzzle we couldn’t crack, but maybe the answer is simply European cultural differences. We also met our tour guide Najim. The Americans would later refer to him as Najim the Nitwit.
I did not know at the time, but I slowly gathered from listening to Joe and Colleen that the wedding was not an enjoyable experience. The apartments they stayed at had dirty sheets, the bathroom was disgusting and had constant standing water, and the place was in a general state of disrepair. The general theme of the wedding seemed to be hurry up and wait. They’d be told to be ready and show up somewhere, then sit on folding chairs for up to 4 hours before participating in whatever event was happening. I believe they did some touristy things in Islamabad, but even that was waiting, sitting in a car, seeing something then sitting in a car, and returning to a folding chair. After the wedding they found out there was a program with accurate times for each event, but they never received one and the times they were told every day for the starting times for events were always wrong.
At this point I feel like I need to speak to certain members of the audience of this piece that will call me out for complaining and that I should make the best, no matter the situation. I did just that, I am just calling attention to the situations we experienced and how they drastically contrasted with what we were sold. I have no problem staying in rough placed, but if that’s not what you’re expecting, then it makes the experience that much more uncomfortable.
The flight from Islamabad to Gilgit was awesome. I sat next to this guy who was in the Pakistani army for 30 years, and now works for the UN. He had some very interesting perspective and talked to why Gilgit was his favorite part of Pakistan. We saw the mountains rise up as we flew North. Sheer, intimidating walls of rock and ice surrounded us as these giants grew higher than the height which we were flying. It seems impossible that humans are able to climb to the top of any of them. I would later learn that most of the mountains in Pakistan are unclimbed and unnamed. I believe that’s due to two reasons. One is that mountaineering is a relatively new hobby. The other is that there are few people with the time, money, and skill to climb these beasts and they focus on the big named challenges. I’ve never seen anything like the mountains there and I never will unless I go to Nepal or return to Pakistan. I could stare at them all day, and that’s how I spent a lot of my time while in the North. We got to see the three biggest ranges in the world, the Hindu-Kush, the Himalayas, and the Karakorum.
We landed in Gilgit, met our 4 drivers, and took off for Karimabad in the Hunza region. Along the way we stopped at some random locations, like a hand dug cave, a view of the original Silk road, and various stops for mountain pictures. We got to a traffic jam and found out that there was a local protest due to a land dispute between the Hunza region and the Nagar region. We stopped, had some tea, and did a small hike up in the foothills. The protest was a group of men blocking the road. Hunza is a region on one side of the Hunza valley, and Nagar is a region on the other side of the valley. We later found out that the dispute was over a land mass where the river splits going around this mountain then comes back together creating a mountain island in the river. Both sides want the mountain because it gives more river access, therefore more water rights. After waiting for a few hours, we got back in the cars and went around the protest on the sketchiest road I’ve ever been on. It was a dirt road with a cliff going up on one side and a sheer drop to the river on the other. Felt very Indiana Jones like. This also added to our driving time. By the time we got to the Karakoram view hotel in Karimabad, we were all exhausted and starving since we didn’t have lunch. We got in, and it came to light that not enough rooms were booked and even the single people had to share. The way the numbers worked out, it came down to me having to share a room with Victoria. I didn’t care, but she did, so to make it easy, Billy and Jasmine had me stay with them since there was an extra bed in their room. Once we got up to the rooms, we discovered that the rooms were unheated, open to the outside air, had dirty sheets, and a bathroom with the shower and toilet in close proximity with no curtain, which led to constant standing water in the bathroom. The temperature at night dropped low since we were at 8000ft, so the inability to close all windows at night was not ideal. After being in the car all day, struggling with adjusting to sleeping on Pakistani time, and seeing the state of the room, Jasmine threw a fit. It was justified, and she realized way before the rest of us that this trip was not what we were expecting. At dinner we found out that the plan for the next day was to drive to the Khunjerab pass, which is the border crossing between China and Pakistan, and is highest paved border crossing in the world, standing at over 15,000ft. That was a best case scenario 4 hour drive away, which we had already learned was unrealistic to expect. We were also planning on having multiple stops along the way. Due to the super long planned day, Billy and Jasmine decided they were going to chill the next day and not join. After dinner, some of us went into town and had tea, and checked out the Hunza “Bazaar”, which was really a street of shops. Afterwards I went back to Joe and Colleen’s room and drank with them. Joe had brought alcohol he had gotten in Islamabad. We had heard it would be relatively easy to find alcohol in Hunza, but that was a lie. I didn’t go to bed until after midnight, which concluded my first day in Pakistan. I was surprised that I wasn’t more tired.
The next morning we found out that protests were still happening and the road for us to leave was closed. This was due to the same land protest between Hunza and Nagar. Things had escalated and were getting more emotional. The day prior, Hunza people had buried a man in a cemetery on the disputed land. Then Nagar people came over, exhumed the body, threw it in the street, burned an ambulance, climbed up on a cliff and closed the road by rolling boulders down the cliff. Further down the road, hundreds had gathered to block the road and continue their protest. Needless to say our plans of driving all day weren’t going to happen. Joe, Colleen, and I recognized this early, but the guides refused to admit this and kept on reassuring everyone that the protest would end soon, and we’d be able to drive through. We did rearrange some things, and went to a winter and summer fort in the area. They were semi-interesting, but the best part was walking down the mountain from the summer fort to the winter fort. There were some claims that were made on our tour that were questionable, like the forts we were walking through were built 1000 years ago, even though there were pictures of it being built. Last I checked, photographs didn’t exist 1000 years ago. Joe and I enjoyed pointing these anachronisms out to each other. What we think the truth is was that there were forts that existed, but were destroyed by the British in the 1890s, then eventually rebuilt as tourist attractions. We couldn’t get any guide to admit that to us though. In one of the forts, someone’s brother was buried alive standing up by having a wall built around him. Not the best way to die. From the winter fort we got a prime view of the protest and the people rolling boulders off the cliff. We also saw that there was a counter protest starting on the Hunza side. At this point the Khunjerab pass was nixed, but other stops were still being sold to us that they were still doable. The lunacy of the day then started. We were shepherded into the cars to do more “local sightseeing” because supposedly the protests were still 30 minutes away from ending. We drove to a cemetery, a “view point” that was literally just a random spot half way up a dirt road, then went down to a local village to wander around. Since Billy and Jasmine didn’t join us, I was in a car with Joe, Colleen, and Bettina. Joe had brought some whiskey so it made it more enjoyable. I believe it was during this time that we coined the term “This is Pakistan” or “TIP”, whenever anything didn’t happen as planned. After walking around the village, we could see the protest was still building because we were right on the edge of it. There was a sit in with all the local girls leaving their schools to sit in the middle of the road, further down the road there were hundreds of men gathering at the bridge near where the Nagar people had gathered on the other side. Everyone was chanting “Let the dead rest”. Felix tried taking pictures, but luckily was shut down quickly by our guide. He then wandered to an area where he saw food. He got a plate and came over and told us that all we needed to do was ask for food and they’d give it to you. We found out this was food being made for the protesters. Joe and I refused to take their food because it wasn’t for us, but soon the rest of the group was there eating the protest food. Some of them ate so much they weren’t hungry for dinner later. Joe and I recognized this was not a scenario we wanted to be in. This was a very emotional protest that was getting bigger and bigger. Our group of foreigners were eating their food, and the only Pakistani, Irfan, was a rich kid from out of the area. If anything bad were to happen on the trip, it would’ve been then. We did not want to be a part of It, so we gathered Colleen and walked back up to the hotel. This was the start of the Schism between the western and eastern cultures in our group. We got back up, took a cold shower, and met Billy and Jasmine for dinner at their new hotel. They had secretly booked a room in a much nicer hotel that was somehow cheaper than the place we were staying at. We found out that Najim the Nitwit owned the hotel we were staying at and probably was charging us way more than actual since he got to choose the hotels we stayed at on our tour. Back at the hotel we sat around a fire and listened to some live local music. The plan for the next day was to leave Karimabad and drive to Khaplu. Since we didn’t get to see any of the sites that were planned for this day, the plan was to go an hour and a half in the opposite direction from Khaplu to see a lake and a bridge. The Americans were not down for adding a minimum of 3 hours to what we were being told was a 5 hour drive from Karimabad to Khaplu, so we decided to squeeze into 1 car and let the others split the remaining 3 cars to go to those sites. We just wanted to have a chill morning, minimize our car time, and do a hike at some point.
The third day of our trip started out well. Joe, Colleen, and I walked up to have a nice breakfast at Jasmine and Billy’s hotel. We came down pack up and found out that the other group had already passed us. The 3 hour round trip had actually been a 1 and a half hour round trip to see the lake and the bridge. We quickly caught up to them while they got tea and breakfast at the base of Rokoposhi, a stunning 7788m peak. We didn’t want to get stuck waiting with them, so we quickly got back on the road after our driver, Nawaz, had a cup of tea. We appreciated having Nawaz as our driver, and hoped he appreciated that he got stuck driving around the Americans. What was billed as a 5 hour drive was actually 10 hours. We had no unexpected stops, no protests, and no delays. We cruised as fast as the roads would allow, and still it took 10 hours. We spent a lot of the drive laughing about the ridiculousness of the drive times. Colleen ruined apricots for everyone because she found a wriggling maggot in one she was eating. We were informed of the maggot’s existence by a blood curdling scream. I was shocked Nawaz didn’t drive us off a cliff. Another discovery we made on the drive, is that Joe, Billy, and I were overcharged by $200. On the way we were on the S-1, which is one of the world’s most dangerous roads due to sheer drop offs and frequent rockslides. We made the stunning drive safely, and arrived at the Khaplu fort. Since we arrived before the rest of the group, we got first pick of the rooms. I got my own room and didn’t want to deal with the awkwardness of figuring out who was sleeping with who. The fort was beautiful and the nicest place we stayed by far. Better than a curtain, the shower was encased in glass. No standing water in the bathroom today. We had dinner and talked about the next day. The other group planned to leave at 9 to do a list of sites. The Americans decided to do our own thing again, and we recruited one of the German guys, Titus.
On the fourth day, we got up, had a good breakfast, and went for a quick hike up to an old structure behind the hotel. It was only an hour round trip, but it was nice to move our legs after being in cars so much. We all has expected a lot more hiking opportunities and not sitting in a car the entire trip. We drove back the way we came to Skardu. Along the way we stopped in a desert and hiked up these cool sand dunes. Then we drove to the last hotel for Joe, Billy, and myself, the Shangrila. Built in 1983, it was a marvel for its time, but was quickly apparent no major updates had been done since it was built. Billy and Jasmine’s first room had just been painted the day before and smelled heavily of paint fumes. When they told the hotel, they came in with aerosol cans to try and spray the smell away. They switched rooms. I got put in a room with Bettina. We both commiserated on how we have no issues with sharing a room with someone else, just that it should have been planned to have single rooms for the trip. By this point, everyone was very frustrated about the trip, being stuck in the cars all day, lack of communication, and poor planning. This hotel was on the way from the previous day’s drive and it would have reduced the total driving time by at least 4 hours if we’d stayed there first then stayed at the next place. Joe, Billy, and I were glad this was the last stop for us and that we were going to start the mountain the next day.
Part II: The Mountain
On Friday April 1st, we parted ways with the main group. I’d been in Pakistan for 5 days but it had felt much longer. We had breakfast with the main group at 7 and waved them off. They were flying to Islamabad then driving to Lehoure, which everyone says you haven’t begun living until you’ve seen Lehoure. We packed up, did a gear check, and got picked up by our mountain guide, Nawaz (different than our driver). We drove to his village Sildi. On the way we discovered that we would be the first April summit attempt ever. Dennis Urubko, a world famous climber, had completed the first winter summit only two months prior in February. We arrived at Nawaz’s house in Sildi, and dropped off the items we didn’t need on the mountain. We had porters to take anything we didn’t need up the mountain. In total 44 porters brought food and other items up to base camp. The hike up to base camp was solid. It was nice to move our legs and be the most active we’d been since arriving in Pakistan. The base camp was at 12,000ft and was in an old shepherd hang out area. There were stone walls and stone structures spread out in the area, and it was covered in sheep shit. The views of the valley were stunning. Just a giant wall of mountain rising straight from the valley floor on either side. We were in the Shigar Valley. Khosar Gang is the tallest mountain in the valley. The majority of the other mountains are between 5000-6000 meters and are unnamed and unclimbed. That night our entertainment director, Billy, brought out his iPad and we watched Vertical Limit. It was kind of surreal to be up at base camp watching a movie. Joe has a great video of us in the tent dying laughing at a ludicrous scene. Billy also doubled as our camp doctor, pharmacist, physical therapist, and spiritual advisor while on the mountain.
The next day was a rest day to acclimate. A villager brought up a goat that Billy named Lunch, because it was to be our dinner. We went for a hike with Nawaz to experience some higher elevation then come back down. On the hike our confidence in Nawaz started to crumble. He was complaining about his bad back, he had doubts about the snow conditions up higher, and he said he didn’t believe Dennis Urubko had summitted in the winter because the route he chose was “impossible”. Urubko had done all 14 8000 peaks and would have no problem summitting this mountain via any of its routes. The reason he chose the route he did was due to high avalanche risk on the summer route. We realized that this was the first time Nawaz was coming up not in the summer. For Urubko’s expedition he only provided support up to base camp. We also started asking questions about logistics between who was going to be a line handler and who was going to porter things up. Nawaz’s plan was for the porters to be carrying laods while also setting lines just ahead of us. The final kicker was that there were supposed to be two more guides coming in form Hunza, but couldn’t make it because a rockslide had closed the S-1. Billy, Joe, and I held a summit in our tent. We knew that we wouldn’t be able to tell snow conditions until we got up there. Our confidence in Nawaz was shaken, and he didn’t have a good plan. His lines of communications was based on cell usage and we had no radios. We decided to call Solar, the guy Joe booked the trip through to figure out how we’d replace the guides that didn’t make it. If we couldn’t replace those it’d be an automatic no-go. We felt confident up to Camp 1 was still safe and that we’d judge it day by day to continue moving forward. Another factor that would have made a difference is that Joe’s friend Lukas was supposed to join us but couldn’t because he’s Polish and was hosting a Ukrainian family in his house. Lukas much more experienced in the mountains than Joe, Billy, and I. After a movie session, we went to have the goat for dinner. Prior to dinner, I got hit with a sickness and threw up our lunch. I felt horrible and couldn’t keep any food or water down. It wasn’t due to altitude since my breathing was fine and I didn’t have a headache. I think it was either some of the meat from lunch or that the water we were drinking was from melting snow that was mixed with sheep shit. I felt bad because they had killed this goat for us, and I couldn’t eat any of it. Right in the middle of dinner, a strong dust storm hit that covered everything in a layer of dirt, dust, and sheep shit. That ended dinner. We found out that 3 guides from Skardu were coming up the following morning.
On the third day, we packed up to go to Camp 1. I still hadn’t eaten or drank anything since I first got sick. I felt worst than if I’d been hiking all day, and hadn’t moved yet. I still decided to try to push through. I made it to our first stopping point, sat down, and immediately threw up a neon orange liquid. I made the call that I’d head back down, recover, and try to head to Camp 1 the following day. The rest of the crew would head up to Camp 1 and take a rest day up there while I came up. I would still be at base camp with the chef and his assistant. I took Billy’s iPad, went back down, and was in my tent by 11am. I didn’t leave, other than to pee, until 7:30am the next morning.
When I woke up, I knew immediately that I felt better, and that I was starving. I then ate any food I could find, and had more in one sitting than the previous 48 hours combined. I was ready to head up to Camp 1 and told the chef. He called Nawaz who passed the phone to Billy. They had decided to call it. Apparently Nawaz had said the snow conditions didn’t support and he didn’t want to continue up, but Billy and Joe could if they wanted. Billy and Joe were not in a position to make that decision, and that’s why we hired a guide. They also hadn’t had any food or water since the previous day since no supply line was made to support that minor necessity at Camp 1, which means Camp 2 would have been even worse for that. Nawaz had tried calling the chef at base camp earlier in the morning. Since they were still asleep they didn’t pick up, but Nawaz told Billy and Joe that I wasn’t coming up, which was a bold faced lie. We were disappointed, but it was the best decision. We didn’t trust our guide, and he had a bad plan. If something had happened, we didn’t have the built in continencies to safely evacuate. They made it down to base camp, and we packed up and headed down. We got a room at the Shigar fort nearby to recalibrate. Billy and I had experienced two legs of 4 day shit shows, and Joe had experienced three legs of 4 day shit shows because he had the wedding too. We were exhausted, and didn’t have any faith that anything else we’d do would be better. We looked at the news update and saw that the Prime Minister had blocked the vote of no confidence, and had tried to dissolve the parliament. There were major protests in Islamabad with a chance that things could devolve very quickly. We made the decision to leave early. Colleen and Jasmine had left 3 days prior, and we utilized Colleen to rebook all our travel. She was a life saver and hooked us up. I need to find myself a woman who can side gig as an international logistics director on a whim.
While we slept, Colleen was able to rebook all our travel a week early, and made sure the three of us were on the same flight out of Islamabad. We flew from Skardu to Islamabad in the morning. On the way to the airport we met a really cool woman named Maha who worked for the World Bank. She was able to give us some fascinating history of the region, and as we divulged some details of our trip, confirmed we kind of got screwed, and she felt bad that’s the side of Pakistan we saw. The flight to Islamabad was easy and gorgeous, flying next to the giants for the last time. We got picked up and went to the Marriott for 10 hours. Billy worked out. Since this was one of 2 places in all of Pakistan you could easily get alcohol, Joe and I started to drink. We got some delivered to our room. There was also a sports bar speakeasy in the basement that was only open to foreigners. It was nice to be able to drink and commiserate. We each had a liter of whiskey and beer. When it was time to leave, we were in a good place. Billy was a little frustrated by our inebriated state, but we were having fun. We got through security easily, slept on our flight to Doha, then hung out in a lounge until it was time to part ways. We had had an experience and I’m glad it was with Joe and Billy. We made the best of it, and got through it safely. They left for Boston and I for LAX. Other than having to sit next to an obese Indian woman that was crowding my space the entire flight, the flight was easy. I was definitely ready to start my own land dispute by the end though. If only I had a boulder to drop on the arm rest and block passage. Nothing major to report on the remaining travels back to Portland. Had some Chipotle when I came back to reset my body, and immediately went to bed.
This trip was different than any I’d been on before. Pakistan is the first country I’ve been to that I would not immediately recommend something for someone to go visit. It was an experience and I live my life to experience it all. I’m very happy I did it and would still make the same decisions to go. It was an adventure, just a different adventure than expected. Joe, Billy, Jasmine, Colleen, and I will definitely have this to talk about for the rest of our lives. They were great to travel with, which in itself is rare to find. I think my sickness reset my stomach and what I like. I am very hesitant around all meats and any curry flavoring, and will be for a while. I almost need to rediscover what I like. If I ever go back to Pakistan, it will be for the mountains. I need to develop a higher level skillset, because when I go back, I don’t want to be dependent on anyone. I feel unsatisfied about our mountain attempt and think I will always have the desire to summit Khosar Gang now. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future when I tell my story, the terminology changes from “If” I return to “when” I return.