5. Living in the Djangart

Life in basecamp is an exercise in patience and managing boredom. The first few days aren’t bad, there are general set-up tasks that take some time: gathering stones for a fire pit and cooking area, making sure the tents are pitched taught, organizing food. There are daily chores like making a water run and cleaning the dishes. But for the most part it’s all about waiting: waiting to acclimate, waiting for better weather, waiting for your body to recover…

In all, Matt and I spent the least amount of time in basecamp, but it was still tedious. We’d spend days reading, playing chess (mostly Jamie and I), occasionally joining Jamie on a bouldering foray, listening to music, or just joking around. It’s fascinating to see group dynamics developing in such a closed system. What’s probably more strange to anyone who hasn’t been there though is the recurrent discussion themes: bodily functions, food, toilet humor…well, you get the idea.

Our basecamp was situated on a flat grassy area about 300 m from the Djangart River and about 500 m from a small side stream that provided better water, at least early in the morning when the flow was lower. We lived in harmony with several marmots and at least one family of weasels. Luckily, neither decided to investigate our food supply. There were loads of flies, both the regular kind and large, biting horse flies. There were a few mosquitoes, but they weren’t a major problem, nor were the handful of spiders that enjoyed the refuge of my tent. Jamie got the worst of the insects, especially early in the trip, when he had some huge welts from being bitten. We didn’t see anything larger than a marmot until our last climbing foray, when I stumbled up a herd of ibex. There are, apparently, wolves and bears that live in the area. We didn’t come across any, but were asked by the horsemen and soldiers if we had seen anything.

Our basecamp near the intersection of the Djangart and Akoguz

The Djangart Valley was not the pristine wilderness we expected. We knew the lower valleys had long been a hunting ground and were possibly explored in the 1970s as a source for tin. Unfortunately, we found copious evidence of human despoliation. Rusting metal littered the valley: an empty trailer, sledges, tables, drop toilets, a bicycle, large fuel drums, loads of wire, tools, a stool, buckets, dishes. We found a lot. It was also clear that telephone or electricity had been run into the valley a long time ago, though by the time of our visit all that remained were remnants of collapsed poles. I guess the only upside is that the poles provided us with some fuel in the treeless alpine environment. Perhaps more egregiously, the Kaichi was also strewn with trash.

Without Abdybek, we took turns cooking, although Dan liked to do the most experimenting, seeing what he could create with our limited resources. Nobody really complained about cooking, it was a nice diversion to eat some time (pun intended, sorry). We soon realized that some things that had tasted good in the market were in fact nearly inedible, whereas other things (e.g. sugar/salt) we had completely mixed up. We survived. Typical meals included pasta, ramen, macaroni and cheese (thanks Dan for brining the powdered cheese from the US!), potatoes and rice, and calzones, among other less edible concoctions. Bread quickly became a staple; we’d make a fresh batch from scratch almost daily. Matt was especially fond of bread making. Later in the trip, fries and/or potato chips were a daily treat.

For protein, we had brought a handful of sausages but they didn’t seem to last too long (and were possibly horsemeat…hmm). So, after the first few days, we were left with mostly nuts and dried fruit. Most of the dried fruit ended up tasting less inviting than advertised, so in reality, we were left with loads and loads of nuts: peanuts, cashews, pistachios, walnuts, nuts I’ve never seen before. You name it, we had them all. I don’t think any of us will eat another nut for a year. I cringed at the jars of mixed nuts when I went to the grocery store yesterday.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of life in basecamp – and in the mountains - was the weather. It rained. Often.

Typical weather conditions.

For the first ten or twelve days, the weather was pretty consistent. That is, it was consistently changing. Showers would roll in and out in hourly intervals. The sun would come and go. This meant that we’d constantly have to jump into the communal tent (a large 6 person REI tent where we stored all the food and did the cooking – it’s not a fancy mountaineering basecamp tent, but it worked quite well) to avoid the showers. When the sun wasn’t out it would get chilly, and we generally lounged around in belay jackets and insulated pants. When the sun did shine, it could be excessively warm, requiring only shorts and a t-shirt if desired. And so it went, in and out of the tent, in and out of clothes. All day, every day. Thankfully the storms weren’t severe – we rarely heard a roll of thunder – but they became increasingly frustrating as the trip wore on.

Surprisingly, the nighttime temperatures never got too severe. In basecamp at 3250 m we rarely saw frost and it never snowed. It snowed at one camp at about 3600 m, but just during the coldest hour of the night. In general, the snowline was at about 3800-4000 m.

About midway through our stay, the weather pattern changed – hooray!. Or not. Instead of scattered showers, we got all day soakers. Several times it rained for more than 12 straight hours. Often it was a light rain, but occasionally it built to a steady, moderate rain. On our last night in basecamp, the bowls we left outside showed it rained over an inch in a 12-hour span.

Reflecting the fickle weather, the Djangart River also had a mind of its own. On most days it would transform from a swift-flowing but fordable stream to a raging torrent of silt-laden glacial runoff. By the afternoon, a boulder-hop across the 8-10 m wide stream would be completely engulfed as the river grew to be waist to chest deep and 15-20 m wide. This proved to be a great logistical challenge for getting to the peaks. From our basecamp on the north side of the river, the only glacier we could access without crossing the river was the Djangartynbashi, although on our second trip up that glacier we used a snow patch to cross the river near its head and found the approach much easier. When the two teams set out or the N1 an N2 glaciers, we had to camp across the river for the glacial outflow, only able to cross early in the morning when the flow was at its lowest point. Even then, at the widest point in the river, the extremely fast flow of the bitterly cold, thigh deep water made crossing just barely possible. It may be advantageous for future parties to set objectives in a single glacial valley and set up a basecamp on location. Setting camp on the south side of the Djangart is possible, but traversing to the various glacial valleys is more difficult on that side of the river.

At low flow, it was possible to ford the Djangart or hop boulders.

By the afternoon, the river was a deadly torrent.

Climbing was definitely our respite from the boredom of basecamp. Although the weather didn’t get better on the routes, at least we were out there doing what we love.

Mike