Concordia: The mountaineer's paradise
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It was a very restless night. As I lay on a glacier, in my warm sleeping bag, over a cold, hard, inhospitable and uneven surface. The silence of the wilderness was absolute and I was trying to get some sleep but the erratic and terrifying sounds of the heavy avalanches did not allow me to do so. To make it worse, the diluted oxygen level of the high altitude made it difficult to breathe. Thus, I spent the night tossing and turning in my constricted sleeping bag with some hope of catching much needed sleep.
It was still dark when I heard rain drops over my tent. And around 5:00 am, my tent lit up by the first light of the day. I inched forward to sneak out half way from my sleeping bag and unzipped my tent to catch a glimpse of the outside. The beauty of the scene had the celestial aura of a fantasy world! The sky all bright and clear, the camp site all carpeted with snow. Everything within my view was pure and white, surrounded by high grey mountains. A moment truly magical and of pure bliss!
Amongst the tallest 14 mountain peaks of the world that are above 8000 meters, Pakistan proudly bears five. And, of those, four peaks can easily be seen from the Concordia, a camp site at the elevation of 4600 meters. The tallest and most magical of the four is K-2 (8611m), the second highest mountain of the world, also known as 'Choghori' by the locals. The other three peaks are Gasherbrum I (8080m), Broad Peak (8051m) and Gasherbrum II (8035m). This is the very reason why Concordia has been labeled as "The Mountaineer's Paradise.”
At Concordia, the Godwin Austen glacier from K-2 flows into the Baltoro glacier from the north. The name Concordia is of Latin origin, meaning ‘harmony with the heart’ and was first used by a British mountaineer, John Frederic Hardy for a place where two or more glaciers meet, thus the name was then adopted for this camp site in the Karakoram Range.
As I stood out of my tent, with the sun still behind the mountains, light rays broke through high peaks to present to me a remarkably spectacular view. To my east, shining brightly were Gasherbrum I, Broad Peak and Gasherbrum II, whereas to my south was the majestic Mitre peak. To the west, were countless peaks all above 6000 and 7000 meters. While towards my north, proudly stood and stands still the breathtakingly beautiful, K-2, shining in front of my eyes in all its glory.
In late 19th century, the Englishman Sir Francis Younghusband, the first westerner to have witnessed the mountain up close, described K-2 as “A mountain of stunning dimensions. It seems to rise like a perfect cone, but incredibly tall” and he surely did justice to its brilliance.
I have always been befuddled by the coinage of the name K-2. “K” means Karakoram and rightfully, it should have been K-1, being the highest mountain in the range. But because of inattention of a British surveyor Thomas George Montgomerie who during the Great Trigonometric Survey in 1850s sketched the two most prominent peaks in Karakoram, labeling the 7280 meters Masherbrum (ranking 22nd highest in the world) as K1 and 8611 meters high Chogori as K2. The former came later during his journey hence, unfortunately the name was carried forward and the second highest mountain on earth became “K2”.
My initial motivation for going to Concordia was only to see the K-2 with my naked eye. That mountain has been haunting my imagination since childhood, a dream to fulfill. But I never knew I would come across such spectacular beauty along the way. Reaching there is a formidable feat. It took me a week’s trek to actually get to Concordia, another day’s wait to to get the mountain in my sights and descend back in four more days. The route that runs to the Concordia camp site is a remarkable journey of exploration and truly a mountaineer’s haven.
I had been yearning to visit that place and after years of vague planning right at the 11th hour, I started preparing for all the possible trekking gear I could get a hold of. In the mid summers when all of Pakistan suffers an infernal heat wave, I was shopping for warm clothes for extreme cold weather. Though I had a general idea of mountains and trekking equipment, breathing in low oxygen levels at such high altitudes never crossed my mind.
I flew off to Islamabad from Karachi and then to Skardu in the north of Pakistan and tagged along with a group of trekkers in there. The first day was an 8 hour bumpy jeep ride to Askole, the last village before the start of absolute wilderness. Our camps were based at an empty site in the village. The real trek on foot started the next day.
The initial trail from Askole that follows a sandy and rocky valley ends at a lovely green park of Paiju camp site that lies just before the Baltoro glacier. This place marks the beginning of the famous granite towers: the Cathedrals, Paiju peak (6600 meters) and the renowned and wild Trango Tower (6237 meters). The Baltoro glacier starts right after the Paiju camp site and goes all the way up till Concordia. Further along as I ventured up the glacier, I spotted the regular pyramid of K1 (Masherbrum). There only, did I realise why Thomas George named it K1, not K2. K2 was still far.
The glacier went all along up till Concordia, I reached there after a day in the jeep and 6 days on foot and in one piece, except with blisters on my feet and severely tanned skin.
We spent a spare day at Concordia enjoying the spectacular view. The time was spent playing volleyball, eating pakoras and drinking a lot of hot tea. By mid-day, K-2 was shrouded in clouds. It’s a shy mountain and likes being behind the clouds most of the time. The sunset over Concordia is undoubtedly one of the most wonderful moments in the trek as you tend to see last rays of light hitting some of the highest peaks of the world.
Now the joy of being at Concordia was over, but not the journey. We had to descend back then either by the same harsh route or through the dangerous top of 19,500 feet high Gondogoro La which was shorter but more difficult. Regardless of the difficulty, we all chose the shorter one as everyone was in favor of avoiding the path we came from. Those who wanted to challenge themselves were happy and those who didn’t want to had no other option. I was indifferent.
To reach the pass, we started early in the morning from Concordia, crossing through deep soft snow on Vigne glacier and reached “Ali Camp” after 6 hours for a stopover. Ali Camp is a stopover for trekkers to prepare themselves for their journey towards the pass. If the weather goes bad, they stay at the camp and wait. For us, the weather was clear and that meant no rest.
Gondogoro can only be crossed during night as it is more prone to avalanches during day time. We filled our stomachs, took a short nap and started preparing for our ascend during the night. The group left Ali Camp the same day around 10 pm, and all of us tried to pace up respectively in a hurry to cross the 'La' before daylight appeared.
Luckily, everyone crossed the pass without injury, it was a difficult climb, however, much harder was its descent, which was longer and more prone to accidents. The path to the next camp site after the descent was again longer than expected. After falling countless times on melted snow and saving myself from stones falling from high mountains, I made it to the Khuspang camp site at 1 pm in the afternoon while most of my mates made it in the evening. For amateur trekkers, it was a difficult yet possible task. It was an achievement and we were proud of our selves.
Khuspang was the first camp site, dominated by the breathtaking, 6096 meters, Laila peak and a water stream. We stayed there during the night and trekked towards Siacho camp site the next morning.
Finally, the last day became the easiest day of the trek. Comprising of a very short hike of 3-4 hours to Hushe village, where we finally came across electricity, people and vehicles. We were to stay for a night at Hushe and leave for Skardu in the morning. Luckily, we got the jeeps ready therefore, we headed towards Skardu by road, the same day.
It felt rather odd then to travel in a jeep after trekking our ways through the rocky mountains for almost two weeks. Our feet had gotten used to those hard, rigid walks. No matter how hard and bumpy the jeep ride was, it was the most comfortable leg of the entire journey.
Eventually, from Skardu onwards, our expedition ended and everyone bid farewell and headed home, leaving the majestic K-2 far behind, to carry on playing its signature game of hide and seek with the clouds. I returned with the desire to revisit and experience this wonderful magical place.
The author is an adventure seeker, travel photographer and writer, who loves mountains, deep sea diving, food and tea. He tirelessly wanders around Pakistan for positive stories. He blogs at http://www.iexplorepakistan.com. You can view his photography here.
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