Unexpected opportunity lets Cape traveler see peak of K2

Editor's note: Ann Ostendorf of Cape Girardeau is taking a year to travel to Great Britain, Pakistan and Asia. This is another in a series of articles she is writing about her journey.

PAKISTAN -- I awoke to the beeping of my watch alarm. It was only 3:30 a.m. and I knew the punishment the mountain air would inflict on me the moment I unzipped my sleeping bag. I climbed out anyway. Today was the big day: I was going to see K2.

I could say that I'd been looking forward to this moment all my life, but that's not true. I learned of the possibility I could see K2 only two days before. I was talking to an American couple who had just completed the Concordia glacier/K2 base camp trek.

This popular trek takes two or three weeks, permits from the government, several porters, lots of gear and about $2,000. Oh, I almost forgot, and some experience. I had none of these things, so I never even considered a trek to see K2.

I was a little jealous of these people who just popped over to Pakistan for a couple of weeks with enough money for a tour company to organize the whole outfit, and a little motivation, got to see K2. OK, maybe it took a lot of motivation, but I had put in two months in Pakistan, and I wanted to be able to tell people at home about at least one place they had heard of. I've spent weeks in some of the most beautiful valleys seeing gigantic glaciers. I've fallen asleep under stars at night I didn't know were out there and awoke surrounded by magnificent snow-capped peaks. I've stood at the base of some of the highest mountains in the world but has anyone heard of Nanga Parbat, Rakaposhi or Ultar I and II? I doubt it.

I listened and politely congratulated the couple on their outstanding achievement. They agreed that the best part of the journey had been through the last valley they descended as they finished the trek. It was only the next valley over and they assured me there were great views and plenty of camping.

I was a little nervous that a week walking across ice had blurred their judgment of what they termed "the most beautiful valley we've ever seen." I decided to risk it anyway, consoling myself that I'd get to see K7 and Mashebrum, both spectacularly high peaks.

Tourists pay more

The last village before the start of the hike was Hushe and even that was about 25 kilometers off the actual road. So I crammed into the back of the first public transport Jeep along with about 30 locals, their livestock, crops and various household possessions.

I paid the driver five times what they paid and set off for Hushe.

After an hour, most of the locals had gotten off and we turned off the main road onto the dirt Jeep track leading to Hushe. At this point the driver transformed his public Jeep into a private one and required about 10 times the previously paid amount to continue the next 15 kilometers.

Now this was an unusual move. Because so few people have cars, public transport is available even in some of the most remote places. It may be in the back of a half-dead pickup truck or on the luggage rack of a van, but it gets you where you need to go. Often while you are waiting, a farmer or truck driver offers you a lift, sometimes for free. This man, though, was asking the equivalent of $10 to drive about 20 miles.

I made one pathetic attempt on the driver's sympathy. I started walking, knowing I'd never make the 25 kilometers to Hushe up. After about 10 minutes the driver came along, dropped the price to $9. I climbed in. This journey was bumpy and short for we soon discovered that 1,000 meters of the Jeep track and half a small village had recently been destroyed by a landslide.

$1 'bridge' toll

Disembarking, I began the long walk across the boulders only to be interrupted by a river flowing from a mountain-top glacier. This landslide suspect was too deep and powerful to wade in. While searching for a point to cross a man popped out from behind some rocks bearing a typed letter from some government official -- or perhaps just some guy with a typewriter -- claiming all foreigners had to pay $1 to cross his bridge. Maybe he used the money to help the landslide victims, but it may have just been for the upkeep of the two sticks and four stones he was calling a bridge. I made it safely across the bridge and landslide, and through the army of stranded jeeps looking for customers and hooved it the final 10 kilometers to Hushe.

After setting up camp, I checked in with the local police, a simple but frequent process requiring my personal details to be written in a log book. (Or you could write someone else's personal information -- Bart Simpson, Donald Duck, it didn't seem to matter.) A middle-aged man came over introducing himself as Mohammed, a guide from Hushe. Locals often approach you as guides or porters because this is how many make or supplement their incomes.

Mohammed wondered if I'd like an opportunity to see K2. I said I would, but I explained about the permits, the money and my lack of stamina. He described a different place on a ridge nearby that only the locals knew about and wasn't in any guidebook. It required no equipment other than to camp, cost only $60 to hire him and his son, and could be done in two days. After answering about a hundred questions I had, he left me to consider his offer. The reward spoke for itself, and I needed no prodding from him to bite. I was going to see the second-highest mountain in the world.

Straight up the valley

We left the following morning with Mohammed's son hired as a porter carrying the food, stove and tent, while I carried my sleeping bag and warm clothes. We followed irrigation channels out of town through the terraced fields of corn, peas and potatoes. It was after the converted farmland stopped that the climbing got difficult. For the next two hours we headed straight up the valley following the river. It was steep and hot, and I kept alternating between pulling myself over huge boulders and struggling to keep my footing on sandy inclines.

The air was thinning as well, making my typically slow pace even slower.

As we neared the end of the first day's walk, the valley began to open up into a flat, semi-grassy field. This was the high pasture where all the villagers' 500 yaks, cows, dzos, dzomos, and yakmos (cow/yak cross breeds) came to graze. From the looks of it they'd all been doing an excellent job.

Mohammed, who had his own stone hut in the pasture, made dinner over a fire as we discussed plans for the following day. The view is clearest in the early morning, and it would take three or four hours to reach the ridge so we decided to leave at 4 a.m. He pointed out the route we would be taking and I thought he was joking. From where I stood, the hillside looked vertical.

The next morning, I was determined to conquer the menacing hillside for my view of K2. It wasn't too bad at first since I sleepwalked for about a half-hour. Gradually the gradient increased and our walking slowed. Mohammed and his son walked with slow deliberate steps, with relaxed expressions on their faces and their bodies barely moving.

I tried to imitate them, less because I thought it would ease my pain and more because it gave me something to do. I found some relief in their style, but the higher we climbed the more exhausted I became. New peaks began to appear as we ascended, rising out from behind other ridges that had been blocking their view. These inspired me to push onward and upward.

Eventually, after over three hours climbing, a few new peaks emerged over a ridge to the northwest. I had a sneaking suspicion the middle one was K2.

'I show you K2!'

After five minutes, Mohammed signaled a break and in a voice that could have been announcing an Oscar winner declared, "We have success. I show you K2!"

That sent chills up my spine. The work had been worthwhile. To be there with people who respected and revered such a mountain made it all the more special. After climbing a half-hour more, we made it to the top of the ridge and were rewarded with a 360-degree view of snow-capped peaks on a background of clear blue sky. There was not just K2 but Broad Peak, Mashebrum, Secret Peak and several other unnamed peaks.

It fills you with a total calm being in such a place, like going into a quiet church alone. This is when you learn the secret of the mountains. "You are small," it tells you.

It's a good feeling to have after so much work. But then you wonder how you're going to get back down.