Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and drove upwards with his legs. I swung my own axe and followed, scrambling in
places, and after about fifteen minutes, we reached the top.
The landscape ahead equalled any that I'd seen before in sheer, captivating
beauty. A vast, white glacier stretched out below us and a magnificent river valley
with ice-capped mountains on either side flowed into the distance.
We cooked our usual lunch of textureless mash potato and considered the glacier
below. Neither of us had ever tried to cross such a large glacier before, and we were
nervous about the danger of hidden crevasses. Luckily, though, we spotted a party
of Russian climbers coming our way. We watched carefully as they weaved their
way across the huge ice mass. Later, we were able to safely follow their footprints
across the melting surface.
We climbed carefully off the glacier to reach dry ground and entered the amaz-
ing world of a warm, green and grassy valley blocked at one end by an ice cliff
and scattered here and there with rocks and snow. We walked till dark. Exhausted
and unable to find a suitable spot to pitch our tent, we simply set up on the gentlest
slope of a scrubby hill, climbed in, and collapsed into instant sleep.
———
We woke early the next day to a beautiful sunrise of wispy orange clouds and a
light dusting of powdery snow. We had four days and about 100 kilometres till
we'd reach the road, and we were short on food. We'd added an extra day to our
journey when we split from Ray and Brendan, and having eaten too much already
we were now having to cut back to two-thirds rations to make our supplies last the
distance. My trousers, which had once been a little tight, now slid easily halfway
down my hips and Tim, constantly starving at the best of times, had adopted an 'en-
ergy conservation strategy'. When he wasn't walking or busy making or breaking
camp he would lie perfectly still, willing his body into a sort of hibernation while
he waited for the next meal.
I cooked our meagre ration of instant porridge for almost half an hour, adding
extra water and watching the oats swell into bloated puffs, until it looked like a
decent-sized meal. I spooned a generous half of the slop into Tim's bowl, added a
handful of sugar and pushed it towards him. He sprung into instant life, sat bolt up-
right and wolfed down the meal in what seemed like a few spoonfuls. He carefully
licked every last trace of sustenance from his bowl and his beard, then burst out
of the tent and quickly started packing all his gear. 'Breakfast energy doesn't last
long!' he explained in between shoves. 'Gotta get a move on now before it all runs
out again!'
