My pursuit of 6000m plus peaks has been an
exciting one, since my first foray into climbs over 20,000 feet in Nepal in
2010. Island Peak (6189m) in Nepal was such a game changer that I knew I had
crossed the line between my love of climbing pretty much anything that looked
like a mountain, to the high peaks of the world.
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| Mentok 1, left, Mentok 2, right |
After summiting Island Peak, I
knew I wanted to climb a higher peak, over 7000m. In 2015 the attempt on Kun
(7077m) came fairly close, to a height of 6600m, thwarted by issues of weather
and other factors affecting our team. We
turned around 477m short instead of trying for the summit. Of course then I was plagued with second
thoughts , the “what if” …
Most people seem to think the decision to
abandon the summit on that occasion was wise, and unwise decisions on high mountains
don’t always have happy endings. So I
guess I will just have to live with that. As Brigitte Muir-Koch (the Everest
climber who led my Island Peak trip) said to me afterwards, “Better to come back alive, after all, you can always
return, the mountains will always be there. “
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| Korzok, Tso Moriri and Lungser Kangri |
With
the snow leopard trip planned for 2016, a return to Ladakh meant I had lots of
lovely peaks to choose from, just waiting to be climbed. I didn’t have the time and resources
for a big 7000er this time around, but the accessibility of the 6000m peaks in
Ladakh left me with plenty of options.
In 2013 I had climbed to 6140m - 60m short of the
summit of Kang Yatze 2 (6200m). Deep new
snow was the main issue there, and the climb was awfully slow. There was also a
very real avalanche risk. Stok Kangri (6150m) was attempted after Kun in 2015,
only to have two violent electrical storms steal my time window to climb it
from base camp (4900m). It also wasn't the best night of my life, glued to the
ground while lightning and thunder raged
over my little dome tent.
So after much deliberation I chose Mentok
Kangri (highest point 6250m) in the far eastern side of Ladakh.
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| Mentok 2 showing skyline ridge approach |
Mentok sits above a high altitude
lake called Tso Moriri. The landscape is more like Tibet or Mongolia, with huge
rolling mountains and treeless plains. Real “Ghengis Khan “ country. Very different to rugged western Ladakh, but I
looked forward to seeing this unique region.
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| Korzok village, Tso Moriri and Chamser & Lungser Kangri behind |
After our now successful snow leopard trek in the
Hemis National Park , we headed toward the area known as Changtang, following the
Indus River through rugged gorges , past many Indian Army bases (as we were near the China
border) and via the usual occasionally terrifying Ladakhi roads…
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| A relatively good section of the highway... |
Approaching the tiny village of
Korzok, the landscape became more like
that of another planet. A bit like the Otago region of New Zealand maybe, with
sky blue lakes set in a beige velvet landscape of mountains occasionally
wearing aprons of white snow.
Add the nomadic goatherds, wild horses, yaks, prayer flags
and rustic settlements, and the area took on a personality all its own.
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| Korzok, in the shadow of the Mentok massif |
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| Mentok 1 looms over Korzok |
A few days were spent getting used to the
new altitude of 4500m , admiring the lakeside setting. Although Korzok is a
destination for mostly Indian tourists, it was a very basic village. The guest
house had some very fancy taps in the bathroom. But because of the frozen pipes,
none of them worked! So anything including toilet flushing was done with a
bucket filled from a bigger water tank out in the hallway. Little mice ran
around the dining room, all over plates and cups! But the place was actually
very clean and once over the initial shock of having solar power only after
8pm, and no running water , it wasn’t such a bad place after all.
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| Dolphin Guest House , Korzok with our pony brigade |
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The mice were all
through the village anyway, attracted to all the grain being harvested at the
end of summer. Each day, nomads would
bring their Pashmina goats in and out of the village daily to feed on the
grassland beside the lake. One goat in each herd was referred to as “Ziggi “ as
if you called to it with this name, it would deliver the goatherder's lunch carried in it's two
little saddle bags!
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| Ziggi the lunch goat |
My goal was to climb one of the 6000m peaks of Mentok Kangri. The mountain range is a long
escarpment called the Korzok Range, dominating the western shore of Tso Moriri. It looked very close to the lake. However, the walk to the base camp the following
day proved that to be very wrong. There is nothing to give scale in the landscape. The
mountains are enormous. Chamser and Lungser Kangri to the east are both 6600m high
but looked like very gentle climbs. Climbing them is now forbidden as the Indian Army
have become more concerned about the Chinese border’s close proximity. Even
in recent times, some nomads were taken by Chinese Army and interrogated for days before being returned home. The innocent
nomads really didn’t have any idea why they were abducted at all!
So Mentok is pretty much one of the most
easterly climbs left in this area of Northern India.
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| Lungser and Chamser Kangri across from Tso Moriri |
The climb to base camp was a little soul
destroying. Anytime a ridge was reached, it only proved to be a false summit. The
Himalayas are very good at doing this! The ponies carrying our gear for base camp didn't seem to mind the ascent...but later we were to discover our pony man had trouble with the altitude, and a day later would make a quick exit out of the camp! He then got lost and spent the night out in the cold.
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| Ponies approaching Mentok Base Camp |
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| Julie looks across the vastness of Changtang |
As BC was 5400m up, this was a big jump in altitude
for one day. Arrival at BC left us feeling
pretty wasted and needing rest. Another full day gave a good chance to normalise
to the new altitude, but strong cold winds kept the tent flapping around all
night. The kitchen crew actually saw their large tent begin to blow away but
they managed to save it.
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| Korzok Range |
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| Mentok Base Camp 5400m |
There was no water at base camp, so ice had
to be chipped from the nearby glacier and brought back to camp in big sacks! It was then melted in a large pot for drinking and cooking. The tenacity of our support team was always amazing!
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| Namgyal taking a well earned rest |
Luckily the weather gods were feeling kind,
and the storm must have been over on a distant range. Our skies were mostly clear, so we set off in the freezing
cold of a dark starry morning. My drinking water bladder hose froze immediately. I
estimated it was about -10C. I knew this was likely to happen, so already had backup water in a Nalgene bottle in a ”bottle
parka” to stop it freezing. It did work,
but developed some ice anyway…
Meteors flashed across the starry sky as we
tackled the loose moraine by torchlight for
hours, getting closer to the glacier. Mentok reared up like a dark wall
beside us. Slowly we made it to the foot of the glacier.
The glacier made odd twanging sounds occasionally.
Just reminding me it was alive, not a static ice field…
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| The twanging glacier |
Then as the sun rose and warmth began to
envelope us, the climbing got steeper as we tackled the rocky ridge.
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| Morning sun on our mountain |
Nearly
everything was unstable. You could trust nothing! Big loose granite rocks, which moved when stepped on or just came out in your hands. Add to
that the ever increasing altitude (by now it was 5800m) and things just got tougher. I
recall thinking “I’m doing this again! I must be crazy”.
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| Happy face , happy place. I just cant breathe! |
I had two voices in my head on either side
of me. One said “You don’t need to go up there, you can see the same view from
here…what’s the point?”
. But the other voice said “Come on Chris, this is what you come here to do, you have come
all this way, so don’t give up now!”
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| Namgyal guides the tough rocky ascent |
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| Mentok 1 |
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| Are we there yet?? |
I would take 5 more steps, telling both of my
opposing forces to shut up and then just kept climbing…. Focussing on a fixed point about 5m away seemed to work, Get to that, rest, then go to another one. And so on...
At a midway point a white band of rock
appeared. Namgyal had gone up a slightly different way, but the rock looked
appealing, with plenty of holds. However, almost in an act of seduction, the
rock got slowly steeper and harder, leading me to more complex climbing that I was getting less comfortable with.
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| The "White Band" |
I managed to work my way out of the conundrum and soon Namgyal and
I were together again, slowly advancing towards the top of a very rocky ridge.
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| It gets worse before it gets better |
About 100m from the top now, and my GPS read
that we were over 6000m. I felt relief and took a photo of it just to prove I
had done this 4 times now. The prayer flags at the summit were visible now, but
still looked far above us.
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| Above 6000m and still going... |
The climb steepened yet again and on one side the
treacherous ice wall of 800m slid away below us. Namgyal had considered going
up it, but the ice was so smooth and
glassy it would become a death slide. Not even an ice axe or crampons would
gain purchase on it. The warm days and freezing nights had turned the ice into a frozen rock-hard mass. The tricky rock climb by comparison was a much
better option.
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| View north to Spangnak Ri (6300m) |
My pace was much slower now, with the high
altitude taking its toll. I felt quite fit though. Still wondering how I have done
this before and why I persist doing it again!!
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| Almost at the prayer flags |
Yet less than 20 minutes later the summit
cairn of Mentok 2 was reached. Namgyal
and I shook hands then hugged! I was elated, especially since I had climbed
over 6000m 2 other times since summiting Island Peak, and yet had never truly stood on top of a Ladakhi mountain. The GPS read 6151m. And the feeling was pretty damn good!
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| Mentok 2 (or 3?) Summit cairn! 6151m |
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| Mentok Summit Selfie with me and Namgyal |
I stood on the top
and admired the amazing view. Cloudless in all directions. I could see the
entire Great Himalaya Range to the west, into Chinese Tibet to the east, Kang
Yatze visible on the northern horizon. The snowcapped dome of 6300m high Spangnak Ri was to the north of me. Just an incredible vista.
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| Proof! My fourth climb above 6000m elevation... |
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| The ice axe is purely for show :) |
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| Tso Moriri and Western Tibet beyond! |
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| A nice looking glacier on Mentok |
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| The Great Himalaya Range to the west |
And Tso Moriri was glinting
in the morning sun, 1600m below us. To
the south was the highest point, Mentok 1, at 6250m. That was 100m higher than
our summit. But over 1.5km away. There
seemed little point spending maybe 3 hours going there and returning just to
tag another summit with almost identical views.
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| Mentok 1, 6250m |
Perhaps it would have been
nice to get to Mentok 1, but since the Mentok /Korzok range is more of an undulating escarpment than a
pointy mountain range, there wasn't much reason to go further in one day. To add a bit more to the story, Mentok Kangri 2 is featured in a few videos on the internet but they show the same peak as the one we climbed. But Namgyal called our peak "Mentok 3", and I thought (according to the map on my GPS) that Mentok 2 was to the north of us and at 50m higher. So I've climbed "a Mentok"... but which one?? As you can see from the photos, the highest point is hardly worth worrying about (unless you are peak bagging) as the whole range is quite even in height, with a difference of 100m at best between summits. And maps of the region all seem to differ slightly. I guess in the end does it really matter? Its not like K2 or anything!
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| Panorama from Mentok to the east |
It would take us 6 more hours
to return to Korzok, as we planned to walk all the way back to the village that
day, so really we didn’t have too much time left for Mentok 1.
No regrets this time, as this
summit felt great! Namgyal had my prayer flags that had been blessed in a Puja
ceremony in Korzok, so we tied them to the summit and watched as they began
fluttering the Buddhist prayers on the freezing cold mountain wind out into the
blue space over the lake, towards Lungser and Chamser Kangri.
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| Namgyal secures our prayer flags to the summit |
Soon enough, our time at the top was over. And
it was very cold too, despite the blue skies! The walk down was as arduous as the
climb up, so we used harnesses and a rope for safety.
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| Long way dowwwn |
Loose rocks , steep slopes,
descending for what seemed hours on end. There was no easy way out, so it was best to just admire the views
and push through it all. Ironically this was the first 6000m peak that I didn’t
need to use any real mountain gear for. I didn’t need crampons, double boots or ice axe.
Just my trusty Scarpa trekking boots and a trekking pole! I did have the
crampons and ice axe with me, but they were not needed.
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| Glacier Mushrooms! |
Mid October in Ladakh
is very dry, but just before the snows return. I had found my window this time.
I had approached this peak with respect and humility and in return the mountain
had been very kind! I was grateful that finally everything had
come together to give me a summit success that I had tried so hard to gain
before. Persistence had paid off! Again!!
So... with that out of the way... time to make another Grand Plan!
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