KAV Adventures: K2 Base Gondogoro La Trek 2010
One of the dream treks for mountaineers and trekkers from across the globe is to visit the four gigantic 8000 meters plus mountains visible in a circle. You enjoy yourself as in a paradise of snow-covered mountains at Baltoro Glacier in the Karakoram Mountain range of the Gilgit Baltistan region in Pakistan at Concordia. World’s second highest mountain is K2, (8611m). Along with K2, you can have a spectacular view of the other highest mountains the Broad Peak (8,051m), Gasherbrum I (8,080m) and Gasherbrum II (8,035m). K2 and Gondogoro La trek is no doubt one of the best treks in the world. On this trek, you will see the great Trango towers, Masherbrum, Gasherbrums, the mighty K2 and Broad Peak among many other famous mountains.
After the expedition I did in 2008 for Biafo Snow Lake Hispar La and Hispar Glacier, my next checklist was the famous K2 trek and finally, along with my three friends, Nadir Khan, Maaz and Rizwan, we set the target in the month of July 2010 for K2 trek expedition. We started from Islamabad on my 4x4 and reached Skardu after an almost 24-hour long drive. After a rest day at Skardu, we had a jeep ride for Askoli village, driving along the mighty Indus, Shigar then Braldu river to Shigar valley towards Askoli, the last village before you enter the wilderness of the Karakoram. The next day we started our trekking towards Braldu Concordia, at the junction of Baltoro and Godwin-Austen Glaciers. We had the support of our trekking expedition crew, including our local desi guide Eisa Khan from Arandu Tesar, and the team of eight porters.
We took a normal pace for our trekking and did the first three days trekking with a bit of tough and challenging scorching heat and strong rays of sun, which causes headaches and sunburn as well. After three days of trekking, the scenario starts changing when you step into Baltoro Glacier after spending the night at Pajo Camp 3380m, which is a comparatively organised camp station before you step into the Baltoro Glacier. However, nowadays (the jeep drops you at Johla camp and the trek is now reduced to one day after Johla camp the jeep drops you at Johla), which was a very tough part in past due to the heat and very dry rocky trek. We had a shower at Pajo camp and refreshed ourselves for the next levels of the trekking experience in the coming days. Khoburtse 3760m was our next camp after Pajo, followed by the next day trekking towards Urdukas 4130m. We had a rest day at Urdukas and to get ourselves more acclimatized we decided to stay there and enjoy the scenic views of the surrounding beautiful mountains. One of the key attractions is the Trango Towers view on the K2 trek, it takes you to the world of fantasies and its aura with floating clouds and chocolate brown cliffs makes you fall in love with Trango. It attracts you to the North of Baltoro Glacier, the highest point of Trango Tower the summit is 6,286m, it is one of the world’s largest cliffs and the most challenging big wall climbing attracts professional climbers to explore it summit this vertical cliff.
Moving ahead the journey becomes very eye-catching and each step towards Concordia shows a new site of the famous mountains of Karakoram range in the surrounding. By the time you reach Concordia, you become a lover of great mountains. You get the feelings in your mind and heart of how blessed you are to be able to explore such a beautiful and scenic range of snow-covered mountains along with the mighty Baltoro glacier. When we reached Concordia it was very dark, but the beautiful Mitre peak on our right side was standing with us with its raised head to welcome us in the darkness. The next morning was luckily a bright sunny day and we felt ourselves truly landed in paradise, where all eight thousand meters high mountains were glowing with their beautiful bright appearance. It was a beautiful photography day which we enjoyed a lot, it was our rest day, we played cards in our tent and enjoyed the lovely food we brought with us in tin packs and our porters were carrying the small goat with them to enjoy the fresh meat at Concordia.
The next move was towards Ali camp Vigny Glacier for the climax of our trek to cross the Gondogoro la. We reached Ali camp in the late evening, and we had very less time to take a rest, as our guide insisted to take starting for the Gondogoro la after the early midnight hours, considering our slow pace of trekking and the tough part ahead. It was complete darkness when we started our walk, from Ali's camp to Gondogoro la, we had our crampons on our shoes while climbing on the Gondogoro la. It is necessary to cross the Pass before sunrise to avoid any kind of ice falls and avalanches due to the temperature rise. The best part was that the local guides from Hushe Valley have fixed the rope for climbing and they remain available for you to assist with your climb. There was a stage when I was completely exhausted and my one step became as heavy as ten steps, it was all because of my very slow pace on the climbing, and the morning light started touching the top of the ridge. I had a headache because of the light reflection from the full white snow-covered Gondogoro la pass wall. Soon the sun raised and the rays from the sun also started affecting the loosing of snow at the top at that stage my feet were going almost 1 to 1.5 feet down on each step, that was the hardest part of climbing, at that stage the local guide chanted on me that you have the option to go back from here if you are not able to climb, and it was, in fact, the key motivating factor for me as I shouted that I didn’t come here to return, rather I will cross the la even I am slowly moving towards my target. Finally, I reached the top almost 5585m first ever in my life, but I was completely tired, the rest of the team members have left the place much before I reached there, so I had no other choice but to start moving after a very short break for photography and little rest.
The descending part from Godogoro la was the next level of challenge, and it is a fact that I was not mentally and physically prepared for that adventure. My guide fixed my safety rope with the fixed rope through the connectors, and I was holding the safety rope with both hands while taking long and almost vertical slope slides. My gear was not good for the adventure, my gloves were torn, and my hands got injuries from the heat generated from the safety rope while sliding at a fast pace from the Gondogoro la top. I had no other choice except to keep holding tight to the safety rope while descending and sliding down. It was another very long day of trekking full of adventures, particularly when your team leaves you behind because of a very slow pace, we reached the Khuspang campsite. I was offered the tea made from fresh milk of yak. The taste was quite different, but it was needed as I started shivering from cold and because of mild fever.
The next day we had the choice to take a rest, but I was feeling that everyone was offering it considering my condition, so I decided that I should take extra pain and not let the whole team suffer because of me, so we started moving towards Saicho 3350m. My shoes were also broken before we reached our campsite, and it was another mistake on my part, as I was using weak shoes, which were already used in my previous trek of Biafo Hispar la. The spare shoes I had in my luggage which was already reached our porter’s team well in advance. My favourite guide Eisa Khan fixed my broken shoes by raping a piece of rope on them and I was almost limping when I reached our campsite, along with my last night fever continued. At that stage, the only source of inspiration was the feeling that the next day going to become the final day of the trek, and we reached Hushe village, it is a small traditional Balti village with very friendly people, from there we sat on the jeeps and reached Khaplu. The treat at Khaplu was the fresh farm of juicy apricots, which were hand-picked by us direct from the trees, and while taking the picture, I said my famous words, Khaplu Khobaib and Khobanian, the triple K.
Our adventurous trekking experience encouraged my cousin Najam and I. We decided to repeat this lifetime experience with our children. We did the same trek in the year 2014 with my sons Sohaib Vahedy and Yousuf Vahedy, and Najam’s boys Eisa Rauf and Ibrahim Rauf, I will write separately on that adventure story.
Last, but not least, at the age of 50, I decided to go for the same trek in June 2021, it will be documented as my third rd attempt for Concordia K2 base GGLA. Stay blessed and stay tuned.
Khobaib A Vahedy
5th August 2023
Lahore
