XinJiang Part 2 - Acclimatising

My team was at "Mustagh 204" on 5th July, it took the team almost one week to be "THERE". Travelling with three very different ladies is experiential. I wondered how Master Kim Boon managed 7 women during last year climbing season. I meet the rest of the support crew and some of the climbers around 3pm. The long waited to ascent for Base Camp began. The climb consists of 5 sections - Base Camp BC (4,400m), Camp1 C1 (5,500m), Camp2 C2 (6,200m), Camp3 C3 (6,900m) and Summit (7,564m).


What we need to do next is as Phei Sunn described – “Paint a Picture”. There is a series of drill that we have to do before going for summit. These drills are important as part we need to grow more red blood cells within days. “Acclimatisation” is the name of the drill.
Our roles for the next ten days were to go up BC -> C1, back down, BC -> C1 stay overnight, down. BC -> C1 -> C2 stay overnight, down. “Imagine the mountain as a canvas and you're painting. Every swoosh of the paintbrush paints a longer stroke than before. You get the picture. Except that each upward swoosh took an average of 5-8hours, and each downward ~3-6h, depending on physical condition.” All climbers have to go through this drill. My team was relatively lucky, while the weather wasn’t fantastic, we had the schedule on track.


I like to look at climbing as a very strategical mission. I prefer to plan them into phases, and claim my new altitude record bit by bit. BC was a rather luxurious affair, the best I had witnessed. At least the logistics and tents look impressive. The guy, Mr Shi Kai Feng, who set it up was a recent BC manager at Everest, hence the semblance of orderliness. We each had a tent to ourselves at BC -- the need for personal space & privacy during rest time was vital. There was just a simple problem - the food was horrible.
I never thought cooking is difficult when I was studying at Australia. Indeed, it is not that tough as sea level. One should take note how altitude can make a difference on cooking. If 1 litre of water takes 3min to boils at 100 degree C. The same amount of water would take around 20min to boil at about 80 degree C at BC. Do take note, the calculation does not take ambient temperature into consideration. My cook never done any high altitude cooking prior to my Mustagh trip. Phei Sunn tried to make half boil “YaKun style eggs”, but alas, boiled water was not hot enough at Basecamp to cook it even after 15min of soaking.


The food at BC (left), and food at Tashkurgan (right)
Food is an art to any true-blooded Singaporean. In the mountains, we need it to replenish and repair. My resting heart rates at Basecamp averaged 90-100. That was almost double our sea-level of my 50-60.Just sitting around doing nothing, the basal metabolic rates have increased. On each swooshing of 5-8hr, we typically consumed one packet of Gu-gel, some Oreos, vacuum-packed sausage &/ or chocs. In relative comparison, we take about 3-4 gels per marathon. That was how much abuse our bodies were getting.
We started fantasizing of everything salty. Like chicken-in-a-biscuit, potato chips, french fries... Then we tried asking our Cook to fry eggs sunny-side up -- they turned up drenched in oil with cooked yolks.
To me, mountaineering is about playing with science and logic. Every action would cause a reaction. One has to be dynamic to survive the terrain with uncountable possibilities of screwing up a climb.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home