Dispatch Eight: September 1st, 2009 |
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2009 Shishapangma Expedition |
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Day Eight: Nyalam to Chinese Base Camp by Road Today, we woke up at 6:00am Chinese Time, had a quick breakfast, packed up the Jeep and got underway. The ride to Chinese Base Camp was only around four hours and was on mostly good road up until the final hour. We arrived and waited for the gear jeep to arrive. The change in altitude from Nyalam to CBC of over 1000 meters was tangible here. We unpacked the gear jeep, carefully counting our bags to ensure that they all had made it through Chinese Customs and hadn’t been broken into in Nyalam. We were relieved to find them all intact. We pitched our tents, then spoke with our Liaison officer about the extra yaks we would need to carry our supplies to base camp. We were shocked when he told us that the 14 extra yaks (for one day) would cost US $2,300. Both Mario and I found this price to be unacceptable as our past experience on Cho Oyu, Shishapangma, and Everest (EVERY 8000m peak commonly climbed from the Tibet side) told us that each yak should be around US $100 dollars or less. We called Parajuli, who in turn called Miss Yung Jen La at the China Tibet Mountaineering Agency (Lhasa Office) and inquired about the price. We were told that some sort of resolution had been reached and to instruct our Liaison Officer to call first thing in the morning. We had dinner in the kitchen tent (as neither Mario nor I could think of any reason of pitching the big Mountain Hardwear dome that would be our Base Camp Mess Tent). Exhausted from the day’s events, we headed to bed on the desolate Tibetan Plateau, the sunset made quite magnificent by the big storm clouds that surrounded us. |
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