Mustagh Ata: First Ascent on the East Ridge








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Logistics and Preparedness
Mustagh Ata Base Camp - Thursday, June 15, 2000

DISPATCHES

Mazur

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Between June 1st and June 5th, we stayed busy shopping and making preparations around Rawalpindi (Rawalpindi is the neighboring city to Islamabad). We had many arrangements to make and materials to buy. I spent two-and-a-half days negotiating the lowest hire price for a vehicle to take us over the Khunjerab Pass. Walter and Lakpa engaged themselves shopping for Lakpa's kitchen and essential expedition supplies such as bamboo for marker flags.

Walter checked his email at one of the many Internet cafes and made telephone calls back to his girlfriend in the States. Lakpa met our expedition members at the airport and brought them to the hotel, a horrible job. In the afternoons, it's really too hot to go outside with the temperatures hovering around 40 degrees Celsius. In the evenings we shopped and had dinner on the terrace of the hotel. Shopping was complicated by the fact that there was a national strike over the government's attempts to collect taxes. Apparently, something like 90% of all Pakistanis do not pay taxes, and the government was threatening to collect the tax, and the populace therefore went on strike.

We had some disastrous surprises in relation to Lakpa's trips to the airport. One member of our new route team, Andy Hilton, never showed up. We finally were able to ascertain that he was unable to join us due to a commitment in conjunction with obtaining his internal surgeon's license. We shall sorely miss him, his sense of humor, and technical expertise and fine experience he would have brought to the team.

Now our member ship for the new route team has been reduced to four members:

1. Daniel Mazur (USA)
2. Jon Otto (USA)
3. Walter Keller (USA)
4. Lakpa Tamang (Nepal)

Our membership for the normal route team is now:

1. Daniel Mazur (USA)
2. Jon Otto (USA)
3. Krzysztof Berbeka (Poland)
4. Christoph Zimmer-Conrad (Germany)
5. Lakpa Tamang (Nepal)
6. Mathijs van der Plas (Netherlands)
7. Walter Keller (USA)
8. Walter Frehner (Switzerland)

We had another problem when Walter Frehner arrived at the Islamabad airport, but his luggage did not. He apparently flew from Zurich to London's Heathrow and had to change from Swissair to Pakistan International Airlines. The two airlines have no code-share agreement, and he only had 50 minutes to move between the terminals, so there was no time for him to claim his bags from the Swissair baggage conveyor and then recheck them to the Islamabad airport. Basically, this is the reason he arrived with no luggage. Place the blame where you will, but this debacle haunted us for the next week or so.

— Dan Mazur, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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