Finally, after days of desert hiking, we ascended to big sky country ( my favorite!), as we approached the high camp of Nimaling. At 4200m, the camp is cold, windy, and breathless! When we arrived we needed salt, and I felt $0.66 for piping hot ramen was money well spent!
Base camp of 6000m+ Kang Yahtze day: snow! I woke after falling asleep with clear skies and milky way to a huge cloud, snow, and no mountain.
Luckily, the "sheep doctor" was visiting the local shepherd to give worm medicine to the flock, so I headed over to see what can only be described as a sheep mob scene/sheep rodeo. Literally hundreds of sheep in a small pen trying to avoid being force fed medicine. In the mood to help, I would corral escapees back into the pen.
Later the same day I felt the sky might clear, so I set off to get a better view of Kang Yahtze. The camp organizer informed me that the weather is often bad the day sometime sets up to climb the peak, as she is a sacred mountain and does not wish to be climbed. With this in mind, as I walked uphill into a graupel storm, I told Kang Yahtze I only wanted photos and not to climb her. And, just as I reached the viewpoint, she emerged!
Was about to break out the ft-m converter to see if I still had your 4200m camp beat with my recent 13.2k ft switchback camp on final night of the JMT and then I read the 6Km+base camp next line. Blown out of the water on that one!
ReplyDeleteSheep herding sounds fun and nice job coaxing the mountain spirits of your innocuous intentions! Photo is a good one...