K(2) Sera Sera by Van Greaves
K(2) Sera Sera
By Van Greaves
The law of "Sod" materialised when I booked a trek in Pakistan to Concordia and K2.
The wedding photography part of my life was seriously challenged that summer. August is the trekking season for the Karakoram Mountains. Summer is weddings time. I took ONE booking for July and FOURTEEN for August. Fortunately, I had photography contacts. One by one, I nailed them to these weddings, one by one, my wife...(the one at the time)...detailed all necessary operations to cover me. One by one I placated my clients to expect another photographer.
Then, I flew out to Islamabad as stressed as a battery chicken in a coup. I chose a photographer businessman’s holiday.
The mental sweat in business planning was swapped for the physical sweat of the mini monsoon in Rawalpindi, where my hunt for pictures began and continued unabated through the trip. Marrying trekking to serious photography is difficult. Muslim traditions in Pakistan make for the colourful women a no-no subject in contrast to the drably-clothed men.
There’s an excitingly scenic internal flight to Skardu (not an exact science, due to weather), then a journey by Land Rover via terrain with 180-ton boulders perched on top of hundreds of feet of sherbet! There ensues trekking in high altitude desert, (hardly any trees) with 30-degree incessant sun and freezing nights. The Braldu River is followed by the Baltoro Glacier (the longest outside the polar regions) is certainly not classic glacial travel as it reminded me of the Bethesda Slate Quarries in Snowdonia, but with surreal rock and ice peaks aplenty jutting skyward from its garbage-like moraine.
Bewitched by photography, I sacrificed my liquid intake to the sacrifice of my health. (I just didn't smell the coffee)!
As altitude was gained so was altitude sickness. Head banged, shoulders stiff, limbs lethargic, food regurgitated - and if not quickly or violently it would be expressed at the other end. My demeanour got worse as I forgot things like washing at the mess (meal) tent and taking off my boots, to the chagrin of fellow trekkers. A porter carried my rucksack and at over 4000 metres on the final push to Concordia, it felt like I was swimming uphill the next 800 metres. Reaching Concordia, K2, and its stunning array of neighbouring peaks, still saw no relenting in my photography.
There was no way I was going further uphill over the Gondogoro La pass. It was return downhill, 5 days to the nearest village with one tent, one stove, food and two porters. Ah! No English! Sign language was a substitute. Could these guys cook? No. Who cooked? Why me! I ran cooking lessons, which were "upgraded" when we ran out of cooker fuel, substituted by meagre wood pickings from stunted bushes. I even "lost" my guides overnight as they "disappeared" uphill to sleep in a cave. There I was, seemingly shouting at dawn to no-one for ages, 3 days from the nearest village. I hated them, then I loved them as they finally emerged from the cave several hundred feet above me. Getting to the first village, Askole, almost Bronze Age in time, and having a coke was heaven.
As it transpired, The Gondogoro La was totally clouded in and nothing was seen from it by the other trekkers.
I finally flew a delayed flight home, got strip searched in Heathrow, (bedraggled trekker substituted for potential druggie), and got over the sickness and diarrhoea after two further weeks.
Needless to recount, subsequent treks being meticulously planned, and oh, I drank like a fish on 'em.
Van Greaves is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society – he photographs locations and people including celebrities such as Lauren Bacall and David Attenborough. http://photography.vangreaves.com/
His applauded books are available at amazon.uk: http://photography.vangreaves.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=31