Cleaning the Rooftop of Pakistan

Hanniah Tariq

The terrain on day two’s walk was mostly flat, with some walking along a steep cliff. In addition to solid waste like cans and biscuit boxes carelessly strewn by previous treks, one yak and two horse carcasses were broken down and left to be carried on the way down.

In the summer of 2013, I jumped in on a small trek at the last minute to escape the city. The Thalle La trek connects the Shigar valley with the Hushe area by crossing a 4572-m mountain pass. While I was expecting a relatively easy and satisfying four-day journey, I didn’t expect to meet two people who would change my relationship with the mountains of Baltistan forever. The guides with us happened to be key people from Khurpa Care Pakistan (KCP), a local Balti NGO dedicated to preserving the mountains and the welfare of people working in the field—Zahid Rajput, the jovial president of the organization since 2005 and Ali Hussain Shigri, the very warm trainer and project manager. Both men are important proponents of porters’ rights and welfare, as well as accessible and safe tourism in Gilgit-Baltistan.

During our short time of about a week together, they made a lasting impression on me. Prior to this, we had always gone trekking in large groups, and genuine interaction with guides and porters had not been possible. This time there were three of us with two local companions, a ratio Our cook with his rainbow umbrella that allowed a lot of candid communication and a chance for lasting friendships to form. What struck me the most was that they did not distinguish between the female and the male group members. We were treated like family, lavished with (sometimes risqué) jokes, copious cups of tea and conversation.

Over this time, we got to talking about the state of the Baltoro glacier, which had been steadily deteriorating with garbage buildup along the path and in permanent camps and transport animal carcasses in various stages of decomposition throughout. Mentioning some foreign-funded cleanup expeditions I had heard of, I noted that none mentioned removing the carcasses (possibly due to health and safety issues). Rajput informed me that they had carried out cleanups where they also removed those in the past but could not do them regularly due to lack of funding. Feeling an end-of-trek high, I made a promise that I would return with funds for the expedition. I don’t think they believed me because they seemed stunned when I called them at the end of 2014 to start preparing for the following summer. Later, I discovered that because I talk especially fast when excited about something, they had to record the call and play it back to be sure.

High Altitude Sustainability Pakistan (HASP) was a trust fund formed to responsibly direct donations from the south to the country for this cause. I gave endless presentations to friends and acquaintances alike, some successful and some ending in disappointment and frustration. Talking about cleaning the very rooftop of the country was sometimes not received well in Karachi, a city with severe environmental and human welfare problems. A friend later confessed when speaking of those days that people were afraid to invite me to dinner because I would either leave with a cheque from someone or have an argument. I suppose, at the time, I was a very on-note person to collect the money needed for such an extensive undertaking. After boring numerous people to tears and exciting a handful, the ‘Sustain Baltoro’ cleanup expeditions were born in 2015 in partnership with KCP.

That June, I prepared to travel north for what was to become one of my life’s most challenging and rewarding times. Getting to Skardu may seem straightforward enough, but back in 2015, I was reintroduced to the unpredictability of flights to the airports in the north of Pakistan. Back in college, when we frequented Gilgit-Baltistan almost every term break, we hired coasters and drove the one-day journey. Flights were not considered reliable. Rumour had it that anything could get your crack-of-dawn flight cancelled. Weather conditions, no-fly zones due to security issues, and some even believed that lack of an appropriate number of passengers could get it grounded at the last minute.

After waiting two agonizing days, I asked my partners for a solution. They advised me to take a ‘private car’ as many locals from the area tend to carpool. I called the number provided for a reliable driver, who promptly booked me the last seat with a family of three that very night. I was told to wait for a pickup from my place at around 8:00 pm. However, my chariot finally creaked around the corner at 11:00 pm. This late 1980s Toyota was now about to take us from Islamabad (507 m) over the Babusar pass at an elevation of 4173 m and back down to Skardu (2228 m) in under 24 hours. The father looked at me judgmentally from behind his white beard while his Burka-covered wife and a little girl slept soundly. A local woman travelling alone in the middle of the night in Western clothes was probably too much for him to process. I had also never done anything of the sort before, but the gods of flight were not on my side. I settled into the front seat while the driver literally willed the car to start, and off this unlikely companionship went. The plan was to sleep through the night, arrive in Skardu in the morning and get straight to work. But that was not meant to be, as I was repeatedly woken up by the woman in the backseat on various pretexts. When in irritation, I enquired why, it turned out you are not allowed to sleep next to drivers as it makes them sleepy too. Twenty-four hours of not sleeping while strangers persistently ask personal questions (for example, “Where is your husband?” which was answered by “In my backpack”) was not my idea of a comfortable journey. But it was an apt beginning to a unique adventure.

I arrived early the following day, tired but filled with weird hyper energy in Skardu. Rajput was there to receive me with his brother Shakawat Hussain, also a trainer with KCP. A quiet man with an intimidating moustache, he later turned out to be one of the most thoughtful negotiators for porters and had helped resolve many disputes on the Baltoro sympathetically. We had breakfast and wandered into town to procure equipment for the expedition. I had thought ‘technical supplies’ were large bags to carry the waste back in. When I saw large axes and shovels (to break down and dispose of animal carcasses) in addition to the packing materials and general supplies, I realized that Dorothy was not in Kansas anymore!

The next day we were met by the Project Director, Raja Abid Ali and ecologist Syed Yasir Abbas Rizvi of Central Karakoram National Park CKNP before departure for Askoli. They had encouraging words and practical support with a generous waiver on Park entrance fees for the volunteers and me.

The night before departure KCP surprised me again with how organized they were, and together we formulated a format for an orientation meeting for the team. We clarified the roles of the core team (managers, kitchen staff and volunteers) and went over Health and Safety, ground rules and expected conduct on the expedition. Porters were distributed into two distinct teams to walk at the head and tail each day. A monitoring framework unlike any I have ever encountered in my years of work was also devised. What counted as an animal carcass after years of decomposition? —a head and/or at least three limbs.

A three-person steering committee (Rajput, Shigiri and I) was formed to manage day-to-day decision-making and resolve potential disputes. However, with the great team we had in place, the steering committee simply met for tea and made fun of my feeble attempts at the Balti language each evening. I mostly knew how to ask for tea and food because I had my priorities straight! A topic of discussion was also often something Rajput had done that day, as during the trip, he not only played the role of overall expedition leader but also developed elaborate practical jokes to boost team morale.

Shigri was the acting Porter ‘Sirdar’ (leader), camp set-up manager, and leader for cleanup Team One when in camp. He expertly managed a very diverse role, including group wakeup calls (I still wake up sometimes with a jump, feeling my tent shaking and him booming on the other end to get my lethargic morning butt in gear), overseeing camp pack-up (starting last in the morning), walking the fastest to catch-up with the kitchen staff and oversight of camp set-up. When I asked how he managed to walk alone without company or music for more than six hours a day, he simply answered that he ran some movie he had watched over in his head or sang songs.

Two walked at the group’s tail, breaking down all solid carcasses and more considerable waste with axes before packing it. They began to be referred to as the ‘Commando group’, which could be radioed to pick up virtually anything that was seen by Team One. One day, we joked that we had spotted debris from a crashed helicopter, and the crackling answer on the radio confirmed that they would take care of it.

The kitchen staff consisted of Fida Hussain Shigri, Fida Hussain and Musa Ali who were responsible for the daily preparation of three meals, transportation of kitchen equipment, and providing tea/coffee multiple times a day. They took care of the team’s nutritional needs and lent a hand with cleanup every time they were free. They were the first ones up, and first to leave camp and had tea, soup and biscuits waiting for the team when they arrived at the next base. My insistence on helping because I love to cook fell on deaf ears as I was a guest. Towards the end, they finally put me on roti (flat bread duty) but it was promptly withdrawn when my skills were not deemed up to par!

Our two volunteers that year were women from Islamabad. They were responsible for documentation and daily backing up of videos and pictures of the project. Unfortunately, we ended up with no videos as one of the volunteers dropped our official camera and neglected to inform us that nothing was downloading until we arrived back in Skardu. Needless to say, next year’s volunteer briefing was very detailed on taking care of the equipment and upfront honesty on any such matters.

The expedition

The route from Askoli to Concordia is vigorous, complex, rough and downright tear-inducing. For fans of J.R.R Tolkien, it echoes the road to Mordor. On the 24 June, after packing supplies at the crack of dawn, we travelled for about ten hours from Skardu to Askoli village in old jeeps with soft shells. The 6-8 hours travel time had increased due to the repeated breakdown of one jeep and seasonal damage to the bridge before Askoli, requiring crossing on foot and arranging transport on the other side. Askoli is the last glimmer of civilization at an elevation of 3048 m and is the starting point for expeditions to four of Pakistan’s highest mountains through the Baltoro glacier. I felt a bit troubled at things already not turning out according to plan as we arrived early evening and stayed in a local camping ground.

When we set out at 5:30 am the next day from Askoli for the first camp, I never imagined that the first carcass encountered would be a small lamb on the main path less than 50 m from the beginning of the trail, which vividly underscored the direness of the situation. The walk for the day was relatively simple and mostly followed a flat sandy path with a minor stream crossing. We arrived at the beautiful campsite of Korophong in the early afternoon. Lunch and a brief rest among the lush trees (the last to be seen for the next weeks) and much-needed shade followed a comprehensive cleanup of the camp, an immediate introduction to the hard work that stood before us. I was used to getting to base and withdrawing till dinner, enjoying some yoga and writing, but this was not that kind of trek.

That night the skies opened up, and the heavens subjected us to a rain of biblical proportions. Alone in my tent, my first time travelling without close friends, I felt lonely and apprehensive about the days ahead. A crying goat the team had taken along for meat in the later days didn’t help the matter. I was never ok with the ritual of dragging animals on a challenging path to their death, never the less I followed what the locals had suggested. But, lying there, I felt nothing but an overwhelming sense of guilt. I prayed to make the crying stop in exchange for me never eating meat on a trek again. To my utter astonishment, it did stop. In the morning, I related this to Shigiri, who immediately burst out in peals of laughter. Apparently, the goat had broken free of its rope and invaded the mess tent where they had been sleeping. He instinctively reached out and managed to grab its leg, never imagining the interloper to be the goat. The furry gatecrasher then spent the night in the mess tent, safe from the deluge. The news of my words with God spread across the team, and the cook, Fida Ali declared me to be a ‘punhanchi hooe Bandi’ (woman close to God). That really helped my newcomer status in this tight-knit group, and I thoroughly enjoyed the extra respect the goat incident brought me. However, to this day, I do not eat meat on a trek, no matter how much I crave the protein. A promise is a promise, after all.

The terrain on day two’s walk was mostly flat, with some walking along a steep cliff. In addition to solid waste like cans and biscuit boxes carelessly strewn by previous treks, one yak and two horse carcasses were broken down and left to be carried on the way down. We arrived at Joula camp (3100 m) by late afternoon.

Here, we encountered a donkey carcass, barely two days old. The body had to be dragged by ropes away from the riverbed to avoid further contamination and buried instead of being broken down and carried. Unfortunately, after a few feet, the body burst, and blood sprayed everywhere. My stomach could not handle it and rebelled as I snuck away quickly to relieve myself of my breakfast and last night’s daal. The day’s highlight, as a result, was a punctured water drum at camp in front of which I stood fully clothed, washed off drops of blood and my panic, entirely unconcerned at how odd it looked to the local porters. I had further cemented my reputation as the expedition oddball.

The next day, the terrain on the walk from Joula to Paju began to show steeper climbs and some very rocky paths that proved very tiring to negotiate while collecting waste. By the end of the day, we had reached an altitude of 3407 m. We took a rest day from walking but the team still spent that day cleaning up the area in and around Paju camp. This is the largest camp on the way to Concordia and gets an enormous amount of traffic. A large pit had to be used to dispose the garbage.

Here the team also received the first major call for medical attention. A porter from the cleanup team two who had been working on a construction site preceding the expedition had intense cuts on seven fingers, displaying signs of infection. The depth of the cuts suggested stitches; however, in the absence of surgical training, I could only disinfect the lacerations daily with a stinging Dettol disinfectant. After that, whenever he spotted me, he did his best impression of Usain Bolt running away from the pain-inflicting woman as fast as he could.

The walk from Paju to Khubursay at 3800 m was mainly on the glacier itself. The moraine slowed the group’s pace, but an extensive cleanup was still conducted despite the late arrival. More medical assistance was provided to both the team and porters returning from other expeditions. Main complaints still included infected wounds and eye problems; however, some porters also displayed signs of altituderelated illness, including headaches, dehydration and diarrhea. A few returning porters also reported severe toothaches. Everyone wanted a painkiller, but in the absence of enough, the offering of cloves (a natural remedy) was not appreciated at all.

The walk from Khubursay to Urdukas was mostly steep climbs on the glacier, reaching 4067 m. We encountered the maximum number of carcasses at Urdukas camp and its surrounding areas where we retrieved almost 21 transport animal bodies.

That night one of the older porters regaled us with local folklore about Urdukas camp. Many porters have died there over the years, and three graves were apparently within a stone’s throw from us. When he finished his story about a ghostly apparition beckoning him to come outside his tent late one night, I timidly left for my own tent. It looked like the cave of death inviting me to my doom in the moonlight. I tried without success to doze off and, after a few hours, grabbed my sleeping bag. I sheepishly asked permission to sleep in the mess tent with KCP members and the kitchen team (after all, the goat had managed the same days ago). I was ever so grateful that they were not beholden to traditional conservativeness as I settled, safe and warm inside my sleeping bag and finally fell asleep.

The walk from Urdukas to Goro II was a steep ascent going from 4067 to 4500 m in one day. Goro II is considered the most brutal camp on the trip by many locals despite Concordia being higher. It was the first time that camp was directly on the glacier with no wind cover. Despite it being the lowest temperature and highest wind-chill factor experienced till this point, the team continued the regime of cleanup after reaching camp in the evening. Going to the bathroom in the middle of the night while staring at a solid, one-story piece of ice is an experience that I don’t care to repeat.

We reached the final destination Concordia (4600 m) on 2 July. As Concordia is a rarely used site, it was cleaner than most camps. Most trekking groups continue to K-2/ G1/G2/ Broad peak base camps, for which our team did not have adequate equipment. After a unanimous decision taken by the steering committee, we forfeited the rest day at Concordia, due to the absence of carcasses and comparatively negligible trash at the Concordia junction. On descent, the team continued past Goro II, opting instead for the slightly further campsite of Goro I, where temperatures are warmer.

We bypassed Urdukas (to my utter relief) to continue to Khoburse. The camp was found in reasonably clean conditions after initial efforts by both teams on the ascent. The teams packed carcasses that needed to be carried down.

The following day the team arrived at Paju in the early evening, and a lot more trash was visible since the team had left a few days earlier on the way up. 11 more loads were collected as Paju camp was cleaned for a second time. As I complained to camp management, members labelled me as ‘emotional’. It upset me a great deal. I was angry at hard work being taken for granted and this was typically equated with being emotional—this belittled my sense of outrage. However, picking my battles is something I have learned through years of working with men, and I chose to ignore it with my most faithful companions in the mountains, patience and a hot cup of tea.

Two men passed us as we approached Jhula Camp the next day with their guns as the only equipment visible. It was the second last day of the gruelling trek, and I was exhausted as Shigiri tried in vain to keep my spirits up. They were fast and unmistakably coming back from Siachen, referred to by the media as ‘the highest battlefield in the world’. When the pair stopped to get some water from a stream, we saw that they were just boys, barely in their early 20s, possibly younger, but their time in a place where temperatures can reach below −55 °C might have added some lines to their youthful faces. Numerous soldiers on both sides have perished from conflict and from nature pushing back. Many promising young men have succumbed to altitude-related illnesses, and others have been buried in avalanches. It is almost as if the glacier is a living entity that wishes to be left alone.

Shigiri, one of the most caring people I have ever met, stopped to converse with them. And as I cooled my blistered feet in a stream, the three got acquainted. Shigiri realized that these two young men had no food or shelter and invited them to stay with us. They claimed that that is a typical circumstance for those discharged from the Pakistani side. I cannot verify if that was their opinion or fact, but it was clear that their case was such. No tent and no rations, just the two of them yearning for their home in Punjab. They stayed with us that night in camp, getting along with everyone like a house on fire. The following morning, they were silently gone before any of us had woken up.

The team proceeded to Askoli directly from Joula. Upon reaching Askoli, all animal remains, and carcasses brought down were immediately buried. The solid waste was deposited in the CKNP-run incinerator in Askoli. At the beginning of the project, retrieval and disposal of 2500 kg of animal carcasses and solid waste was the target in order to declare success. However, the team successfully retrieved a total of 4498 kg, thus almost doubling the required outcome within the budget allocated. In our four-year adventure on the Baltoro, which unfortunately concluded after 2019 due to dwindling funding and later the Corona pandemic, we managed to retrieve and responsibly dispose of 25,225 kg and 143 transport animal carcasses from Askoli to Concordia. It was an emotional end to an unforgettable era filled with highs as elevated as the mountains we worked in the shadows of and lows that can only follow such euphoric times.

Summary

In the summer of 2013, Hanniah Tariq went on a trek in the Thalle La region and met Zahid Rajput and Ali Hussain Shigri from Khurpa Care Pakistan (KCP), an NGO focused on preserving the mountains of Baltistan. Inspired by their dedication, the author promised to return with funds for an expedition to clean up the Baltoro glacier. The author describes the challenging journey to Skardu, the formation of the expedition team, and their efforts to remove animal carcasses and solid waste from the Baltoro glacier in the summer of 2015.

Author Hanniah Tariq is the Founder and CEO of High-Altitude Sustainability Pakistan, an organization that aims to raise awareness around the environmental and social issues impacting sustainable tourism in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. She has over 15 years of experience in International Development and social research. Her works have been published in the Alpinist Magazine, WWF’s Natura Magazine, and the Journal of Corporate Citizenship. She is an outdoor enthusiast, cat fanatic, and amateur cook. She tweets @hanniah.

 

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