“The Big Open” by Rick Ridgeway (pub. 2004). Remember, reading books about mountain climbing makes living through a Minnesota winter pale in comparison.
This one isn’t about climbing, but about climbers on a month-long trek through remote Tibet in search of migration routes and calving grounds of the chiru, a type of antelope. May not sound suspenseful, but the observations, thoughts, and feelings are a good read.
The trekkers are:
• Ridgeway, who was among the first Americans to summit K2 some 25 years earlier.
• renowned photographer/climber Galen Rowell. Sadly, unknown at the tim, this turned out to be Rowell’s last expedition before he and his wife died in a plane crash a few weeks after the trek.
• Conrad Anker, professional mountaineer.
• Jimmy Chin, 28, the youngster of the group.
Unlike some other expeditions, this group got along amazingly well while they traversed the wilderness to find the chiru and extend the research of wildlife biologist George Schaller. Their goal was to document aspects of the chiru to reduce or eliminate pouching of the animal before it went extinct – hides were used for expensive shahtoosh scarves. They built their own rickshaws to carry about 250 pounds of gear and supplies each for their walk across nowhere.
Some samples:
• After a long day of traveling, Ridgeway was exhausted and worried about getting pneumonia. The group debates whether to set up camp or go further. Rowell offers to scout ahead and takes off running, returning in a jog half an hour later. Ridgeway: “We have been pulling our rickshaws for ten hours. For the last four hours we have been trudging uphill at an elevation above 17,000 feet. Galen is 62 years old. How does he do it?”
• Dramatic point: crossing what they named the Gorge of Despair, they hear Rowell scream and start thinking about how badly injured he might be and that there’s no help whatsoever in the isolated area, only to find he had slipped and his camera got wet.
• After finding the sought-after chiru calving grounds, the men split up for a day in different directions. Ridgeway, without a camera, comes within touching distance of a newborn. Back at camp, he mourns missing the opportunity to record the moment as the others say they didn’t get close – but later reveal the fantastic shots and video they actually did get.
With the mission complete, in the last 100 miles on the way out, what do you expect these guys to do? They stop to climb a mountain – a relatively smaller one that could be scaled and descended in two days, but one that also gave them an overview of the land they had just traversed.
After caching some of their supplies and equipment and heading for the mountain, they realized they left behind passports and $10,000 in cash to be used for transportation home. They looked around at the remote surroundings and lack of human habitation.
Ridgeway wrote: “We look at each other, shrug our shoulders, and keep going.”
Toward the end, Ridgeway and Rowell, both veterans of numerous expeditions, agreed this was one of their most fulfilling trips ever.
For more, see:
• photos and summary from National Geographic
• Ridgeway interview
• video on the trek
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