Yankee Doodle

Trip Start Mar 23, 2012

Trip End Apr 22, 2012

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Tent

Flag of China Sarak, Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu, China
Thursday, April 12, 2012

The snow was deeper than my boots and I fished out Steve's gaiters from my pack for the first time. The others decided the conditions were too dangerous to have me trailing along at the back on my own, so they kept me with them by dint of getting Robin to follow me and poke me with his walking pole everytime I slowed up. Rob and Akbar took a donkey ahead to break trail through the snow. It made for easier walking.

At one point, the thicker air led to a bout of exuberance, and there was a full blown snowball fight, with teams at the top of the bank raining snowballs down onto the poor lubbers below. We crossed an icicle covered river, which I'm sure I had to use stepping stones across before. There was much more ice than previously.

The path followed a magnificent, if scary, route around the side of a gorge

Heavy snow at camp

. Tendi, the gritter, scraped steps with his ice axe to stop us sliding. He had so much energy, and always with a grin on his face.

Once we got to the bridge, we had lunch. It was the same spot we had lunched at on the way up. We had nearly walked down out of the snowfall by that point and shortly after, Simon headed off on the donkey, waving his hat in the air like Yankee Doodle. By all accounts he found it hard to walk when he got off the little beast of burden some hours later. There's a lot to be said for stirrups.

The route followed the river valley again. I saw some ammonite fossils and lots of blocks of jade. Some of the others were collecting small bits of jade, but Simon had a massive pair of blue-sheep horns, which he added to his pack. Between them and the rugby ball, I'm surprised he had room for any clothes.

The walk was done in just five hours and I set about drying out all my wet stuff from the night before. The wall was convenient and I draped it with my sleeping-bag, mat, towel, and anything else that came up damp.

As we had a mess tent, I finally discharged my panda duties, by singing an altered version of The Grand Old Duke of York (without any 'ups' or 'downs')

Heavy snow

. I'd had a lot of time on a camel to think about the words. The lyrics, for posterity:

The grand old group from Kings,
They numbered just thirteen,
John marched them high to the top of the hill,
And he marched them low again.
At Italian they were high,
At Chinese they were low,
At Pakistani they were half way high,
They were neither high nor low.

Chris then inherited the panda for describing his bag as 'the Classic Journeys one'.... er, just like everyone else's.

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