Mount Halgurd
Finally, we were ready to head out and conquer Mt Halgurd! Mt Halgurd is the highest mountain that lies entirely within Iraq (technically, the highest mountain is Cheekha Dar, but it is partially in Iraq and partially in Iran). We were all super excited, got our bags packed up on the jeep and drove to the mountains. Before we started out, the national TV wanted to interview us. It was quite entertaining. These men in their suits and nicely polished shoes had to run around in the snow to follow us. The foreign minister was planning to make a positive news story out of our visit. The first set of tourists visiting Kurdistan and having a great time! It was a symbol of hope for Kurdish people, a symbol that a group of random individuals from the western world were on their side and believed in their country enough to venture a trip there. (Check out my TV appearance here at 1:50).
On the first day, we were planning to reach our basecamp, a 6 hour uphill hike. In order to do that, we had to walk between minefields. Phil, one of the expedition leaders had gathered a lot of information from locals about where exactly the mines were. It was crucial that we did not stray off the path.
To be honest, that uphill hike was brutal, mostly because of the 15-20kg backpack I was carrying. I was just so exhausted and every step through the snow was painful. I had also accidentally forgotten my gators, meaning that both my shoes and feet got soaking wet. When we finally arrived at our basecamp, the sun was about to set. My back was hurting and my feet absolutely frozen. I had hit my toes the previous day. I was hoping that wouldn’t be a big deal, but when taking off my shoes I realized that they were so swollen and dark blue that I might have broken them. Having broken them before, I knew what to do. I taped them together with my other toes and just endured the pain.
Also, all but two stoves in our group ended up broken! This means that it took us forever to melt the ice and collect drinking water as well as to prepare our food. Luckily, my British tent mate, Emma, took care of all of that. Best tent mate ever!
Phil held a training camp that evening. All of us had some mountain experience, but Phil belongs to a class by himself. He’s a professional mountaineer, runs his own expedition company and has ascended numerous peaks around the world, some of them were first ascents! He taught us the basics, how to arrest ourselves in case we were to slide down the mountain. It was a fun workshop, exactly what I needed to warm me up, and you could also see Phil’s face light up when he was in his element.
Both Phil and Tom (Estonian team member) were interesting that way. They took their passion for traveling and adventure to a different level. Both of them do not have a home base, and spend every couple of months or even weeks in a different country. They don’t seem to have any attachment to anywhere or anyone. Their lives are so consumed by expeditions that all of their stories revolve around some trip. It makes sense, really, but I had never met anyone like that before. Most expedition leaders I know alternate between two or three locations and home bases. They are not “homeless” to the extent that Phil & Tom are. It made me wonder if I would be like that, if that is the lifestyle I would have chosen if my family had actually supported my travels when I first started touring the world as a teen.
The next day, we got up at 4am for the final ascent. The boys took forever to get ready, so I found myself a quiet place to watch sunrise. It was magnificent! The ascent was straight-forward really. I expected it to be challenging, but it wasn’t. It felt more like a nice stroll. The biggest factor was probably that I didn’t have my heavy backpack to carry. I also had Phil walking right in front of me and creating nice steps in the snow for me to follow. It was a perfect day really. Beautiful sunshine, great company, and a lovely walk to the top. The foreign minister had requested that we all take flags from our respective countries to the top and send him pictures of those for his propaganda agenda. So that’s what we did, even though it felt absolutely ridiculous…
The way back to our basecamp was very steep and the snow very slushy. We were sliding all the time, and had to make arrests with our ice axes. Eventually, we just gave up and when there weren’t any rocks in sight, we simply tobogganed down the hill. It was incredible! So much fun! And within minutes and little effort, we were at the bottom of the hill. Everyone spent the afternoon sleeping in their tents and sipping tea. We had a great restful afternoon before we were going to head down the next day. That night, a few of us spent some time outdoors to take pictures of the sky and stars. Almost immediately after we got back to the tents, we heard a pack of wolves howling and fighting nearby. It was sort of nerve-wracking. We had seen prints in the snow earlier that day, but here they were. It was hard to tell how close they were, but no one was going to venture outside after that. We were truly in the wild.
The next day, we packed up all of our stuff and walked back to the car. Given how hard the path uphill was, I imagined the downhill to be just as hard, but it wasn’t. We were down in no time, and took our jeep back to Choman. Harry (who owns several hair salons in London) spent the drive down talking about the hair products he would put in his hair once back in London. It was quite entertaining. We only stayed in Choman long enough to re-organize our bags and then set off for a different mountain.
For more pictures, go here.
For the TV piece about it (haha), go here.
Previous Post: To Choman, Erbil, Off to Kurdistan
Next Post: Mt Sakran
