Day 17, 7/21: BC (14500 ft) - Kashgar (4000 ft)

Last night, I had the best sleep I’ve had in a while (since the beginning of junior year). It was 10 hours of uninterrupted rest (no dreams, no bathroom trips, I didn’t even snore). When I woke up around 9:30, the sun was already high up in the sky.

I hated packing. It was very annoying because I had been throwing things around in our BC tent, which made my duffle bag extremely disorganized. I actually color coded many stuff sacks to categorize my gear, but I’ve been mixing things in recent days. The duffle bags were already very full when we arrived at BC, now we had to add in the boots and the down suit, which almost took up 1/5 of the space. I zipped it so hard that I thought it was going to tear open. Luckily, Kailas is a very high-quality outdoor brand, so everything was fine!

According to locals, it's mandatory to use camels to bring big luggage down from BC using camels.

Around 11 a.m., most people have finished packing. We all started taking group pictures (many, many of them).

Our climbing leader. Climbed with him four times before. Left was photo at Muztagh Ata, right was photo on Chola.

Guy, 3rd starting from the left, is 63 years old. His age is more than the three other guys (two high schoolers, one college junior) combined. Respect.

There're many more, but our faces all look disgusting now because we haven't washed it in a while.

I never knew that we would get medals for climbing this (apparently it’s new, only for 7000+ meter mountains). I was honestly so excited because the only medal I’ve ever received was a qualification on the Grand Concouse, a French contest I participated in middle school.

Last group picture :(

Finally, we had to say goodbye to BC. Even now, I still remember it as a cozy place that I could call home. Although I really missed my days on there, it was time to get back to civilization. The truck that escorted us down to 204 was a special one. The plate number was “7546B,” because 7546 is the summit altitude of Muztagh Ata.

We basically spiraled down to 204, so the mountain was visible and still huge to us even at 204. A guy on our car suggested that we sing, but I don’t know what song I should sing to pair with the views and emotions at this moment. I really wanted to leave, but I also really didn’t.

The truck arrived at 204 around 1 a.m. We waited another hour at 204 for the bus to take us down to Kashgar. Since we were bored, we all decided to weigh ourselves. I lost about 6kg (13 pounds) on this trip. Most people lost around 7-10 pounds. I think I lost a bit more because of the stomach problem in Tashkurgan. However, Tina (one of our teammates) gained 2 pounds. It did make sense though, because she was always energetic and always eating (good digestive system).

Took the helicopter photo while waiting.

Since none of us had lunch, we decided to stop along the way for some Latiao (the special Xinjiang noodles I had in Tashkurgan, but the dish is popular all over the province). I wanted a second plate, but heard that we’re getting really good dinner tonight, so I regained some self-control.

And we did get the most amazing, best-valued dinner ever. For 70 yuan (less than $10 now), we get to eat a hot pot buffet, so we basically could put unlimited amount of food in our pot. They had so many ingredients (meat: beef, lamb, scallop, all kinds of fish, octopus, squid, shrimp, all kinds of vegetables, noodles, ramen), as well as sides like barbecue bar, kebabs, ice cream, yogurt, soda, cakes. Basically, everything I’ve been dreaming of on the mountain, for $10 (I had to emphasize us). I almost thought they were charging us extra without notifying. Here's just a small portion of what's offered: (I have like 6 more of these clips)

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/f7bfd7_b91f4273543a467182ea5dc1a7dfdac7/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

I ate so much that my stomach feels weird even when I sit down. But I didn’t care, because we deserved this treatment.