by Lee Moore, photos by Galen Burke
We almost did not get to our final camping spot in our trip to hitchhike the Silk Road. We had been told that you could not buy bus tickets to Karakul until the day of your journey. So, at 10am Beijing time, I rolled into the bus station to buy two tickets for Galen and myself to the ‘black lake,’ situated on the edge of China.
"Today, we're all sold out," the old Han Chinese lady told me, leaning towards the window.
"What?" I said.
"You have to come earlier," she instructed.
"Is there anywhere else that I can get tickets?"
"Here. Come earlier tomorrow," she informed me.
"No, for today?" I begged.
She shrugged. "There is a place where pickup trucks leave to go up to Karakul Lake. But it is more expensive, and I do not know much about it. Try here." She wrote down the name of an intersection in Kashgar's suburbs.
The address she gave me led to a parking lot where leather-necked pickup truck drivers were gathered. Karakul is so remote that most of the goods freighted up to it come via these drivers, who fill their cabs with four passengers and their beds full of freight. I negotiated a price for a truck – RMB200, five times the price of a bus ticket – and we were off, carrying, amongst other things, a large sign for the China Meteorological Association.
Karakul is about as far away from Beijing as you can get while still being within China’s borders. In fact, it is as close to Beirut as it is to the capital, and only 60 miles from Afghanistan. The body of water is at an altitude of 3,645 meters, but it sits beside the massive Muztagh Ata, a mountain which towers over the lake at a height of 7,546 meters.
When we hopped out of our pickup, we steered clear of the official lakeside 'park,' which charges admission to tour-bus visitors, and found a quiet yurt owned by some Kyrgyz shepherds who let us stay the night. Hiking around Karakul, we took a path used by herders to go deeper into the mountains, where roads have not yet penetrated.
Two boys on motorbikes zoomed past me, bouncing along the dirt path in off-brand wind suits and tennis shoes, their hats turned to the sides of their heads. "Hello," they shouted, laughing as they sped around the lake and up into the brown hills.
Clambering further, we ran into some more young shepherds, these playing volleyball. Their court was nothing more than a dirt area bifurcated by a limp net. A motorcycle was parked on one side, and their play was occasionally interrupted by sheep passing through. In the background rose a dozen grey yurts amid mud-brown hills. Behind those loomed Muztagh Ata, ‘the father of ice mountains,’ his white peak lost in the clouds. We joined the kids for half a game, but they soon dispersed to tend their flocks.
Night came quick and cold. The people who owned the yurt where we were staying gave us some pilaf and tea. I popped a beer and we relaxed beside our temporary dwelling as night crept up Muztagh Ata's side. The nighttime sky was the best we’d seen in China, the Milky Way buxom above the 7,000-meter peak. We did little more than stare, dumbfounded.
// Lee Moore and Galen Burke won the 2013 Outside Magazine Adventure Grant with a plan to hitchhike the Chinese section of the Silk Road, from Xi’an to Kashgar, visiting parks and scenic areas along the way. The project's goal is explore China's remaining wild spaces while also understanding what the Chinese people think of the wild. We’ll be following their journey every month as they investigate the culture and nature along this historic trade route. For more information on the Silk Road Hitchhikers, visit www.silkroadhitchhikers.com
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