14 Team Photo At Thongol - Jerome Ryan, guide Iqbal, cook Ali, porters Syed, Muhammad Khan, and Muhammad Siddiq, sirdar Ali Naqi [2 of 36]
We arrive in Thongol and quickly unload the jeep and set up the kitchen tent and my tent where I rest for a few minutes. Ahhh. Iqbal puts together the loads a little bit like a jigsaw puzzle trying to even them out to 25kg each. There are nine loads so Iqbal has to find five more porters. He tells me he's having trouble because the porters want to wait for the mountaineering expedition we met on the flight to Skardu. Here is our team at Thongol: below - Jerome Ryan, guide Iqbal, cook Ali; above - porters Syed, Muhammad Khan, and Muhammad Siddiq, and finally our sirdar Ali Naqi.