Chiru chasers

On her way to the outdoor market near Jokhang Temple, a Tibetan woman in traditional dress pulls a wooden rickshaw loaded with vegetables. Her cart, riding on bicycle wheels and pulled by two wood trace-poles, is not unlike the rickshaws we’ve had custom-built for our four-man expedition. A colleague relates in Chinese that we would like to take her cart for a spin.

“It’s well balanced,” I say, “and easy-pulling, on the pavement anyway. I’m not sure how it would fare across a boulder field in the middle of the Chang Tang, though. As far as that goes, I’m not sure how our own rickshaws are going to fare.”

We are planning to walk up to 300 miles across one of the largest uninhabited sections of the planet to document the migration pattern of the chiru, the endangered Tibetan antelope.

Since the carts are an innovative concept, we start the process debating whether to go with a two-wheel rickshaw or a four-wheel wagon. Our first prototype, manufactured in South Korea by a company that makes aluminum backpack frames, is a four-wheel wagon that is so heavy and cumbersome we shift to the rickshaw.

Two months later, we test the next prototype in the coastal foothills behind my Ojai house. We are a hundred yards up a hiking trail with the cart loaded with 150 pounds of rocks when the traces begin to bend and suddenly both wheels fold.

The next prototype is tried out near the Bishop home of Galen Rowell, an adventure photographer and team member. The wheels hit a rock on a trail while I am pulling. The cart flips, driving my head into the dirt, impairing my hearing for days. This time, the wheels and frame collapse.

We have only enough time for one more round of revisions before we leave for the monthlong expedition with fellow mountaineers Conrad Anker and Jimmy Chin.

A designer specializing in custom racing bicycles modifies the wheel frames and traces, fits the carts with disc brakes and the strongest downhill mountain bike racing wheels he can find. Once all four carts are souped up, we barely have enough time to test them in the Bishop hills before leaving the next day for Tibet. The carts seem stronger than the earlier prototypes, but we worry we haven’t field-tested them enough.

Once the truck and SUV we hire in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, has taken us to the end of the road, we will be so utterly on our own that the difference between survival and disaster could be as thin as the aluminum we selected for our trace-poles.

Questions and quest

Why do the female chiru migrate? Why walk 200 miles and more through this barren country where there is so little to eat, then walk all the way back with newborn calves that are nursing? Some think it may be tied to historical migration patterns when the females needed to move north for food.

The Chang Tang once supported more than a million chiru, but they have been endangered by the craze for shahtoosh shawls. To make one shawl, between three and five chiru are killed. By the 1990s, perhaps 75,000 survived.

If we can document the calving grounds of the western population of the chiru -- thought to be the largest of four migrating groups -- the Chinese might be persuaded to establish a new nature reserve to encompass the area.

The female chiru we intend to follow begin their migration in the Chang Tang in May toward a glacial mountain that rises above the steppeland like a great beacon. Just south of this peak, Toze Kongri, the paths of various groups of chiru converge in a single migration route that we’ve been told would be as easy to follow as a well-worn trail.

June 1, 2002: We unload from the truck six large cardboard boxes that contain the rickshaws. If any parts are damaged, the expedition could be over before it begins.

“The moment of truth,” Anker says. “Our precious eggs.”

“The first one looks good,” I say as I lift out a wheel.

The other three wheels in the first box are in equally good shape. From a large box, we lift out an aluminum cargo bin with the wheel frames and disassembled traces still secured firmly inside. Each cart is in more than a dozen pieces, not including nuts, bolts and screws.

“I feel like a kid again with his Erector set,” Anker says.

“Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which there is no known cure,” Rowell replies.

Nothing is visibly damaged but it is too early to celebrate. If any component has been bent, we might be in trouble. But the pieces fit flawlessly.

June 2: Anker calculates that we will each pull 250 pounds, including supplies and equipment, while he’ll haul 275, partly because he’s stronger. We maneuver the loaded carts up a steep cutbank, which requires one to pull while another pushes.

“I can’t remember if assisted pulling is R-3 or R-4,” Chin says.

We have developed a system to rate the difficulty of rickshaw travel. “R” is for “rickshaw,” and the corresponding number on a scale of one to six measures the degree of difficulty, similar to the system for rating aided rock climbs.

“I think we decided that was R-4,” I reply, before checking my journal.

“R-1 is flat, easy cruising over hard or frozen ground,” I read aloud. “R-2 is somewhat difficult pulling uphill or across rocky, sandy or boggy ground. R-3 is very difficult solo pulling where you have to concentrate on secure foot placements. R-4 is when it’s too steep or loose to pull the cart alone, and in places portaging may be necessary. R-5 is when portaging is essential, and without a rope belay there is risk of injury. R-6 is when the carts have to be abandoned because even with rope belays there is risk of death.”

“Any bets whether we see R-5 or R-6?” Anker asks.

“No way,” I reply. “You want to hex us before we start?”

June 3: After our Tibetan comrades who gamely brought us to this juncture depart, Rowell says, “It’s getting awfully quiet out here.”

“Boys,” I say, “we just cut the cord.”

“I’m scared,” Anker admits. “We’re on our own, a thousand miles from Lhasa, a three-day walk from the nearest nomad camp, and we’re about to leave in the opposite direction. Our gear? We’ve had two years to get it together. If we don’t have it, we can’t get it, and if we can’t get it, we don’t need it. Let the adventure begin.”

With that, we buckle the harnesses around our waists and start pulling. The first hundred yards are easy, and then we encounter our first obstacle, a braided stream. We unbuckle our waistbelts, Anker jumps across a series of rocks, I push the first cart as far as I can, and he grabs the handlebar at the end of the traces and pulls it the rest of the way.

When the carts are across, the rest of us jump the stream. We find a ramp that allows us to gain the bench above the stream bank, but each step feels like leg-pressing 250 pounds. When the wheels hit even a small rock, it feels like 350 pounds.

Chances are I will have to dig deep to keep up with the others, including Rowell, who, despite being the oldest, seems indefatigable.

“I figure we get a couple of Tibetan friends,” Rowell says, “and we convince the Olympic Committee that this is an ancient Tibetan way of crossing the Chang Tang, and we get carting entered in the next Olympics.”

“Sign me up,” I say, keeping my reply short because of my quick breathing. Two hours later, I am relieved when we stop to camp in a shallow, dry drainage that offers wind protection. We have pulled the carts eight hours, and I am beat. We haven’t even passed the first physical feature on our map.

“How many miles did we go?” I ask.

“Six,” Anker replies, “but it’s just the first day.”

“Don’t remind me,” I reply.

June 4: We haul our rickshaws toward a distant butte on the northern half of the Antelope Plain as though it is a buoy marking our course. I can feel the altitude -- about 17,000 feet -- and I try to keep a rhythm: step, breathe, step, breathe. With each step, I push slightly on my handlebar to even out what would be a jerk on my waistbelt. This reduces the strain on my hips.

In another hour the previous night’s snow is melted, and under a clouded sky the steppe is an expanse of dull pewter. The only sound is our footsteps and a squeak that has developed in one of Rowell’s wheels. Anker pulls away from the rest of us, then slowly merges back.

“This is like being lost at sea,” he says.

June 5: The morning remains cold so the ground stays frozen. We pull the carts up a series of shallow drainages, and while hard, it would have taken all day if the ground were soft. By 11 a.m. we gain the crest of a tableland that frames the east side of the glaciated mountain that, from its altitude on our map, we call “Peak 20,041.”

We picked up 275 feet in 1 1/2 hours, Rowell reports. Most of us could do 2,500 or 3,000 in that time, walking without a load. I’m happy with 275 feet, but not so content with the fact that on the third day of our walk, we still haven’t seen many chiru.

The landscape becomes a patchwork of melting snow and brown earth. The meltwater, trapped by permafrost, turns to soft mud that sticks to our tires and clogs our brakes. Each step is a struggle.

We stop at 3 p.m. to rest, and Rowell discovers the setscrew that keeps his axle in place is missing. Anker hands over our only spare and reminds us that we must habitually check the fasteners on our carts. In this uninhabited vastness even a small thing like a lost screw could be serious.

June 6: With our tires inflated to full pressure, the rickshaws glide almost without effort over the frozen desert. We cross what in the afternoon will be a thin flow of water but is now a veneer of ice, and the wheels of our heavy carts break through as though they are fracturing panes of glass.

An hour later, toward the base of Peak 20,041, we see two groups of female chiru: 16 animals bedded down, their tawny coats inconspicuous against the dun floor of the steppe, and five other females beginning the day’s start-stop-start migration. Through Rowell’s long lens -- with a viewfinder on the rear converting it to spotting scope -- we watch the animals browse, walk a few yards, then stop again to browse.

Even these two groups are not enough to convince us we have found the migration route.

June 7: As we descend, the central range of the Kun Luns comes into view. These mountains -- surely one of the most remote ranges on earth -- are from my dreams. After all these years of reading Swedish explorer Sven Hedin, who came this way in 1906, of hearing that magic name “Kun Lun,” they are in view.

As the snow softens it sticks to our tires, building on the rims and spokes -- as a snowball builds when it’s rolled along -- until the accumulation breaks away. Then the cycle starts over.

I propose becoming the guinea pig and switching out to the balloon tires tied to our carts. It takes just under an hour to install the smaller tires. Everyone agrees they work better in snow but it isn’t worth the nearly three hours it would take to change the other carts.

After an hour, we squint toward the liquid horizon, and through the heat waves, we make out dozens of dark bumps. When I focus on the “animals” through my binoculars, dozens of rocks shimmer as though they are alive.

“It’s like a mirage of water in the desert,” Chin says, “but instead of dying of thirst, we’re dying to see chiru.”

June 8: We wake nearly three hours before dawn, determined to log as many miles as possible across the hardpan before it thaws. A stream, with shallow edges coated in ice, is too broad to jump, so we must cross barefoot or walk in wet boots. I struggle to get traction on a sheet of ice when it cracks and my feet plunge into water. I quickly pull the rickshaw into the open stream. On the other side, I dig footholds with my toes into the rubblework bank, and once my feet are on top, I use all my force to pull the cart up the undercut.

“How was it?” Anker calls out.

“About like it looked,” I reply.

Later, three of us agree to camp, but Rowell wants to see if we can find a better view, and a chance of seeing chiru.

“I’ll run down there and see what it looks like,” Rowell offers, pointing down the drainage we have been following. He quickly runs downhill, and in half an hour he is jogging back. We have been pulling our rickshaws uphill at an elevation above 17,000 feet. Rowell is 62 years old. How does he do it?

“I got down to the bottom,” he reports, “and could see the beginning of a valley where there were about a dozen chiru grazing.”

Anker moves downhill at a pace even Rowell can’t match. He is perhaps a quarter-mile ahead of me when he parks his cart and hikes up a sandy ramp on the hill. If we can get our carts up the ramp, a “gorgeous campsite” hidden from the valley is at the top of the ridge, he says, where chiru wouldn’t see us.

“That would increase our chances of getting some photographs,” Rowell says.

While one pulls and two push -- and the fourth alternates shooting photographs or video -- we work the carts one at a time up the ramp. At the top, a small bench is nestled in a ridge of black basalt interspersed with pockets of soil supporting patches of golden grass tipped with feathery awns.

“This really is beautiful,” I say, in my exuberance forgetting our need for stealth.

“Keep your voice down,” Rowell says softly.

Above us there appears to be the crest of the ridge and, presumably, a view beyond to the valley Rowell saw earlier.

“Be very quiet, and keep your heads low,” Rowell cautions as we go look.

We crouch as we approach the crest, then crab-crawl the last 20 feet. The valley is no more than a half-mile long, but it is breathtakingly beautiful. A small lake remains frozen. Elsewhere, the floor is covered in a soft bristle of stipa grass that in afternoon sun is tinged gold.

I count about 70 female chiru. They all appear pregnant, and they are ambling northward. Twenty or so disappear around a bend, and a minute later, on the crest of a ridge that defines the south end of this small Eden, about 30 chiru appear.

Anker has his arm over my shoulder, and Chin is quietly patting Rowell on his back.

“We’ve found it,” I whisper.

Epilogue

The findings from the trek have been submitted to Chinese officials, who are considering establishing a new reserve that will encompass the calving grounds.

This was Rowell’s last major expedition. A month after returning, the photographer and his wife died in a plane crash.

From “The Big Open: On Foot Across Tibet’s Chang Tang” (2004), by Rick Ridgeway, published by National Geographic.