Day 27 - Climbing the Gharib Ghar

We climbed the Gharib Ghar on our day off today. Ghar is the word for mountain. It is a 7200 foot ridge right in the middle of KMTC (Kabul Military Training Center). The first image here is an overview of where the Ghar is, and the second is a 3D rotation from Google Earth. By the way, Google Earth and Gimp are just awesome. We stay just to the north west of the airport (marked KAIA on the map). The Gharib Ghar is due east of us.


It was a tougher climb than I anticipated. Mainly due to the steepness. We went pretty much straight up the trail with minimal or no switchbacks. The climb starts around 6000 feet, so it was about 1200 feet straight up. Aside from the climb, there are two real difficulties getting up the Ghar. First, this big ridge is the back stop for all the firing ranges on KMTC. Small arms fire into it from the south, and larger artillery and tanks fire into it from the north. We left here at 0500 and were on top by 0630. Range control wants everyone off by 0800 for safety concerns. We were highly motivated to get back down with time to spare. The other principal difficulty is staying on the trail. There are no guarantees what you'll run into off the main trail. Between the Ghar being the recipient of countless firing range rounds, and Afghanistan being among the most heavily mined countries in the world, again, there is power motivation to stay on the trail. Even if you think you see an easier route up.


The views are breath taking from the top. This is the Kabul valley looking just west of south from the top of the Gharib. I have to say, if I were meandering along the old silk route and was looking for a place to settle down, this huge bowl of a valley would have been high on my list. I would have loved to see it before many of the trees and farmland were devastated by decades of war. Perhaps we'll see that again.


The very top of the Gharib is called the "kife's edge." Here's a bunch of knuckle-head NMAA mentors posing with Old Glory on top. It was a joint expedition, as we've got three separate services represented. We saw people from every service, and several coalition countries climbing this morning. The weather was perfect, and since it was Jumah, this has become a common expedition during people's day off.


To give you some indication of the steepness of the ascent, I had to throw in this picture. Never-mind the funny angle to the skyline in the background (grin)... OK, we did tilt the camera just a little bit for effect. Even without the creative camera work it is pretty steep. No climbing gear needed, but you do use your hands quite a bit. At least I did. I tried to impersonate Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger, but those shots didn't turn out well enough to share...



Of course, Lady Ada made the trek to the top with us. She was a real trooper, and never complained about the slow ascent in my backpack. I wasn't the oldest one climbing, but was within a year of the oldest, and was the last one to the top. Slow and steady as they say.


Here's the after-shot of everyone at the end of the climb. No injuries. We had an ulterior motive for climbing today. It turns out that there is a US compound inside KMTC (Camp Alamo) that houses the coalition mentors assisting with the ANA training here, and it has the best chow hall in the area. We really came early so we could make breakfast at Camp Alamo. Great eggs, cheese grits, bacon, and fresh strawberries. Yum. We got back to KAIA by 0930, and I was asleep again by 1000 (grin). I ended up napping a good portion of the day away. I hope my sleep isn't too screwed up now. Back to work tomorrow.