Mount Siguniang

I was exhausted when I got to the base camp of Erfeng of Mount Siguniang. After 20 km hike with 1000 m of elevation gain, I was relieved that I finally reached our cabin (4200m). I put down my backpack and sat down. Then I said hello to three hikers in the cabin: one woman and two men. The woman is very young in her early 20s. One man is older, in his 40s. And the other man is in his 20s as well. After exchanging greetings, they started cooking. It seemed like they were very experienced mountaineers: professional clothes and gears. In addition, fast speed. I met them at the service center at 10km, and they arrived at the base camp almost one hour earlier than I did. The cabin was only furnished with long benches on the one end, and long benches covered with some wooden broads functioned as beds on the other end. It left a narrow space in the middle as a walkway. Like all mountaineering base camps, there was no electricity. It was dark in the cabin. All of us put on our headlamps. While I sat down resting, I was listening to their conversations. They were from the same group. They planned to climb three peaks (ErFeng, DaFeng, and SanFeng) altogether! Even though this wasn't my first time at such high altitude (I went to the base camp (5200m) of Mt. Everest in Tibet side in 2012), it was my first time hiking at this altitude. I was quite concerned about altitude sickness. The camping stove they bought seemed working quite well. In a few minutes, the egg and seaweed soup was boiling. The young man invited me to join them eating. He also said I should drink water constantly and it would help prevent high altitude sickness. It was hard to resist such friendly invitation. I used my thermo bottle cover as a container for the soup. It was nice to drink warm soup in such cold weather. As we chatted more, I found both men had done mountaineering for some years. The young man even did some guided hiking tours in Xinjiang Province. After we finished eating, it was after sunset. It was getting darker outside. We started to prepare to go to sleep. At the base camp, all of us were told to get up at 2am and begin the summit at 3am. So we had to rest early. I put out my sleeping bag. At the meantime, they boiled more water, since we had to drink water constantly. They were kind enough to share boiled water with me again. It was around 8pm. We were all about to sleep. Since I drank so much water, I had to go to bathroom. It was dark and cold outside. Furthermore, the base camp doesn't equip with any bathroom facilities. That meant I had to peep outside in the dark where horses were present. When I asked if anyone could go to bathroom with me, the young man told me he could. While he was accompanying me outside and away from the cabin, he also warned me to get away from the horses. When we got to an open space, he let me go a few meters away, turned away from me and turned off his headlamp. Then I turned off my headlamp and did my business. When I was done, I heard him say: "Look up! We can see the Milky Way!" "Where are you?" "I'm here." "There are so many stars! Where is the Milky Way?" "It is just above us. Right there!" He pointed to the middle of the sky with some cloud like matter where there were also bright stars. "It is so pretty!"