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| Finally out of the city! |
After the thick urban haze of
Kathmandu,
we were really excited to get out of the city and start trekking
through the Himalayas. We had found ourselves a fantastic local guide
named Karma Mustangi (you can contact him at karmakurt@hotmail.com to
organize your own adventures) and a super cool porter named Monaz. With
Karma's help we mapped out a 33-day itinerary that included the fabled
Annapurna Circuit, the secluded kingdom of Upper Mustang and the epic
views of Annapurna Base Camp (aka ABC).
Our team
assembled, we piled into a small sedan and started the drive from
Kathmandu to the trail-head at a small town called Besisahar. But it
wasn't smooth sailing as of yet: we spent most of the six-hour drive
trying to pass massive Indian-made cargo trucks belching exhaust on
two-lane twisty mountain roads. Finally we arrived (albeit with a
massive headache from the pollution) and ate lunch in Besisahar before lacing up our boots and setting out.
Over the next few days we hiked up a river valley that wound its way up the west side of the Annapurna mountain range. It was
hot
but at least the air was mercifully clear and fresh. A single lane
unpaved dirt road ran up one side of the gorge but we often took goat
trails up the opposite side. Plant life burst forth from every surface
and the greens were almost blindingly vibrant. Tiny villages were
sprinkled along the sides of the valley and as we passed local kids
would run out calling, "Hellopen!!!" Many trekkers bring pens for the
kids to use in school so they've combined "hello" and "pen" into one
word. The villagers were subsistence farmers who were busy plowing their
rice paddies with oxen.
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| High altitude agriculture |
We passed a bridge being constructed over the river
and noticed that the construction machinery and managers were Chinese.
Karma explained that although India supplies the vast majority of
Nepal's aid (in addition to oil and electricity), China is now jumping
into the fray. This has apparently resulted in an escalating "Nepalese
foreign aid war" between China and India, both vying for influence in
the country sandwiched in the middle.
Along the way we
stayed in 'teahouses," extremely basic guest houses that host trekkers
in the region. As we climbed higher up the valley the temperature
eventually dropped and the environment became more rocky and alpine. We
visited a beautiful lake and were surprised by a flash hail storm. After
a day or two more the dirt road ended and we were left with only the
rugged foot path. We passed through huge glacier-carved valleys as the
Himalayas rose up around us.
Nepal is a country of unparalleled
scale. Words and pictures just can't capture how friggin'
huge
everything is. Massive glaciers pouring down into rushing rivers, row
after row of breathtaking mountains marching off into the distance,
meter after meter of elevation gain...
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| Tibetan Buddhist prayer stones |
By this point in the circuit some of our fellow
trekkers were slowing down and starting to suffer from altitude
sickness. You just never know who it will hit. Career guides are just as
vulnerable as first time hikers -- apparently, there is no true medical
explanation for this 'phenomena'. We weathered a snowstorm and hid in
the tea-houses to avoid the freezing night winds. We spotted the
endangered blue sheep effortlessly scampering across cliffs with
thousand foot drops. We sipped
masala chiya (Nepalese chai tea) and
slurped down potent garlic soup.
Almost two weeks into our trek we finally were nearing our goal for the first section:
Thorong La
pass. At 5416 meters (17,769 feet) it was the highest pass Andrea and I
had ever attempted. It allows travelers to get around the northern edge
of the Annapurna range and it happens to be the widest pass in the
world. As we trudged up towards it we were passed by group after group
of hikers headed the other way, defeated by the combination of thin air,
steepness and altitude. Every day emergency helicopters would buzz over
our heads, rescuing those unable to make their own way back to
civilization.
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| Our goal, Thorong La, finally in sight |
We fought our way up one last, nearly vertical
escarpment to reach the final tea-house before the pass. After a nearly
sleepless night (Eliot saw jackals near the bathroom) we left at around 5
A.M. with headlights to make our way through the snow. Even with long
underwear, thick pants, wool socks, a quick dry shirt, a long sleeve
shirt, a fleece, a down jacket, a windbreaker, gloves and wool hats - we
were freezing! The sun finally peaked out over the ring of peaks around
us. Eliot was leading our little team up a ridge when suddenly his
vision disappeared into a kaleidoscope of stars, his stomach clenched
into a knot that would do a sailor proud and nausea tsunamied through
his system. He stumbled and then collapsed into the snow. We hadn't
escaped altitude sickness after all...
The best way to
describe the experience of altitude sickness is that it's almost like
the feeling you get at the end of an extremely fast sprint when your
entire simply rebels and you want to puke and collapse in a twitching
mess. Imagine that plus the fact that the feeling does
not stop. It just goes on and on and on until you go to lower altitude, or die.
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| Success! |
In our case we turned around and stumbled back down
about one hundred meters of vertical height. After about thirty minutes
of recovery we attempted the climb again. The second time turned out to
be the charm and we reached the peak of Thorong La about an hour later.
The top was absolutely spectacular with tremendous views of the
Himalayas on all sides and a snow pack so deep that it had buried the
sign at the top.
After a break at the top to take
pictures and relax, we grabbed our gear and crossed the pass, ready for
the long way down and our next adventure into the hidden Kingdom of
Lo...
Co-posted on
www.eliotpeper.com
Some additional pictures from the trek:
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| River valley leading to Annapurna |
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| Prayer flags decorate every village |
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| Chah! |
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| Crazy erosion on the cliffs |
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| Glacier melt at Tilicho Lake in Manang |
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| The doctor is in! |
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| Epic |
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| Our awesome porter Monaz carried both of our backpacks and barely slowed down |
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| Thorong La pass |
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| We made it! |
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| Prayer Flags at the pass |
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| Altitude sickness survivor |
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| Happy to be back in nature |
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