Next Stop: Unknown

Note: Please read the following blog entries in the correct order, starting from Day 1.  Since I’m posting them all at once, I wouldn’t make much sense to read “newest first”, you’d be going backwards.  So, scroll back to Day 1, and start there to get current.  Enjoy

Jenn and I woke up about 5:30 to pack and get to the airport for our 6:30 flight back to Pokhara.  I was a bit worried about our flight… as when I booked them, the lady just took my money and handed me a boarding pass with nothing on it.  I had written our names down on a piece of paper for her, but she didn’t even seem interested. 

We arrived at the airport (a 2 minute walk from our hotel), and waited to be let into the departures gate.  So far so good, our blank boarding passes got us through the front gates.  When they called for our airline, we walked around a corner to a desk, paid a 170 rupee airport tax each, had our bags weighed, and then searched for security.  We were then sent to a security check station where we were patted down, and sent to a waiting area.  Where we waited… and waited, and waited.   About 2 hours later a roaring prop plane touches down, speeds down the runway, and does a 180 in front of the waiting area… Yeti airlines…dang, not us.  The yeti ticket holders walk out to the runway and start boarding.  About 2 minutes later, another plane that looks identical touches down, and pulls the same maneuver.  Seti airlines, sweet, that’s us!  Funny thing though, the plane doesn’t even power down… both props running, baggage handlers push carts down, open up the bay areas, toss things in, and into the plane we go.  The plane holds about 20 people, and before the door is even closed, the plane is taxing down the runway.  I kid you not, people were not even in their seats (first come first served) before we are powered up and starting down the runway for takeoff.  There is no door to the cockpit, just an open area, two guys wearing their DC headsets, and off we go…. As we gain altitude, we pass through a valley with mountains on both sides… and over a cliff, clearing it by at most 100 feet, I was pretty shocked.  We were basically gaining barely enough altitude to keep from hitting things along the way… and there was no way we were getting up OVER the mountains on either side… we navigated through a channel in the valley, and then started dropping altitude like crazy.  Pokhara is at a much lower altitude than Jomson, so for most of the flight, we were actually descending… it was quite weird…

We landed at Pokhara, grabbed our bags, a taxi, and back to our hotel, all before 9am.  Sweet god, time to recover.

Our original goal was to go from Besishar to Jomsom, which is just over 140km.  Today would be our last day of trekking.  Jenn woke up feeling not much better, and we seriously considered taking a Jeep to Jomson.  The waiter told us it was only a 4 hour walk, so we decided we’d just trek it and save the money.  The trek started out beautiful, easy downhill, not too steep, along a river with more and more greenery.  We came back to an altitude where trees actually grew, and there were goats and cows grazing along the way.  This was looking to be the best day of trekking yet.  At one point we came to a spot where the river appeared to be running uphill!  We tried our best to figure out out… we were walking alongside the river, going up, and it just kept on going with us.  It had to be an optical illusion, but it sure was convincing.  As we neared the 4 hour mark, we realized the waiter flat out lied to us.  Jomson was way further away, but not worries, it was a nice hike… until we hit dessert.  Desert doesn’t do it justice… it was a valley with not a single living creature.  Every now and then we’d see a dead bush, dried up and shriveled.  But, it wasn’t sandy, it was rocky, and dusty, and hot.  OMG, hot.. the sun started beating down on us.  We had reached the Mustang Valley.  I checked the GPS and we had gone 14km, only 6km more to go… no problem, that should only be a couple hours.  But, as soon as we entered into the dried up riverbed, the wind hit us.  Hard.  I would guess the wind was blowing at a solid 35mph, with gusts almost twice that… and it was right in our faces.  Sometimes it would gust so hard I’d lose my step and almost fall over.  This valley is ripe for about 60,000 wind turbines, and we could power the entire world.  And 60,000 wind turbines would fit here, with room to spare.  This valley was miles and miles across, with huge 3000 meter sheer walls on both sides… it was a virtual wind funnel tunnel, and we were heading into it for 6km more of pain.  Both Jenn and I were entirely numb, sun burned, and our senses no longer worked.  I couldn’t hear anything because the wind was so loud, couldn’t see anything for the dust was scraping my eyeballs, and forget tasting or smelling anything.  We couldn’t breathe through our noses as they were stopped up from all the dirt and dust in the air… so we were sucking down a mixture of oxygen/sand directly into our lungs.  And we weren’t alone, a small line of trekkers were all dotted along the path hunched forward pushing against the wind, hoping that a miracle would come save them.  It never came…

Eventually we made it to the city of Jomsom, where we couldn’t find a hotel, or anyone friendly to ask.  After about an hour of walking, we finally stumbled upon the street we needed to be… checked in with the AC checkpoint,and found a place to eat.  I ordered a garlic steak, and Jenn some kind of chicken dish.  Finally, MEAT!  The only protein we’d had for the last 4 days was egg. About 20 minutes later, the waiter informed us they had no meat.  WTF?!?!?!  I saw a cow and several yaks coming into the city.  Go fetch me a tenderloin.  No luck… I ordered Veg noodle soup, and Jenn had a pizza with canned ham.  Hers was good, mine was enough to stop the hunger pain, but it was basically flavorless ramen.  At least we had some fresh apple juice that took away the sting from our throats. 

We were pretty exhausted… and decided we’d take a flight from Jomson back to Pokhara, rather than continue on or take a jeep/taxi/bus for 12 hours.  I stalked the nearest flight counter and booked us on the next available bird out, 6:30am the next morning.  Sweet, we were one nights sleep away from civilization!

We needed to pay our porter, Bir.  We had hired him for a 10 day minimum at 900 rupees per day… yet only used him for 7.  But, we were obliged to pay him, and frankly, it was worth it.  So, 9000 rupees is what we owed him, and I’d already given him 1500 rupees during the trip for supplies and food.  But, we were so happy to have him, that we gave him about 11500 rupees total.  That’s about $140 US, or $20 a day.  That’s a huge sum of money for a Nepali, but he worked his ass off, and I felt good giving it to him.  He had a daughter and son back home, and he never embellished one little bit.  We even gave him candy bars along the way and he wouldn’t eat them because he wanted to take them home as treats for his kids.   Having Bir made our trip possible… and he didn’t speak one lick of English.  So, communicating was always hand gestures and smiles.  None-the-less, we said our goodbyes and checked into a hotel nearby, hoping our flight for the next day would come quickly.

Wow, green again!

And into the dessert we trod.

Today is the big day… To cross the Thorung Pass is the “high” point of the journey.  We awoke around 4:45, packed up and had breakfast.  We wanted to cross over before the winds picked up around noon.  Heading up to high camp just at dawn was beautiful.  The sun peaked over the east mountains, lighting up the west ones in an array of gold… as much as white snow can appear gold anyway.  I was really glad we had done this part of the hike yesterday as a test… as it felt much easier the second time around.  We did it in 50 minutes (where it took more than 90 before).  However, our triumphs were short lived, as we stopped to use the bathroom at high camp only to find frozen pee-sickles everywhere… it was freezing ass cold.  Also, our porter didn’t have gloves. Since he was carrying the bulk of our gear, I loaned him mine, and kept my hands in my pockets.  It didn’t really help, as they turned numb in about 20 minutes anyway.  We continued to hike toward the pass, one false summit after another.  It was beautiful in a barren snowy kind of way.  No plants anywhere, just rocks, ice, and trekkers, casting long early morning shadows as we forced one foot in front of the other.  Finally, we rounded a corner and caught a glimpse of flags… the top was in sight!  The last stretch was a breeze, and we had a mini party with all the other trekkers at the summit.  Everyone handed out food, chocolate, candy, nuts, whisky, all the stuff people had saved to celebrate with once they made it to the top.  We saw several of our trekking friends, and then the wind started to pick up, so we decided to head down the mountain to the next village. 

Holy $hit… Getting to the summit was the easy part… Turns out, the downhill portion on the opposite side was way worse.  By the time we reached a tea house about half way down today’s portion of the mountain, I thought I was going to die.  My knees were killing me… It was such a steep descent that every step sent painful jolts up my entire body, from the ends of my toes, up.  At one point, I considered turning around and going back up the mountain… but no way in hell I was going to do this twice!   Jenn wasn’t doing any better, and we were both wishing we had wrapped our knees for support.  Our porter who had always ticked along like a clock, was even sweating it a bit.  After lunch, we continued on to the town of Muktinah, where we planned to meet up with our friends at a place called “hotel Bob Marley”.  On the outside, it was a dump, but the inside was pretty nice. 

Jenn was exhausted,and crawled right into the bed and passed out with her clothes on.  I managed to unpack and find a shower. Ahhh… it was hot, and wonderful, and I never wanted to get out.  We hadn’t had any hot water since Day 5, and it was 3 or 4 days since my last (cold) shower.  It was pure bliss… I washed my hair twice, scrubbed myself clean and then put on my last pair of clean underwear.  (I had saved a pair, and a clean shirt for this occasion).  I then headed up to the restaurant and shared a beer with Aubrey before going down to wake up Jenn.  She was pretty ill.  Her dry cough had turned into a wet one, and she still had a bit of fever.  She was suffering from HAPE… High Altitude Pulmonary something… the cure for which is to descend to lower altitude.  We had already dropped 1800 vertical meters today, so hopefully the next day she would continue to get better.  She managed to get up and shower and then come up for some food and cards with Katie, Tim,and Megan.  We played some rummy until we were ready to pass out… which was only 7pm. 

Nothing like a little dawn in the mountains.

And then sunrise comes!

Freezing, but happy we are almost there.

Hooray, 5414 meters, nearly 18,000 feet!

The sign at the top, covered in prayer flags…. now you don’t have to go up to see it

Jenn was playing photographer, as my hands were too numb to operate the camera.

This was a surprisingly easy day as it brought us to the “foot of the hill” (Phedi).  Four hours past landslides (a not so lucky horse was taken out the day before), a very enterprising tea lady “no water for many miles, stop for tea!”.  We stopped for a big, had a small pot of Lemon Tea.  Along came some older folks we had passed previously, they must be taking it really slow.  Turns out they were from Spain, and Lucas chatted with them in Spanish for a bit.  They were impressed we were “on holiday” for a year!  Turns out there was a stream right around the next corner, sneaky tea lady!  But after the water was a very disconcerting downhill sting, only because it meant we then had to go up MUCH, MUCH higher.  When we reached our destination Bir (our porter) was disappointed.  He wanted to go to high camp  one grueling village farther up a series of serious screes (new word for us).  Instead, we stayed put, and did the uphill as an acclimation test in the afternoon.  Oddly enough, the owner of the lodge where we stayed had sent his son to high school in Bellevue! 

Could you ever get tired of these views?

Trekking it with our new Seattle friend, Katie.

Jenn’s a sucker for the furry ones!

mmmm, Tea, something to warm up the insides of my empty belly.

Jenn with Bir, our wonderful, non-English speaking porter.

Getting up there pretty high… and much much colder…. and steeper.

This is one of my fav’s… wraparound-vision through the sunglasses.

Our friends Amy and Aubrey, at the top of “high camp”… we hiked up an extra 450m of vertical to “acclimate” for the trip the next day.

April 24th

Jenn woke up feeling better, so we decided to head to the next stop up the mountain.  The distance was only 9km, but the altitude is now the issue.  We will be breaking 4000 meters today.  (over 12,500 feet)  The AMS problem will still get worse, and we are advised not to climb more than 600 meters per day.  We had freshly baked apple fritters for breakfast and were off by 8am.  The hike wasn’t too bad, only 3.5 hours with two stops.  We met up with another Seattle person, Katie, who trekked along with us.  Turns out she grew up in Missouri (Farmington), how random!  We made it to Yak by 11:30am, ordered lunch, and then spotted Suraj and Chubbi coming along from their side trek to Lake Tillicho.  (Those guys hauled ass… made a 3 day trip in 2 days, with no altitude rest day).  We visited with them before they took off for the higher village. 

We also met Amy and Aubrey from Canada (working in the UK).  We spent the night in a little stand alone cottage that was freezing cold, as the wind ripped through the gaps in the wood.  This was the first time I had actually gotten cold at night. 

Prayer flags on top of some kind of religious “thing”, with the mountains and valleys…

On the trail, at this point we might be half way through!

A small “tea stop” along the way.  You can barely see the peak of a mountain in the background.