Annapurna Circuit Days 8-11

I wake up to a loud Thud as Joe bangs against the wall that our rooms share. “Get your ass up” I hear him yell. We leave Manang after some much needed R&R and also some time to acclimatize. The village is much bigger so it takes us sometime to get out of the residential area. We decide  to fill up on two bottles of water eat at this water station since there will shortages of them from here on out.

One of the last buildings we pass is a Gurkha training camp. Gurkhas refer to villagers from the high altitude village of Gorkha. This group also refers to a special unit of high attitude living Nepalese who have been heavily recruited into Indian and British military. If you haven’t heard of the Gurkhas, I’ll attempt to summarize who they are.

The Gurkhas are the most badass troops ever. They are notorious in both Indian and British militaries as being the Martial Race, meaning they’re naturally aggressive and warlike. Gurkhas  can kill anyone they want! How badass is that? They are said to posse characteristics of qualities of courage, self sufficiency, physical strength, resilience, the ability to work hard for long periods of time, fighting tenacity and military strategy. With a fighting motto of “It’s better to die than live a coward!” Gurkhas are so crazy that I want to crap my pants! Furthermore they still carry their traditional weapon of choice into battle, an 18in curved blade called Kukri. Gurkha tradition states that if the Kukri is drawn it has to taste blood, so if the owner doesn’t feed it with the blood of their enemies, they cut themselves as they sheath the blade. Gurkhas will flip out and chop people’s heads off ALL the time and not even think twice about it! A friend of mine told me that the Gurkhas who participated in the invasion of Iraq wanted to attack with their knives only! Now that’s what I call REAL ULTIMATE POWER!  If you don’t believe that Gurkhas have REAL ULTIMATE POWER you better get a life right now or they will chop your head off! It’s an easy choice if you asked me. The Gurkhas training camp had a no cameras sign and needless to I obeyed it.

The daily hikes take on a much slower pace. I am short of breathe with each step. For example, at this altitude getting up a flight of stairs knocks the wind of me. That’s without any gear or my pack. As we trek up, breaks become more and more frequent. It’s during this point of the trek that the porter’s amazing athletic abilities be vividly apparent. These guys are still carrying 20-25kg bags on their heads at 3,000m plus. I guess growing up in the high altitudes really has its advantages.

The worst part about trekking in snow is the slipping and sliding especially when you’re going downhill. It is downright dangerous at some points, but luckily we have our packs to fall onto. There is also the fact that it reflects light is blinding. I break out my sunnies (Australian for sunglasses) and the rest of the crew purchase pairs of fake Oakleys from the nearest village, yes amazing that they sell them up there.

The first village we arrive to is Yakharka. The snow starts to fall as we arrive and the skies darken even though it is only 3pm. There are less and less guesthouses at this attitude. Things are getting more and more expensive. The prices for items follows the elevation curve that we are on. Luckily or maybe perhaps its traditionally, we are still getting rooms for free as long as we eat at our guesthouse. With the dimming skies, we quickly crash for a cat nap. These rooms are the simplest yet. The walls are stone and cement. There is a bed, a small chair with no back and one lightbulb hanging in the middle of the room. It’s the compact florescent type and glow dimly. Joe and Nate are next door and for the first few minutes we are exchanging jokes through the cracks in our wall. It is so cold in our room but somehow I am still able to sleep. Later that night we get up at 7pm to catch dinner and then some hot chocolate at the neighboring guesthouse since our guide book recommended it. Tasted pretty normal to me.

The next day the ground is a winter wonder land from the day before. Sunlight from our only window peaks in and strikes my eyes. I squint and rub my eyes until they adjust to the light. It’s beautiful outside and the light is just right. We are still in the shade of the valley but the neighboring mountain is shiny bright. Winds are blowing the flaky snow off the peaks and everything around me is white. I climb to the top of our building on the roof. It was probably not the smartest idea to climb on a tin roof with a layer of ice and snow on top but I didn’t notice it until after I got off.

This day of trekking was revitalizing. I had stopped taking as many pictures as I go use to the scenery and now everything was new and amazing again. The coldness of the air is so refreshing and I feel like I have this new found energy. That crushing of the newly fallen snow beneath my feet was a welcome sound as set off once again into the distance.

Thorung Ghedi is our next stop and we actually get there much ahead of schedule. In fact if memory serves me right we got there around noon. If not noon, it was not much after that. I settle down in the common dining area and relax. I take the opportunity to relax and play some board games. Soon group after group of trekkers start to come in. I think this is the only guesthouse of Thorung Ghedi and the kitchen actually does an amazing job of preparing delicious meals.

Again the kitchen is on the right of the path as we enter town and the lodging area is on the left. This place is super cold. It is also one of the only places we are able to get a 4 person room which I guess makes it slightly warmer. At the same time it makes it a lot smellier and louder as night as Joe and Nate both snore. At this altitude the signs of AMS really start to kick in. Nate and Christine both complain of headaches. Soon Joe joins the group. I don’t have a migraine sized headaches like the rest of them, but I do feel slightly lightheaded. One of the trekking groups loans us their blood oxygen detection tool and everyone seems to be in the clear, but we decide to take an extra day to acclimatize to be on the safe side. The next day is the crossing. Thorung Ghedi is at 4,500m, the Thorung La Pass sits at 5,400m and then we descend to Muktinath  at 3,800m. It’s a long day and it covers a lot of km both in elevation and distance, so we decide to rest one more night for it. I ended up not getting much sleep because of Joe and Nate’s snoring, but that was fine since we are taking an additional rest day.

For the second day we change rooms so Christine and I can actually escape the smell and snoring. Joe and I decide to trek up to the next village, Basecamp, and then come back down. This is that whole safety concept of hiking up to an higher altitude and then sleeping at the slower one. Joe and I have the same competitive pace. We make it up the uphill trek fairly quickly. Towards the top the melting snow begins to form a wide shallow water fall. Luckily the boots I picked up in Dublin are quite good. After passing Basecamp we head out to a scenic view area. It overlooks the Thorung Ghedi village below and has strung up prayer flags everywhere. The view was amazing and the skies clear. Below I could see the helicopter landing pad as a small “H” and then a few blue dots as the roofs of the village.

It was quite slippery getting up there since the snow was smelting and the tracks had frozen to ice. At the top we ran into one of the porters that have been with us the entire time. We chatted briefly and took a few snap shots before resting in the sun at camp. There we talked to most of the groups that were making the pass.

For some reason we decide to race on the way down. It kind of reminded me of the time when Casey and I got stuck on a mountain and the only down was this rock quarry [link].  The rocks slide out from under you as you’re walking down. We were essentially skiing downhill on rocks with hiking boots. Well same situation here but smaller rocks and a longer fall. Somehow we don’t  kill ourselves scrambling down the mountain. It took us 2hours to walk up, but we by-passed all the switchbacks and made it down in roughly 20minutes. Needless to say, it was a pretty stupid idea since our knees are now shot but it was still a fun time.

At the bottom we find Nate and Christine chillin’ in the lounge and join them for some instant coffee and lunch. We rest the remainder of the day and prepare for the following climb tomorrow.

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