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| Your correspondent, posing apparently as Gandalf, silhouetted against Annapurna South. |
October 18, 2009
Greetings to friends, relatives, and fellow travelers,
I arrived home from a trek in Nepal yesterday, and am still keeping strange jet-lagged hours. Anyway, many of you have come to expect (or, conceivably, dread) an email recap from me of any such trips -- so 6:30 a.m. sounds like as good a time as any to toss it together.
This was a ten-day trek to Annapurna Base Camp at about 13,500 feet. A considerably lower elevation and somewhat easier trekking than the Everest Base Camp trek that Denny and I did in 1995, but still challenging in many respects. I hiked with Pascal, the son of family friends with whom I've hiked numerous times in the past -- most recently to the Indian Himalayas in 2005. He is now a newly-minted econ graduate from UBC, and was again an excellent companion. Our REI group contained a total of nine members, five men and four women, with a wide range of ages and backgrounds. What they all had in common was enthusiasm, warm friendliness, and a great sense of humor -- I couldn't have been happier with my co-trekkers.
The trek started at the relatively low altitude of about 4,000 feet, leading us through farming villages and beside brilliant yellow-green rice fields that were terraced up hillside slopes. The scenery gradually became less agricultural and more tropical rain forest (monkeys!), finally breaking into open Alpine landscapes at about 10,000 feet.
Unlike backpacking routes here at home, our trail served as a highway between backcountry villages, as well as as a trekker's route. We encountered a small village approximately every hour. These villages became less residential and more directed toward providing services to trekkers as we hiked farther up the trail. Each village had several simple lodges, providing rooms, meals, and groceries to trekkers. (Our group stayed in tents, however, in keeping with REI's policy of providing maximum employment for local porters, cook staffs and guides.)
In general, the lodge accomodations are vastly improved from the dark, smoky "tea houses" Denny and I encountered in 1995. This trek can now be completed comfortably by anyone in reasonably good condition, without the need to carry tents and food -- in fact, I observed a number of European families accompanied by kids as young as 9 or 10.
The "Sanctuary" itself has to be seen to be appreciated fully. It is a small plateau, surrounded 360 degrees by snowy peaks and ridges, so close you feel you can reach out and touch them. Some of the peaks, especially Macchupuchare ("the Fishtail") -- an iconic sacred mountain barred to climbers, and believed to be the residence of the Hindu uber-god Shiva -- are observable from various angles throughout the trek -- and indeed even from our hotel window back in Pokhara. I never got tired of watching the various peaks under changing conditions of clouds and light, and especially when shining in gold at sunrise and sunset.
Our trek was scheduled for October, by which time the summer monsoons are supposedly over. Unfortunately, whether from global warming or just bad luck, the monsoons lingered into October this year. We found ourselves hiking in showers during early days of the trek, which became a torrential downpour about three days from the Sanctuary. We stayed an extra night at the village of Doban, where REI put us up in a lodge to escape being washed away in our tent. An American family group came stumbling down the trail, wet and exhausted. They had hiked down all the way from Base Camp, where they had been unable to see a thing, and had fallen in various swollen streams they had tried to ford on their way down.
We had just about decided to abandon our objective, return part way down the trail, and seek other scenic spots at lower elevations -- but I woke up in the middle of the night and saw the sky full of stars. The next morning was bright and sunny, with not a cloud in the sky. Shiva -- god of both creation and destruction -- must have looked with favor down upon our little party. We were all elated as we continued up the trail.
With the unseasonable rains came unseasonable leeches, occasionally crawling into our socks and causing more psychological than physical discomfort. (These were tiny (albeit bloodthirsty) leeches -- not the giant "in-your-underpants" variety familiar from the movie "Stand by Me.") We learned to live and let live, more or less, with the tiny vampires.
This "quick" summary has gone on too long, but it seems like there's so much more to tell! All in all, a very successful trip, and one of the most enjoyable treks I've been on. Now I'll spend a few days washing clothes and readjusting to Pacific Coast time! And enjoying my new status as a great uncle -- Denny's baby daughter having arrived while I was away!
I've posted an album of photos on Facebook, for those of you who like to see other people's vacation pictures! If you don't do Facebook, but are interested in seeing them, let me know and I'll send you a link.
Best wishes to you all.
--[Rainier96]
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