Impressions of hiking in Nepal again

Hopefully Sarah will get around to updating her blog from the daily notes she took as we bopped around the Himalaya, so I just thought I'd give general impressions of the 23 days we just spent in the mountains.

As I already mentioned, the main difference on the Circuit trek is the new road, which is a big pity from a hikers point of view. I certainly wouldn't hike the whole route again (why would you hike along a busy road?), although currently the route from Khula and up over the pass is still worth it for the Upper Pisang road and the physical challenge of the 5410m pass itself - but then I hear the plan is to continue building that road right over the pass itself, so in the future it will be bus loads of fat American tourists having hot lemon tea in the tiny hut at the pass.

Another big change was the constant price fixing amongst the various guesthouses in all the villages along the treks. As was the case 10 years ago, the price of everything increases the further you move away from the access roads, but as I remember those increases were gradual and started at reasonable local prices. Nowadays though, the increases are rapid and start at inflated tourist prices. The prices have apparently being agreed by village committees, and all the lodges in a village have identical menus and room prices. This all came as a bit of a shock and a disappointment, and as another trekker pointed out, it made you feel a bit 'managed' all along the trek (like we were part of an organised tour group or something).

But it's kinda low-season at the moment, or towards the end of the season anyway, so in fact many of the lodges were prepared to offer big discounts, or even free rooms, so long as we ate in their restaurants (the first time we got a room discount the landlady didn't explain we needed to eat there too, and she got quite angry with Sarah when we came back from another restaurant - Sarah got a wee bit upset about it, but I just told her to ignore it - the whole system seems cheeky to me anyway, as clearly not all the lodges are the same although they all charge the same prices).

Anyway, over the 3 weeks we managed to haggle down the prices nearly everywhere, which resulted in about a 20% reduction on costs in general. Although the price-fixing is annoying, the prices were still cheap-as-chips in relative terms, and so I reckon the month we spent in Nepal is probably the cheapest month of the whole trip so far (but then so it should be I suppose, as we were trekking without porters or guides, and walking is free!).

In terms of the weather, the first 2 days or so were quite cloudy, but we found that the cloud built up gradually during the morning, so we just started getting up really early in the morning when the skies were at their clearest. Also, as we gained altitude the skies seemed to get clearer and clearer (this time of year is famous for hazy, dusty skies), and from day 3 onwards the weather was just perfect.

The day we arrived at Pisang we had skies as blue as the bluest skies in Bolivia, which really surprised and delighted me. It meant perfect skies for proposing to Sarah the next day, and the weather stayed clear right up until we reached the Thorang La pass.

I remember the day of climbing the pass 10 years ago as being a really tough day. But that time, myself and Hanno were a bit clueless and got out of bed to leave the camp at about 10:00am. Many people, especially those with hired guides, start to tackle the climb over the pass from 3am! This is crazy of course, but last time I felt I had to race over the pass to make sure I got accommodation on the far side (that time was high-season), and so I spent the whole day passing out other people. I did manage to find accommodation, although not in the first town of Muktinath, which was full.

Anyway, this time I knew the score, so myself and Sarah headed off leisurely at about 8:30am, and we were still the last people to leave the camp (we overheard lots of other people worrying about the conditions and the altitude and just general paranoia, which is why they all started off so early). The weather approaching the pass was very cloudy and it had been snowing the night before, but that just made for gorgeous snowy surroundings, which was nice, and the trail was still fine without any ice or dangerous sections.

When I reached the pass (about 20 minutes before Sarah, as I was getting cold waiting for her to catch up at various points as we climbed up), the weather was clearing nicely and after a nice (and expensive!), cup of hot lemon tea we headed down the far side of the pass in beautiful sunshine.

The weather stayed fine and clear all the way down to Ghorapani, where the really hazy conditions re-appeared. This was a pity as the valleys here are high and narrow, and although we could see the far valley walls, they were really just outlines. It also meant the view from the famous Poon Hill was completely washed out, without a single distant mountain visible through the haze.

From here we had a very long, hard day's hike to Chamrong to join up with the Annapurna Sanctuary hike. Once we started gaining altitude again the weather cleared day by day, and as we approached the Sanctuary it was perfectly clear blue skies again. With such great weather I decided to stop at the Machapuchare Base Camp, since it had fantastic views of the impressive pyramidal peak of Machapuchare mountain, and anyway the sanctuary up-ahead had started to cloud over.

It was a great decision, as early the next morning the skies were perfectly clear again, and the final 1-hour hike up to the end of the trek at Annapurna Base Camp was in clear blue skies. We sorted out a room for that night and then spent the morning exploring around the incredible location, just gawping at the glaciers, lakes and surrounding mountains. The whole area is basically a huge mountainous bowl, with the camp positioned right in the very middle of the bowl.

In the late morning, and still with clear skies I decided to climb up a huge glacial moraine right beside the camp. Our guidebook had made a passing reference to better views from the top, and our lodge owner also recommended it, so off I went. There is no clear trail up the moraine though, and so you have to scramble up through some hairy sections and along a very narrow ridge (which was why Sarah didn't come with me), but the views from the top of that moraine were simply stunning. I really thought I'd found the most beautiful place in the world 10 years ago, but honestly the views from here were even better (well, at least I'll have somewhere new to propose to my next wife I suppose!).

I just sat on a narrow ridge near the top of the moraine for over an hour just soaking up the panorama. The views here are better simply because you're viewing from high up on one of the sides of the 'bowl', as opposed to looking up from the base. The snow capped mountains and glaciers literally encompass you in a full 360-degree vista that really is spell-binding. I would have stayed there longer, but the clouds began coming in and I was a tad worried about the steep descent if the visibility suddenly deteriorated. But in fact I was down in about 15 minutes with no problems at all - it just seemed mad steep on the way up.

Earlier that morning we'd heard that a Ukrainian trekker had been badly injured (he'd broken his leg), and that they were trying to organise a helicopter to evacuate him. Apparently he was part of a delegation from the organisation behind the European Soccer Championships due to be held in Ukraine in 2012, and the group had left the camp early that morning to climb up to a glacier to play a game of soccer for the cameras. Apparently this guy had taken a tumble and broken his leg. Anyway, while I was sitting on the moraine I had a clear view of the group of Ukrainians and Nepalese porters carrying this guy back on an improvised stretcher towards the camp from the glacier.

When I got back to the camp I sat watching the group tending to the injured guy (there's nothing much to do at the camp), but after a while I got the distinct impression that the guy had died. It turned out he had also badly injured his head in the fall, and he had actually died about 30 minutes previously. The helicopter arrived about an hour later and his mates bundled him into it quickly and off it flew. It all sounded like a rather silly accident - playing soccer on a glacier at over 4000m - but it was still very sad to see the poor guy being bundled away.

Strangely, that was the 3rd dead body we've seen on this trip - we saw an armed robber who'd been very recently shot dead in Panama City, and a tourist being given CPR in Durban.

After all that the camp was a bit subdued, although of course, newly arriving trekkers were oblivious to the recent tragedy and would shout and congratulate each other on arriving at the camp.

Early the next morning I had planned on climbing the moraine again to catch the sunrise, but when I got up at 5:15am it had just started snowing heavily. Obviously there was no visibility in the snow, so I just went back to bed. When Sarah got up it was snowing even more heavily. People were getting worried that they might be stranded in the camp for days (it can happen apparently, although very rarely in May), but at first I just reckoned we could easily spend another day just sitting out the bad weather. But after another hour or so, and with no let up in the snow, a group of porters and guides decided to make a run for it, and this got me kinda worried - if the locals were making a dash for lower ground, then maybe we should too.

So we both packed up in about 2 minutes, paid our dues and left. It turned out the snow wasn't as heavy as it looked, and visibility was actually quite good. I had been afraid of losing sight of the trail through the snow and becoming lost, but in fact enough people had left before us to mark out the trail quite clearly. In fact we left at a good time, as the snow still gave good purchase and hadn't been compacted into ice yet by other trekkers.

So after about an hour, when we got back to Machapuchare Base Camp, we could see down the valley that the weather was clearing nicely. So we relaxed there and had our usual porridge breakfast, after which the trail down was clear and easy.

On the way back down I was looking forward to a fairly scary river crossing that we'd made on the way up. The river was strong and the stepping stones across it looked quite precarious, but Sarah bravely led the way and just strolled straight across (if any of the rocks she'd stood on had been slippery or loose she would have been in real trouble). Anyways, on the way back I was just a little disappointed to see that officials had created a sturdy bridge across the river from lashed together tree trunks.

As we descended the valley back towards Pokara the snow and rains had cleared the hazy air quite a bit, and so we were rewarded with great views of the lush terraced valley walls. The last few days we hiked through fabulous forest too, some of it the famous rhododendron forests, although unfortunately they weren't blooming when we passed.

Last time hiking in Nepal I can't remember seeing any wildlife of note, but this time it seemed to be a veritable menagerie! I saw a mad playful and inquisitive pair of civets (at least I think they were civets, big as otters with black head and shoulders and hind quarters and fawn brown middle), quite a few gorgeous woodpeckers, a 2-foot snake that I nearly stepped no (it seems I always nearly step on snakes), and later a big 6 footer right across the path in front of me on the way to the World Peace Pagoda in Pokara, but it had recently died (I don't know how, but it looked perfectly fresh).

One day we hiked through dense forest with loads of small leeches - you know they're leeches as opposed to wee worms since when you simply touch them they go into a mad frenzy of twisting and turning for about 2 seconds, desperately trying to latch on to the animal that just touched them. When we got into the second hot spots of the hike (both called Tatopani, which literally mans 'hot water'), Sarah noticed one on her ankle. The pool attendant guy quickly picked it off and squished it with a rock before it had managed to start 'feeding'. All I got leech-wise was one lost critter on my sock, soon dispatched back to the forest, and not even killed.

Another major difference between this time and 10 years ago was the number of other trekkers. Last time was during high season, and so I was constantly passing out, or being passed by, other western trekkers. It gets pretty annoying saying 'Hi!', 10 times a day to the same people every day as you leapfrog each other (you overtake someone, but then take a short break during which they pass you out, and an hour later you pass them again while they have a short break, etc., etc.). But at this time of year there are far fewer tourists (due to the season of course, but also maybe due to the recession and maybe lingering paranoia about the Maoists), and so we had many days where I really felt we had the entire trail all to ourselves - some days we literally only saw 1 other trekker in 6 or 7 hours of walking.

All-in-all the hike took us 23 days, and that was with 2 full rest days and a couple of half-days. I had originally thought it might take us a leisurely 30 days or so. It turned out we both felt really good all along the hike, and so we really powered along. In fact I felt probably better than I ever have in my life. The whole trek just seemed so easy, much more so than I remember it being 10 years ago - I must be getting stronger in my old age as opposed to weaker.

When we reached the road again I decided to try and walk back all the way back to Pokara (as our guidebook said it was only a 15 minute drive), but it turned out Pokara was 17km away. So after a local bus, and then a taxi we were back in the cozy Karma Guesthouse again, and it was only early afternoon. We dropped off our rather stinky laundry, had lovely hot showers and went out to celebrate an amazing 3 weeks of hiking. Oh, and an engagement.