Tilicho Lake (Annapurna cont.)

Manang had wonderful home comforts but was also a bit of a circus as regards volumes of tourists. We had a sobering lecture on altitude sickness from the volunteers at the Himalayan Rescue Centre which provides consultations to foreigners at a $40 charge and thus enables them to provide health care to locals at an affordable 50 rupees (roughly, can't remember exactly). Volunteers work for three months and this season were from the US (Mass General ED physician), the UK and Canada. 2% of people who attempt the 5400m Thorung La suffer from significant altitude sickness. In the weeks before we arrived one lone hiker started to show symptoms and was put on a horse by his porter so he could continue to ascend. He died. Another lone hiker started to show symptoms, she was carried by her porter on a 24 hour trip down to the medical centre and survived. The moral of the story? - don't hike alone or choose your porter/guide well.


After the luxury of Manang we set out for another hike to Tilicho Lake (at around 5000m above sea level it claims to be the highest/biggest/coldest/most impressive lake in the world ever).
On the first day we braved the “Landslide” area.

The sign helpfully warned “landslide area” and once you passed through it a sign said “Thank you” which I assume means thank you for not dying (and triggering an international controversy) or triggering a landslide killing numerous other trekkers.

Karl makes it through in one piece.

Then we got to Tilicho base camp which made me feel like I was on another expedition. There was a cosy lodge here (with en suite bathrooms!!!), a stove in the dining room and good daal bhaat.

Here's a very clever device we've seen around a lot - using solar power to boil water for cooking.

Next day we went to the lake, through the snow, up to 5000m altitude.

 Sooooo beautiful. Also cold. With a little teahouse who kindly let us sleep in the dining room (otherwise it was frosty tent again). We got to spend the whole afternoon enjoying the lake views as day visitors arrived, left and expressed gratitude (not explicitly but I could tell) that they were not spending the night.

Steamy tea and steamy breath in the teahouse.

View out the door.

Constantly changing light on the lake.

 

The tea again required a little addition of something special to warm you up.

Karl explores.

Spot the teahouse.

It's not always elegant but I get there.

We retreated indoors, we ate daal bhaat and listened to Holly Throsby, some people (ahem) snaffled a cigarette from our French friend, we snuggled into our sleeping bags. I was woken at some point by snow blowing in my face as the door blew open but, remarkably, was still warm and cosy and went back to sleep.


Next morning we started less early than planned (guides told us we needed to leave at 4am. As no-one was awake or cooking our breakfast when the alarm went off we stayed in bed. At some point the guides woke up). We set off into the snow just as the sun was coming up

– am I an explorer or what? - and thanked God we were not tackling the Eastern Pass in the dark as originally planned. It was bloody hard. Confirmed as bloody hard by our young and energetic French travelling companion.

Mountaineer Kara.

Then we were high up on a long easy pass in the snow among the mountains and it was beautiful, amazing, fantastic and wonderful.

 

View down to the lake from the pass.

Yay, we made it, our third pass over 5000m!

What comes up must go down...

 

And then a long, 2500m descent to the village of Jomsom.

This is where we discovered why you should trek with your porters. We found the porters of an Italian group who had actually managed to leave at 4am. After getting over the pass the porters were gleefully experimenting with ways to get their loads down the snow slope - sledding, dragging, sliding, rolling, somersaulting - all accompanied by whopping, cheering and laughing.

 

Streams were still frozen.

 

When the cloud rolls in you're very grateful to have a guide to follow.

Then it started to get dark. Then we realised that our late start (which avoided evil pass in the dark) meant a late and dark finish. Then it got darker and our headlamps only lit a little circle around us. Then our porter (guides having fallen behind when we decided to sprint for the finish) got ahead of us but thankfully we met up again when we all took a wrong turn. Then we dashed after our porter's fast pace, I tried to keep my headlamp pointing at his feet (he had no torch) but he seemed to like to escape. I pointed my light at the precipice out to our left at regular intervals (whenever the porter veered in that direction) and then he veered back. Otherwise we followed in his footsteps and he somehow found the village without plummeting to his (or our) death in the complete darkness. And that's how we almost died, number three.

And then we arrived in Jomsom where I declared, “Take us to the best hotel in Jomsom”. It was that kind of night. And so we had some good, old-fashioned cosiness, good food and beer. That night all seemed well. Good food, good bed, breakfast. Then we realised the trick with Jomsom. They pretend you can fly out. But you can't. I have a tourism slogan for them - “Jomsom- impossible to leave”. They have a very realistic-looking airport but planes never arrive or leave.

 

Overlooking the runway and waiting...

 

 

Every morning people are listed as passengers on “flights”, they wait around, the flights don't arrive (allegedly due to bad weather in Pokhara), the flights are cancelled. Then the fun begins. You can rebook for the next day (which you do, optimistically, the first day) or pay the local jeep owners exorbitant rates to GET OUT OF HERE (which you do on day two).

Desperate trekkers stalking the jeep office.

 

So we left in the back of a jeep for a bumpy, 8 hour ride back to Pokhara. And it felt good to be leaving and we found ourselves amongst interesting travelling companions and all was good.

 

How many men does it take to figure out what to do with a broken down truck?

Four people for eight hours in this space.

And so I climbed to 5300m and slept at 5000m and still kept my appetite and ate daal bhaat and felt good and I think I have made friends with Altitude at last!!!!!!!!