Day 32: Letdar to Thorong High Camp

Trip Start Sep 21, 2006
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Trip End Jun 01, 2007


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Monday, October 23, 2006

The trail is popular and the limited number of guesthouses are filling their rooms fast, so much so that the fear of altitude sickness is overshadowed by the worry of climbing 400m to find no beds available. Some shrewd groups are sending guides ahead to grab spaces. To ensure we have a place too, Nar and I set off at 6am (having to wake the lodge to pay our bill first) to get to Thorong High Camp early.
It's exhausting, my feet shuffling in a slow slog up the slopes, with the added danger of ice. (Ice also rattles in my water bottle.) Evidence of annual landslides crunches under our tread. There's little vegetation on these mountains of slate and snow.
We finally reach High Camp (4850m) after three hours' struggle (mine). My exhaustion quickly subsides, however, and I still have no altitude sickness symptoms. The worst of the climb to the highest pass is over. Best of all, we have beds.
The downside of our early arrival is a full day of hanging about, listening to unintelligible banter, trying to keep warm and avoid boredom. So little of these high-altitude days is spent actually trekking. Yet, despite a heavy snow, we step out to add even more altitude to my weary limbs. It's treacherously slippery and with an ascent and steep descent starting at 5am tomorrow, I envisage a trail of dangerous ice ahead.
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