Annapurna: Altitude sickness

Dec. 31, 2008

One of the lesser known symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness.

Happy New Years from Nepal!

Annapurna: Thorung La

Dec. 27, 2008

For those who take on the Annapurna Circuit Trek, what looms largest in the back of nearly everyone's minds is the Thorung La pass. At 5,400 meters, it is the highest altitude pass in the world. After spending days acclimatizing above 4,000 meters, the actual day requires a one kilometer push upwards to get to the pass before a long, steep decent of 1,800 meters and hours of walking to Muktinath. The dangers of Acute Mountain Sickness is a frequent topic of conversation.

Some of the symptoms of the illness include loss of appetite, sleeplessness, confusion and lethargy, problems that each of us in our group had exhibited to varying degrees of severity at one time or another above 4,000 meters. But we were ready to get over this little hill and move on to lower and warmer places.

Following the hard journey to Tilicho Lake, we were all ready to get out of that dark valley and back on the main trail to head to Thorung La. The inn keepers of the Tilicho Base Camp lodge closed up shop after we departed and also headed out of the valley for the off season. We had been at altitudes above 4,000 meters for several days, but we weren't sure we were ready to ascend above 5,000.

On Day 10, Alina, Yannick and I stayed at the one remaining open lodge in Yak Kharka for a night. It was still too cold to take showers, but Alina and I ordered a bucket of steamy water to just wash our hands and faces. It had been too freezing in Tilicho to even do that. Never have I so appreciated such a simple amenity as a bucket of hot water and soap. Dirt and grime dripped off our fingers into the basin.

The next day we had a short, mostly flat walk to the base camp of Thorung La (4,400 meters). It should've been an easy hike, but I was having a diffcult time catching my breath as we moved along the dusty trail. At the camp, a group of Nepalese herders were removing the saddles and heavy packs off the backs of mules. The animals each shook their backs off and then all laid down for a big roll in the dust. We asked where the herders had come from. They said Muktinath, the first town you reach after the pass. They had to ascend 1,800 meters in one day to cross the path. We would only have to do 1,000. It gave us some hope.

I awoke at 6 on the morning of Dec. 11 having slept only an hour or two, unable to rest longer because of the altitude. I had been worried the night before because the "easy walk" to the base camp left me winded and weary. However, on the 12th, I was up with the sun and ready for the hike.

I had a black cup of coffee, some hot porridge and started out in high spirits, full of energy. The way I felt that morning, psyched, pumped, ready to roll, was the same sort of feeling I used to get before big soccer games. During the 1,000 meter climb, I distracted myself from the perpetual upward climb with thoughts of soccer. I kept replaying in my mind glorious moments from my nearly 20 years of playing.

Then I started a little shit-talking session with the mountain, saying things like "Ok mountain, if you can even call yourself that. You may be tall, but have you ever scored a hat trick?"

The strategy worked. I was at the top before I even knew it. Though a little loopy from the altitude, I was feeling great. The days dealing with sickness and some sadness felt like they were behind me. It was all down-hill (in a good way) from here.

The whole group of six of us, Marie, Yannick, Alina, Christof, Tony and myself, all hugged each other at the summit and spent about an hour in the cold sunshine amidst the prayer flags before descending to Muktinath.

Annapurna: The climb to Tilicho

Dec. 23, 2008

Tilicho Base Camp at an altitude above 4,000 meters is a small lodge that hovers in the shadows of Tilicho Peak (7,134 m) and the Muktinath Himal chain. The place has very few amenities, an outdoor toilet that is nothing more than a hole in the ground, tiny, simple rooms with four walls and two hard beds, and no showers, though it's far too cold to consider undressing there. The landscape is stark and beautiful but desolate. It is one of the most remote places I have ever been.

I awoke from my second long night of sleep feeling much better than I had the previous few days. I felt hungry again, though I was tentative about what to eat. In these high altitude lodges, as the trekkers were thinning out and the locals leaving to head to warmer climes, the quality of the food was becoming more and more questionable. Some of it tasted like real last rations, bottom-of-the-barrel type fare. The poorer quality food most likely is what made me sick, though my international comrades around me seemed to be doing fine eating the stuff.

I have a feeling my stomach ailments are correlated with our almost antiseptic, FDA-approved lifestyles back in the the U.S. of A. I remember one evening in New York City, a group of my friends all went out together for some Indian food. Everyone came back that evening with the runs except for this one little Filipino girl.

"Ha," she cackled. "You Americans can't stomach anything. Gain some damn microbes."

At Tilicho Base Camp, Alina, my Russian friend, was slurping down chicken soup which I wouldn't touch. There are virtually no refrigerators in these villages around the Annapurnas and there certainly wasn't anything of the sort at the base camp. The trek to get in supplies there takes several days. Because I didn't see any chickens running around outside the lodge, I wasn't going near the chicken soup.

I did eat eggs though. Two, fried with a little buckwheat toast. It was nice to eat food again.

Shortly after breakfast, Alina and I set off up the path to head to Tilicho Lake, a 3-4 hour walk. The way up is a long hard slog along a steep ridge and then up these switchbacks that rise high up the mountain out of sight. As soon as I started up, I started second guessing just how good I was feeling that morning. (See photo of me looking less than thrilled to be hiking at altitudes three miles above sea level).

Walking slowly along the pathway, I felt like a ghost. At one point I looked at the hundreds of meters of trails above me and thought about turning around and climbing back into bed. It was cloudy that day and quite cold and windy. I was hot from the effort, but also chilled to the bone by my own sweat.

But soon I started playing a little game with myself. "Ok, Maggie," I'd say. "Walk 20 meters to that boulder than catch your breath. Walk to that hairpin turn, then catch your breath. Walk 10 steps, then catch your breath."

I didn't look up the whole time and I didn't think about anything except the next target.

Along the way, I ran in to the Colombians who had set off early that morning with their guide to go to the lake. They were surprised, after seeing me in such a pathetic state the night before, that I was leading the way up the trail with Alina more than a hundred meters behind me and the others even further. The Columbians reassured me it was only about an hour more to the lake, that the hard part was over.

After getting through the switchbacks, the trail evened out substantially and headed over snowy flat lands covered in jagged ice spears. I picked my way through the ice and over a ridge and finally after several false ridges came to the lake.

Tilicho Lake, at 4,919 meters high (16,138 feet) is the highest altitude lake in the world. It was beautiful that day, a deep electric blue surrounded by white peaks under the cloudy sky. I stopped for a few photos, but once having seen it, I was ready to descend. It was cold and I was lightheaded and headachy from the altitude. I was also anxious to get out of the valley and push on toward Thorung La pass. It had been looming long in all our heads, this epic gateway at 5,400 meters to the other side of the circuit. Our hope was that our climbing at Tilicho would be helpful towards our acclimatization. We would know in a few days time.

Annapurna: A long, hard day

Dec. 21, 2008

After sleeping for 15 hours straight, I awoke on the morning of Day 8 feeling like hell. My stomach was still tumbling and I had completely lost my appetite. The smell of certain foods, of Tibetan bread which is much like fried dough, of chapati, of even black tea and sugar, made my stomach turn. I half-heartedly ate a few bites of plain porridge, but then pushed it aside.

I didn't even trust my drinking water which I was treating with iodine pills. I wasn't sure the damn iodine was working.

My only consolation was that we expected to have an easy day. We were headed for Tilicho Base Camp which we learned was in fact still open. We were also told it was only a few hours walk on mostly level ground.

Alina and I left the lodge before the others, but I was moving very slowly. My rucksack, which on some days I barely noticed, was weighing me down and I dragged my feet through the dust. I couldn't buckle the hip strap because my stomach couldn't take the pressure. I hunched forward pulling on my chest strap to take some of the weight off my shoulders.

In the village of Manang (3,530 m) I bought a bottle of Coca Cola and a Mars Bar. As the altitude increases so too do the prices of food, especially on goods like soft drinks and chocolate which have to be carted by mules from over Thorung La or from way down the trail back as far as Beshishar. Coke cost 200 rupees (about $2.50) in Manang and the price only went up in some of the more remote villages we would soon encounter. My moody stomach which only seemed to trust these processed goods was leading me to develop an expensive Coke habit.

Our group stopped for tea in the village of Khangsar where we took out our maps and considered our various options for getting to Tilicho Base Camp. The lodge owner, a nice Tibetan woman, said the walk was easy and flat. She told us to take the low road along the river. We would then soon come to a new lodge where we planned to stop for lunch before pushing on to the base camp.

Alina and I headed off first following a trail down low on the ridge along the river like our maps indicated. We were soon told by two shepherds that the path we sought was actually higher up on the hill. I cursed the ridge and my stupid stomach and plodded up to the trail. A short time later, Yannick caught up with us and the three of us reached a ledge where the path ended. After some back-tracking and scouting, we found the right trail that led to the new lodge. Our one hour trek had taken twice as long.

At the lodge, we met up with Tony, Marie and Christof who seemed to have found the place easily and had already finished their lunches by the time we arrived. I ordered a Coke and some plain macaroni which again I barely touched. The others seemed to be in high spirits. Tilicho Base Camp was supposed to be a short, flat walk one hour away.

There were two routes to get to the camp. One which would take four hours and crossed high along the ridge and then descended abruptly to the valley where the lodge was located. The other, though much shorter in distance and time, was also noted to be much more treacherous. We would have to cross through a steep landslide area.

The other trio took off ahead of us, while Alina, Yannick and I took our time with our lunch. When we asked the lodge owner how long it would take from there to the base camp, he said two and a half hours if we moved quickly along the short route. The information we had received from the Tibetan woman was dead wrong and it was already 3 p.m. If we didn't move fast, we would soon been walking in the dark.

The three of us hustled along the trail and soon learned that the Nepali definition of "flat" is slightly skewed from what we Westerners think the word means. The path was a series of steep inclines followed by abrupt, rocky descents. Every uphill was especially torturous for me. I kept repeating The Little Engine that Could's mantra: "I think I can, I think I can."

But it was hell. I was weak from my crappy stomach, and weak from not eating anything. My back was breaking and the sun was blinding and burning me. My fake Chanel aviators made me look really cool, but did nothing to keep the bright rays from piercing my retinas.

When we got to the landslide section, I couldn't believe that this was even considered a viable route. The pitch was so steep, and the path, if it could even be called that, kept changing as each person tread across it, knocking lose the stones. Right before I was about to start along the trail, a herd of blue sheep came galloping down from above, knocking football sized rocks down with them, right where only 20 seconds later I would've been walking.

When the sheep disappeared, I tread uneasily trying to keep my eyes focused on both my footing and the hillside above me. I didn't want to be swept down by a stray boulder. The drop to the riverbed was about 300 or 400 meters. It would be a long and probably deadly slide into the icy water.

But we all made it through the landslide area, just as dusk was setting it. Had we been 20 minutes later, we would've hit that area in darkness. Finally we got to base camp as the sun was setting.

I don't know if my body could have taken one more uphill climb. I nearly collapsed at base camp and again was nauseated by the smell of other people's food. There were two Colombians and an older British man all at the camp that night in addition to our party. They all cheered me on as I tried to eat a few mouthfuls of mashed potatoes, but it was of little use. I was exhausted and feeling disoriented. In this high, dark valley truly in the middle of nowhere I felt pangs of homesickness. I was also concerned that I might be feeling the onset of Acute Mountain Sickness, in which case I would need to be evacuated. How would I get out of this place? Along the landslide area at night?

Unable to hold my head up, I drifted away from the dining hall fell into my bed finding sleep almost immediately.

Annapurna: Rest day

Dec. 21, 2008

Starting out on the Annapurna Circuit, I felt robustly healthy and full of energy invigorated by the exercise and the mountain air. However, about a week in to the trek in higher altitudes and colder climate, some funky things started happening to my body.

Mainly, I was suffering from some gastrointestinal unease. This has been a recurring problem since I arrived in Asia. A little bout of food poisoning caused me to yak at the camel festival in Pushkar. I had the shittiest bus ride ever (literally) from Jaisalmir to Udaipur. I had a very nasty night in Varanasi. And now it was unhappy trails on the Annapurna Circuit.

In the village of Braga (3,460 m), my fellow trekkers and I agreed to take a rest day to better acclimatize and take a break from walking. I was popping pills for aches and pains and for my uneasy stomach and also spraying heaps of Second Skin on my heels which were blistering up from my new boots.

At the lodge in Braga, we met three other trekkers, a Brit named Tony, a French girl named Marie, and an Aussie named Christof. They all already knew Yannick because they happened to be on the same bus from Pokhara to Beshishar to start the circuit.

We were told garlic is good for treating and preventing altitude sickness, so we all scarfed down tons of it on toast. Word was floating around that the villages up at these altitudes were starting to shut down for the winter, and all the inhabitants were heading to lower, warmer places. The news put a bit of a damper on our moods because we had been talking about making a side-trip to Tilicho Lake, the highest altitude lake in the world. Rumor had it, Tilicho Base Camp was already abandoned.

During our "rest day", Alina, Yannick and I decided to visit Milerapa Cave, an alcove part of the way up Annapurna III where a monk, who was said to have the power of levitation, meditated for many years in the 11th century. Milerapa reportedly survived by eating nettles which gave a green tinge to his skin.

After climbing up to his cave decked in prayer flags, the three of us decided to ascend to the glacier line on the mountain. The climb wasn't tough technically, but it was steep and so far the highest altitude we had all reached (somewhere above 4,000 m, or more than 13,000 feet). We plodded upwards eventually coming to a space even with the dirty ice.

The mountains seen from this vantage point are sharp and brown peaked in white. A river cuts through the dry, amber valley like a sparkling sapphire necklace reflecting the brilliant sky. Above us, snow was blowing off the peak of Annapurna III. The mountain was creating its own clouds.

We saw up the peaks blue sheep, which are related to mountain goats, skittering among the rocks. Yannick found the skull of one of these horned sheep and created a little monument out of rocks placing the bone atop it.

We descended around 2:30 p.m. Though fairly early in the afternoon, it was already freezing. Once the sun goes behind Annapurna III, the valley is cast in shadow and the winds pick up. Back at the lodge around 4, I crawled into my sleeping bag to warm up. There I stayed until the next morning.

Annapurna: Bucket shower

Dec. 21, 2008

After nearly a week trekking, laundry and a good hot shower were much in order. Alina, Yannick and I spent our sixth night in the village of Ghyraru (3,670 m), one of two higher altitude villages one can visit after Pisang where the trail splits. Trekkers exhibiting symptoms of altitude sickness are advised to take the low route through a forest. The higher trail is more strenuous but the views of the mountains are priceless.

It had been several days since any of us had showered. The temperatures were just getting too low, and finding hot water in these villages is not always easy. What came as a delightful surprise to us was that many of the lodges use solar heating for their showers. How progressive.

The problem with the system (the little I know about it) is it's very basic and doesn't allow for any reserve energy. If it's cloudy that day, you're out of luck. Also, you better be sure to be one of the first in the shower if you hold any hopes of getting heated water.

In Ghyraru, there was not even a solar system, but you could still get a hot shower, so to speak. I paid 100 Nepali rupees (about $1.25) for the lodge owners to boil up a bucket of water.

Shivering violently between scoopfuls, I frenetically lathered myself up, dancing around in my flip-flops, rubbing and smacking myself to both get clean and stay warm. All the while I gazed out a small window at the glaciers on Annapurna II (7,937 m) and IV (7,525 m). The whole affair would have been hilarious if caught on film.

I bought this shampoo in India called Rejoice which is aptly named because the only time I used it on the trek was when I could find a legitimate shower with steaming hot water. Any time there was steaming hot water around, I was in exultation. Needless to say, my hair remained unwashed for most of the trek because it was too bloody cold to get it wet.

Once clean and shocked wide awake by the shower, I had to do some laundry. Again this involved a heated bucket of water and more dancing around in the frosty air, scrubbing my clothes under the darkening sky.

The next day, my clothes were still quite damp (nearly frozen actually). I had to tie my underwear and socks to the outside of my rucksack to dry as I walked. My unmentionables fluttered in the breeze like Tibetan prayer flags under the Nepali sun.

Annapurna: Higher and colder

Dec. 20, 2008

Everyday walking the Annapurna Circuit brings a complete change in scenery. From lower elevation Hindu villages, through rich river valleys and pine forests and into the stark Buddhist mountain towns, it is no wonder the path has been called one of the best treks in the world.

My Russian friend Alina and I ascended 800 meters on the day we joined up walking from Jagat (1,300 m) to Bagarchhap (2,160). We then had a comparatively relaxed fifth day of walking only about 10 kilometers but rising by 500 meters from Bagarchhap (2,082 m) to Chame (2,620 m).

The walk that day reminded Alina of autumn in the dark pine forests of Russia. Coming into view as we ascended were the peaks of Lamjung (6,931 m) and Annapurna II (7,937 m).

We could feel the cold as we rose higher each day. In the sunshine, we could walk in T-shirts, but any patch of shade made us shiver in our sweaty clothes. It was especially chilly at night and we knew it would only get colder as we climbed higher toward Thorung La, the highest elevation pass in the world. We went to bed early, sometimes as early as 7:30 if there was no electricity in the village. This walking everyday, up-at-dawn lifestyle was both invigorating and exhausting.

By Day 6, we had gained another trekking companion, Yannick, a French physiotherapist. Yann, who we called Yak the first few days when we couldn't quite remember his name, walked quicker than we did, but always started much later in the morning so we were constantly crossing paths.

Walking with the Frenchman and the Russian girl, I took a sort of strange pride in the fact that they could only communicate through my native tongue. Yannick said he found my flat New England way of speaking much easier to understand than a British or an Australian accent. Sometimes as the two stumbled through phrases, I felt like a referee of the English language.

If on the fifth day, we walked through Russia, on Day 6 we were in Yellowstone National Park. We passed by a massive unnamed rock formation curved like a bowl. We all walked in silence on the soft earth there. It was so quiet we could hear the flapping of crows wings.

Surrounded by such beauty, I started to feel at a loss of adjectives. The rivers ran ice blue, the sky was electric and clear and the air was fresh and crisp and getting thinner. I was starting to feel the altitude.

When the three of us stopped for lunch in lower Pisang (3,190 m), I smoked a cigarette that Yannick rolled for me. The thing hit me like a powerful drug. I was light-headed and laughing instantly.

The altitude was also doing something to all our appetites. Never before had I so appreciated sugar. I was devouring Snickers bars and heavily sweetening my tea. Alina went as far as to eat spoonfuls of sugar soaked in a little black tea straight from the spoon.

Around us, everything about the landscape was becoming bigger. The rivers and valleys were deeper, the mountains closer, colossal, the stars brighter. We were enraptured by everything around us, the beauty, beauty, beauty.

Annapurna: Quiet thoughts of nothing

Dec. 20, 2008

Walking for hours along quiet trails, one's mind has plenty of time and space for wandering as well. What I found interesting in the early days of the trek was that I thought mostly of nothing. Yes, I had thoughts, flashes of ideas and memories, but mostly my mind remained peacefully vacant.

While in India, I had talked with people about meditation. I gave it a shot one morning on a rooftop overlooking the Ganges in Varanasi. I received simple instructions from a new Israeli friend to just sit still, close my eyes, concentrate on my breathing and try to think of nothing. It was a struggle trying to sit still and just be. I kept noticing little pains in my body and my mind swirled around from thought to thought as hard as I tried not to think.

But in the mountains, walking and breathing hard shouldering a relatively heavy pack, I think I was unconsciously meditating. Like I said in an earlier post, I've often found solace in the outdoors. The rivers are my holy water, the mountains my cathedrals.

When I did have thoughts, they were more often than not songs that popped into my head. Two pieces of music in particular which happen to share the same name repeatedly came to mind.

During steep and grinding ascents, it was Jeff Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen's solemn but hopeful Hallelujah that I sang through struggling breaths. Well it goes like this the fourth, the fifth... the minor fall and the major lift...The baffled king composing hallelujah.

At other times, especially after conquering those ascents and looking around at the scenery and the mountains around me, it was Haaaaaallelujah! Haaaaallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hall-ee-lu-JAH! the famous chorus from Handel's Messiah.

Annapurna: Children of Manang

Dec. 20, 2008

When I worked for the newspaper, one of my favorite assignments was to go to the elementary school and take pictures of children. Kids are the greatest and easiest subjects to shoot on film because they are so honest in their expressions. I expressed this sentiment earlier when shooting a scene in a Greek square of children chasing pigeons.

Kids don't try to look good or impress anyone. Even if they do, their innocence shines through.

In Nepal during the frequent power outages that plague this country, sometimes the only electric light is generated from the LCD screen of a tourist's Nikon. Their faces light up in the glow of these contraptions as they look at themselves projected back in the darkness.

Here's a sampling of some of these mountain children in the Buddhist Manang district.

Annapurna: Learn metric

Dec. 20, 2008

As I write about my trek along the Annapurna Circuit I'll include the distances covered and altitude changes. My dad tells me I should write these measurements in miles and feet so folks back home can truly comprehend these numbers. But I've been traveling outside the United States now for four months and no one besides us stubborn Americans uses these old fashioned measurements. All the maps I have are in meters and kilometers.

Also weight is in kilograms instead of pounds. Along the trails I saw Nepali women and men hunched over bearing 50 kg sacks of rice, or fertilizer or stone dust. 1 kg = 2.2 lbs. That's 110 pounds! My own pack weighed in at 15 kg, so I was shouldering just over 33 lbs.

Although I've been thinking in terms of metric, it wasn't until I converted some of these numbers into miles that I truly comprehended just how high I was walking. Thorung La pass, the highest altitude pass in the world is at 5,400 meters. That's 17,800 feet above sea level, or about 3.4 miles, more than three times higher in elevation than Denver.

Where possible, I'll make these conversions. But it takes time, and everyone knows time is money, especially when you're paying for relatively reliable internet in a third world country. Go to this site for help with metric conversions if you need it.

Annapurna: Tal

Dec. 19, 2008

This is Tal, the gateway to the Manang district of Nepal. Notice the flock of goats I passed on the way up, and the mule trains which are like Nepal's version of Mack trucks carrying food and supplies across the country along the "Annapurna Highway."

Annapurna: A new comrade

Dec. 19, 2008

On my third day of trekking, I set off from Jagat shortly after dawn on the heels of another trekker, the young woman I had passed the day before on the trail. I had ended my previous day early in the afternoon and this woman caught up with me and stayed at the same lodge. I was one of five trekkers who slept at the Hotel Mont Blanc that night.

At dinner, the young woman sat with two Germans. I learned from their conversation that the woman, a Russian named Alina, is a fellow photographer and journalist. Hearing this, I struck up a conversation with her and the others. One of the men who was from East Germany commented that our little group consisted of an American and a Russian, and two Germans from either side of the Berlin wall.

The next morning, fully intending to set off alone ahead of the others, Alina was also up with the same plan in mind. When we took off, one of the Germans rubbing sleep from his eyes said "Oh look. A new team has formed."

I think both Alina and I had the same thought: We were content to go alone.

She got ahead of me, but I passed her on the trail in the village of Chamje (1,430 m). I walked alone for miles. It was a long, hard ascent along switchbacks and steep inclines to the Buddhist village of Tal (1,700 m).

Tal was one of my favorite places on the trek. The muscles burning from the climb is worth the entry to this heavenly little town. Tal emerges after a long, dusty hill in this quiet valley where the blue, grey river widens and bends creating sandy beaches. From the cloud covered hills that create the valley spill high, thin waterfalls.

Alina caught up to me in this little village and the two of us sat down for lunch. It was over black tea and pumpkin soup in placid Tal that the Russian and I decided to walk together.

Annapurna: Happy solitude

Dec. 19, 2008

Day 2 of my trek, I was up before sunrise happily lacing up my new hiking boots. I ready for some real, hard walking.

A bowl of banana porridge in my belly, I walked swift and strong along the path leading through flat lands along a rumbling river. I passed women washing laundry in the stream, and men carrying crates full of chickens, hauling the loads on their backs held up by a thick band around their foreheads. I blew through the farming villages of Nagdi and Bahundanda which formed steps along the hillsides. before stopping for tea in Syange (1,100 m) and eventually ending my day in Jagat (1,300 m). I had walked about 15 kilometers and ascended almost 500 meters.

I was so happy and healthy on the trail. I was exhilarated by the river below me and the mountain peaks in the distance ahead. I also felt dirty, but a good, clean kind of dirty. Dirty in body, clean in soul.

For dinner that night I devoured a plate of dal bhaat, a common Nepali dish consisting of rice, potato curry, a spicy pickle and a lentil soup. All the walking and carrying of my pack left me famished. Eating this hearty meal was good and natural; I could feel my body's need for the food.

Right at the start of my walk, I passed a young woman, the first other trekker I'd seen on the trail. A few days earlier I feared I would meet no one else on the walk. But now, after spending day on my own, I didn't want to meet anyone else.

Annapurna: Setting forth

Dec. 19, 2008

When I began planning this whole big trip around the world, something about Nepal called out to me stronger than any other location in the world. I wanted to see these mountains, the Himalayas, these natural monuments of the gods.

As a child I always found peace in the outdoors. Climbing to a high tree limb was like a prayer to me. I offered sacrifices to the wild in the form bloodied knees scraped on boulders and cuts from thorn bushes.

I was always off in the woods, scouting rivers, building forts. The forest was my sanctuary.

When I was 15 and as awkward and angsty as can be, my parents shipped me off to Utah for a two week Outward Bound course of rafting, hiking and canoeing. I joined a group of 18 others my age, many of whom were juvenile delinquents who were taking the course as remediation for minor crimes they had committed. The courses are meant to inspire individual confidence and to teach teamwork and trust.

For two nights toward the end of the trip, each of us kids were left alone in the desert where we were meant to reflect on the lessons we had learned during the previous days. I spent my time writing in my journal and basking in the sun listening to echoes from the canyons and the Green River far below. That solo experience reawakened the joy I had found in nature as a younger child. It was return to grace.

Now, nearly a decade later, I would be setting off alone into the Himalayas on what felt like a familiar journey.

I was nervous planning for the trek. It was late in the season, maybe too late. The most popular time for trekking is October. By December, the temperatures drop around the Annapurna range and many of the inhabitants of the villages in the hills start to abandon their lodges for the winter to take up jobs in Kathmandu and elsewhere. Thorung La, the highest altitude pass in the world which connects the 220 kilometer circuit, is in danger of being snowed in and impassable.

I also was getting mixed information on whether or not I should get a guide. Both Lonely Planet and another book on trekking in Nepal strongly discouraged trekking alone, especially as a female. I talked to one agency that caters specifically to female trekkers and got information about all the supplies I would need. The agency suggested that I hire a guide-cum-porter for the trip.

But talking to other trekkers around Pokhara, the resounding message was that the path is easy to follow, the Nepali people are kind and helpful, and there are many others trekkers on the route.

I was torn. Two nights before I was slated to leave, this particular agency ready with a guide for me, I thought about the trip, about how I would be spending almost three weeks with this one person. I hadn't spent that long with anyone on my trip. On the night before leaving, I decided I would go it alone.

On Nov. 30, I boarded a local bus to Beshishar (760 meters above sea level) followed by a jeep to Khudi (790 m) and set off on the Annapurna Circuit. That first day, because of a late start, I only walked a short distance to the small village of Bhulbhule (840 m), named after the sound of a small spring nearby. I was excited but still anxious about what I was undertaking. I also felt quite alone. I was the only trekker staying in the lodge. But then I looked out the window of my tiny room and saw this sight (see photo). The river, the forest, the mountain... they were like an answered prayer.

Return from the mountains

Dec. 18, 2008

I'm back in Pokhara following a 19-day trek around the Annapurna circuit. Managed to pull a muscle only as I was getting into a cab to return to civilization. Good timing!

Will have tons and tons of things to report and pretty photos to post soon. But need to decompress right now. I'm off to eat a yak steak!

As appeared in the Easton Courier

Written by Julie Weisberg, the current editor of the Easton Courier, Easton Connecticut, the position I held before departing on my worldwide journey.