MON, 02APR2012Thorung Phedi (4850m) – Thorung Pass (5416m)6km/ +950mThorung Pass (5416m) – Muktinath (3800m)10km/ -1,616m

We started at 6AM after a quick 530AM breakfast and decided to trek with the three Germans. We had been pretty much at the same pace the whole time & it was safer to summit the pass in a group. The tough part was that the altitude was really affecting Chris (the personal trainer). He had not slept in 3 days and had continuous bad headaches. Dani had just come down with a head cold and was even considering not attempting the summit. Lastly, Stephan was trekking in torn old sambas (thin soled, smooth bottomed, indoor soccer shoes) and jeans with a giant hole in the knee! After much game-time deliberation on Dani’s part, we decided to summit but with Stephan trading Dani for her heavy pack.

It was a cold and a long trip up 975m thru some snow & ice & scree fields. One the way, we passed two guys trekking the circuit with bicycles – one had brought his and the other rented it in Pokhara. I’m not sure I buy into the idea, because of the 8hrs of trekking today I don’t think I would have risked riding more than 30min of it!  We hit the pass very quickly (in 3hrs 45min), especially considering Wendy’s hip & Dani’s cold.

The hike down was a brutal slog on loose rocks & small boulders. Parts of it were super cool (in the beginning) because you got to see so many mountains and different types of rock formations. The end was pretty tough as we had ~150m of downhill switchbacks on softball sized stones. They were hard on the feet, the back, and damn tough on tired quads carrying a heavy pack. We kept pressing on by thinking about the blind masseuses we read about in Pokhara!

In Muktinath, we stayed at the “Bob Marley Hotel & Restaurant” with a 7-Eleven store nearby. They advertised that the chef had 15yrs of cooking experience in Australia. Those 15yrs definitely made him more experienced wooing tourists with his witty jokes!

We had a great mushroom pasta, great nachos and a decent yak burger. The pasta came on a sizzling plate with local mushrooms (yummy!) and heaped with yak cheese. The nachos had homemade tortilla chips that were handcut and were covered with big strips of chicken and beans – surprisingly nice!

The Germans got down the mountain a bit before us but we still met up in the small town and they shared the above dinner with us. We got a table in front of the gas heater where we reflected on the day’s success over a cold beer. We were all quite happy!

Today we started at 6am. We ascended 970 vertical meters in 6 kilometers, up to 5416 meters above sea level. After the pass, we descended 1600 meters over 11 km, most of it in the first 5 km.

Views of the mountains all the way up to the pass were spectacular. We climbed more and more slowly with each additional meter in altitude. Although our lungs ached and muscles felt oxygen deprived, we didn’t suffer other symptoms of altitude sickness.

It was cold and we walked across packed snow on the trail. There was a tea shop at 5000 meters and another at the pass (where we had ginger tea) . On the way to the pass we overtook 2 guys carrying bicycles over their shoulders on their way to the pass. They had carried them all this way with the anticipation of riding them down.

Standing at 5400m was exhilarating, the highest we’ve ever been. We were surrounded by majestic snow covered peaks on all sides and it made us want to be higher, much higher, to be on those mountains, in the snow, looking down on the pass.

When we saw the descent, we realized how disappointed those bikers were going to be. It was nothing but steep switchbacks covered in ice or loose rocks. It was miserable to walk down and I estimate they could have ridden only about a quarter of it.

By the time we made it down kilometer after kilometer of rubble and scree with no food, I was exhausted and in a foul mood. The only thing that kept me from cracking Patrick across his cheerful little head with a trekking pole were the beautiful little mountain ponies in the pastures outside of Muktinath. I’ve decided that it is time to fulfill my lifelong dream of having a pony and it must be a Tibetan pony. Patrick says it’s OK as long as they throw in a Nepalese mountain mutt along with it.

Muktinath is a pilgrim town. There is a temple there shared by Hindus and Buddhists. The temple is built around a little spring where both water and natural gas come out of the rock. It is a holy place because it is the only place where all four elements exist together – fire, water, air and earth.

Prayer flags near the Mukthina temple spread like cobwebs on the hillside.

We arrived into town and walked past the temple gates, heading upstream against a steady flow of old Indian ladies dressed in spectacular saris and grey dirty socks with flip flops, and old men with saffron-colored turbans. They came on foot, on horseback and on motorbike.

 

Muktinath was a dusty, rundown little town with a strange combination of tourists and pilgrims. We settled on the Bob Marley Hotel, mostly because I was tired and it was the closest place to the police checkpoint. As it turned out, the Nachos made up for the non-stop Bob Marley tunes (punctuated by a few brief Frank Sinatra interludes).