April 3rd - Up and over the top
Oddly enough, I had some of my best sleep in the entire trip the night before the biggest day of our trek. After reluctantly leaving the warm cocoons of our sleeping bags, the group got everything finalized, settled our bills and choked down what breakfast we could. As we headed to breakfast, we could see other groups above the camp heading up the trail towards High Camp and ultimately the summit, by headlamp light. We opted to wait until 5:30AM for it to get a little more light out, although the first half hour of the hike required headlamps for safety. I think it was a wise decision as it didn't make sense to me to perform the steep start to the hike in total darkness, aided only by flashlights. This makes even more sense since I had to dodge a large rock knocked off the same piece of trail the day before by a yak. In the dark, you'd never see it coming.
Shortly after we started, we passed a rather large pile of vomit on the side of the trail. About five minutes later, we were passed by a guide helping a stumbling woman get back down to the lower altitudes of the camp below. The look of disorientation and fear on her face was a stark reminder of the effects of altitude sickness and the dangers it posed. We continued our hike up towards high camp as the sun rose behind the mountains at our backs. I was grateful that we hiked up to the High Camp on the previous day as it helped instill me with a sense of confidence because I knew what to expect. Still, the hike up to High Camp was as steep an unenjoyable as it was the day before.
We had a brief five minute break at High Camp while some of used the squatter. It happened to be the most disgusting squatter I’ve ever seen. I’ll refrain from posting pictures of it here, but if anyone really wants to go take a look, you can find it in the picture gallery with the other pictures from the day we crossed the summit.
After the bathroom break we pressed on. The parties that had gone before us had a trail in the snow so it was easy to see where we were supposed to follow. The snow was still quite deep in places, even up to my knees (and I’m 6’5”). The trails also often were on the side of sloped hills that slipped steeply down into valleys below. When you weren’t slipping into the snow up to your knees, it was wet and packed into a slippery layer that moved when you walked on it. The best example I can give is that it was like walking on cold sand. This made the going tough, tiring and thirsty work. When I tried to take a drink of the water I had brought, I was in for a suprise.
The water that we had brought along froze on the hike in the early morning cold. I had a camel pouch with two liters of water in it as well as a one liter Nalgene bottle with some hydration salts. The water completely froze in the camel pouch tube, and turned into a bright orange slush in my Nalgene bottle. I was thankful to have salts in my Nalgene as they prevented it from freezing entirely. Later on in the day, I was able to suck and crush the ice out of the camel pouch tube to get the water flowing again. I then would sip it every few minutes or so to make sure it kept moving and didn’t freeze.
About halfway up the summit, the group stopped for some tea at a Tea House along the way. I was antsy and wanted to keep going because I was worried about the effects of altitude and lingering at higher elevations. Fifteen minutes later, we were all on our way again. The next two hours of hiking were exactly as described by so many guide books. We trapsed our way up and over false summit after false summit. It’s a confidence crushing exercise as one musters up the strength to keep going to that next crest only to find out that the summit has not yet been reached. I can remember at least three distinct times I thought I had my eyes locked on the top for sure, only to have my hopes dashed when I finally got to the trail marker.
Finally, after rounding a bend to my left, I was greeted by an open snow covered plateau with small rock outcroppings on each side. There number of people and prayer flags told me that I was finally at the summit. I took a seat in the snow and waited a few minutes for Mike and Andrea to catch up. While waiting, I talked to some fellow travelers and congratulated them on their success as well.
A funny story to share: I congratulated a nice young couple from Australia who I had met on the trail before. The guy was busy repacking his bag with all of his items strewn about in the snow. When I asked him about why it looked like a yard sale with his stuff all over the place he gave me the following answer.
“I brought along a bottle of King Cobra. I wanted to get the biggest shittiest bottle of malt liquor that I could find and drink it at the summit. I carried this thing with me on the entire trek and had it wrapped up in my sleeping bag for safety. Well the air pressure is so much lower up here that the pressure inside the bottle caused it to explode inside my sleeping bag, drenching it in cheap malt liquor.”
After Mike and Andrea showed up, I had to get up and walk around a bit as the emotional impact of finally conquering the mountain was a bit much. I was filled with an enormous amount of self pride that having never been on a hike before, I was able to summit one of the most popular hiking treks in Nepal at an altitude of around 17,800 feet. We all then took turns taking pictures of one another and with one another at the sign confirming that we made the summit. Raj and Anish hung our prayer flags for us and we then started on our descent down the hill.
Our ascent in the morning had covered almost four hours and 2,800 feet. The way down would be almost twice as long and steep. Unfortunately, the beginning of the descent was flat and we had only lost about 600 feet of altitude after an hour. My head was starting to hurt and I was feeling nauseous. I could feel myself starting to get disoriented and couldn’t even choke down more than half of a snickers bar. Michael took my camera as I rested and I pushed myself down the mountain as fast as I could lose altitude. After about 30 minutes of spirited hiking, I had lost another 800 feet of altitude and was around 16,400 feet and feeling better. I took a rest on a rock while I waited for the rest of the group to catch up. It is amazing how quickly the effects of altitude can set in and there is only one solution: get to a lower elevation as fast as you can. Fortunately for me, we had already crossed the summit and were already on the way down.
The group then proceeded to hike down the rest of the way together. The previous days snow had started to melt and made the going very slick and treacherous. The trail had turned into a mix of loose gravel, slick mud, and packed ice. I wiped out a couple of times but credit my two walking sticks with helping save me from going down many more times. They were also an invaluable tool at making the descent a lot easier on my knees. I would consider a pair of good hiking sticks a requirement for a successful trip. The difference they make is incredible.
We all took a break at a small trailside restaurant around 13,000 feet for some food. I wanted to celebrate with a Coca-Cola but it tasted old and funny. Lots of things on the trail are past their expiration date, and this Coke was one of them. After the meal, we descended the rest of the way into Muktinath. The route down from the restaurant was strewn with large basketball sized rocks and ankle breaking baseball sized ones. I can’t even count the number of times on this trip that my ankle has went sideways on a small rock but I was saved from any injury by some excellent hiking boots. The rest of the way down was spent fighting the wind and large snow flakes that had started to fall. It took us about an hour to cover the remaining distance down to Muktinath.
When we reached Muktinath, our altitude according to my watch was 12,175. We had dropped almost 4600 feet since the summit and taken around another six hours to get down. It was an exhausting day. We walked through town looking for a place to stay and settled on the Royal Mustang. Coincidentally enough, it happened to be where our British friends that we met at Yak Kulka were staying. There were handshakes and hugs all around as we congratulated each other on making it over the pass.
Before dinner, I had the chance to shower for the first time in almost four days. The water was warm at best, but it felt so good to clean up and get into some comfortable clothing. We all then ate dinner together where I decided to splurge and had some chicken with vegetables, mashed potatoes and Coca Cola while Mike and Blaine tried some beer with their dinners. An interesting tidbit is that our hotel had foot warmers to help keep the diners warm during dinner. They basically consisted of charcoal burning in an open metal container placed under the table. It makes the area underneath the table almost unbearably hot and also has the effect of filling the room with charcoal fumes. Given the choice between that and bundling up in more clothes, I’d rather don a seal spearing outfit like Andrea. After dinner, Mike and I played cards together for a while before heading to bed. It was a well deserved rest after a long and tiring day.