April 10th – Up to Poon Hill and down to the bottom
Blaine woke me up this morning in the middle of a great dream about what junk food I was going to eat out of my parent’s refrigerator. The time was 4:20AM and I quickly got dressed to follow him and Bethany up to Poon Hill to be in place before the sunrise started.
The morning was pitch black as we used our headlamps to try and navigate the tricky stair case up to the top. The steps were of uneven sizes both horizontally and vertically. This made the ascent tricky and doing it aided only by a headlamp makes it treacherous. When you look down with your headlamp, it’s easy to take a tree branch from the side of the path in the face. When you keep an eye out for the branches, it’s easy to miss a step and take a tumble.
About halfway up the hill, I was already regretting my decision to dress so warmly as I had turned into a ball of sweat. The three of us were now so spread out that I had lost sight of Blaine’s headlamp up ahead and Bethany’s behind. I finally reached the top after about a 45 minute hustle up the path. I had covered 1,200 feet and was now at the altitude of 10,600 feet. I also was drenched in sweat which made waiting out the morning sunrise a cold affair.
The morning light had just started to show through as I got to the top so I grabbed myself a seat at a bench with a small table and proceeded to watch the sunrise as I snapped photos. After about 30 minutes I had to call Bethany over to watch my things as I had to hurry down a small hill towards the back of the viewing area to a bathroom for another personal emergency. I just couldn’t seem to shake my traveler’s sickness from the day before. The repeated digestive tract problems have resulted in plenty of frustration and aggrivation on the trip.
When I emerged, the top of the hill had turned into a tourist fest. They were everywhere to watch the sunrise. This proved to be a challenge as many of them were completely clueless and unaware of anyone but themselves. They continually got in the way of pictures I was trying to take, were taking pictures of the mountain using their camera flashes and repeatedly bumping the table that I had my camera and tripod setup on, which resulted in plenty of ruined photos.
The top of Poon Hill affords a great view of the Annapurna South. The problem is, that in the morning, the sun rises behind the mountain and backlights it. This renders it almost completely as silhouette and difficult to photograph. If I had the chance to go back to Poon Hill, I would head up there in the early evening to photograph the mountains at sunset. That way, the sun would be coming from behind and over my shoulders and properly lighting the mountains for the best effect. The mountain Machhapuchhare in this photo is also visible from Poon hill, but lays to the north and west of Annapurna South so they get better light in the morning as it is not backlit by the sun.
Around 6:30 most of the tourists headed down the mountain and so did I. The rest of the group took their time at the top of the mountain. Mike and Andrea had come to the top of Poon Hill as well, but weren’t as early rises and Blaine, Bethany and I. On their way down, Mike shot a video of the scenery which you can view here. The descent was as tricky as the way up in the morning and the lack of hiking poles made it tricky and tough on my knees. Had I not been stupid enough to lose them on the way to Tatopani, I would have been set. Unfortunately, I would learn later in the day just how much I missed them.
After getting to the bottom of the hill, I got some breakfast and packed while waiting on the others. I took care of a couple of administrative items before everyone else came back. We got a late start around 10:30AM down the mountain. It would be a knee testing trek as we would descend approximately 5,800 feet to 3,600 feet.
The going was slow due to frequent stops to buy souvenirs and take pictures. The top of the trail was marked by more of the beautiful rhododendron trees which were in full bloom. Bethany loved the view so much that she took multiple pictures. Her efforts were hampered by Blaine hiking up ahead on purpose and performing stretching and other calisthenics directly in the middle of the scene that she was trying to shoot. The rest of the group found this entirely hilarious, but Bethany had other opinions.
As we got lower, the shade of the trees disappeared and the landside looked more like a jungle. After a brief stop for lunch, we continued our descent to find ourselves at the top of a stair case that ended at a bridge over the river far below and out of sight. The stairs were numbered every so often to give you an idea of how much farther you have to go. The first number that I saw was 3,000. Since they were made of laid stone, the stairs were uneven both in height and width so the descent was tricky. The lack of hiking poles due to my stupidity a few days earlier ensured that my knees would pay for my mistake.
On the way down, I thought I spotted a short cut due to the stairs’ zigzag pattern down the mountain side. I headed off the steps at a dogleg to the left with the intention of cutting through some farmers fields to join back up with the path when it cut back to the right far below. The fields were terraced and I was left to ruminate my stupidity in taking the “shortcut” as I tried to navigate my way down the different levels of terracing. It was nervous going because I was worried about slipping, falling and injuring myself. I fortunately made it through the gauntlet of fields without any injury, yet didn’t save any time as I was still the same distance between the front runners of our part as when I took the “shortcut.”
From there on, it was approximately another 1,000 steps lower to the bridge over the river. On the way down, I caught up with a nice British woman who had hiked the Annapurna trek with her husband. They were delayed for a few days due to him getting snow blindness when trekking over the Thorong La pass. Basically, he thought he wouldn’t need sunglasses and he sunburned his retinas which put him out of action for a few days. This would be a good warning for anyone not to skimp on cheap sunglasses, although I would extend that thought to pretty much any gear for the trek. As my dad says, "How much is your safety worth?"
After crossing the bridge, it took us another two and a half hours of hiking to reach the village of Birethanti where we would end our trek. Along the way there were plenty of sights for Blaine and I to photograph together. Kids played along the way on a haystack, plenty of locals kept passing us carrying items on their backs and kids ran out to greet us and beg for sweets.
Towards the end of the trail, we had to cross a river. I was so focused on stepping on the proper stones and not going for a tumble in the water with my camera, that I didn’t think anything of the soldiers crossing the river with wooden boxes on their backs. Blaine later clued me in that today was Election Day, and the soldiers were taking the ballot boxes back to be counted. Due to my preoccupation with crossing the river, I had unfortunately missed that unique opportunity to catch the soldiers crossing the river with the ballot boxes.
Blaine and I continued to straggle along and take pictures of everything and anything that caught our eye. Now that I was close to the end of the hike, I was less worried about rationing the amount of pictures that I took, so I went a bit crazy. I've taken more photos than I can fit on this page, so if you check out my galleries here and scroll towards the bottom, you should see some of the other things that I manged to snap. As we neared our goal it began to rain, so packed my camera away and Blaine and I hurried to get to Birethanti.
We found a place to stay right at the end of the trail and were happy to be done for the day. It felt great to clean up with a cool shower and celebrated with everyone with beers and rum & cokes. Even Anish and Raj joined in. I finished the trek with 21,260 rupees. All told, I spent about 28,000 rupees for my time out on the Annapurna trail. This did not include a tip for our porter Anish or our guide Raj, but it did include the 4,300 rupees I had spent for treatment in the medical clinic for sunburn from my stupidity on the ice lake hike.
It was decided that we were in no hurry to head to Pokara early the next day, so Raj and Anish were given the freedom to leave as early as they wanted to head back to Katmandu. Mike and Andrea gave Raj 3,000 rupees as a tip but none to Anish since they didn’t use him as a porter. Blaine and Bethany gave Raj and Anish 3,000 rupees each as a tip. I gave Raj and Anish 5,000 rupees each as a tip. I wouldn’t have been able to do this trek without them and I figured the extra $30 or so that I gave them for a tip would mean a lot more to them than it would to me. I know that Raj has a family and lives in a house with no electricity, so the money definitely would be put to good use. The rest of the night was spent visiting and sharing the feeling that we can’t believe we’re finally done and headed to Pokhara for some rest and food!