A DAY IN THE LIFE OF: GATTAS GHT JOURNEY KAGBENI TO YAK KHARKA PHILIPPE: DAY 11 ANNA: DAY 1 I met up with Philippe in Kagbeni after his solo traverse of Dolpa. Unfortunately he didnt arrive in Muktinath as planned, located 10 km further and 900m higher up in altitude. He arrived in Kagbeni at 18:30 very tired but happy to be back in team with me for the following week. We started from Kagbeni at 2800m early in the morning since we had a straight climb of +2600m up to Thorong La 5350m - a record for both of us! We made it in just under 6 hours up to the pass and the last 2 hours endured under pretty heavy winds and snow fall. Until the snow fall we were just in shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt which surprised most trekkers coming down from the pass in equipments worthy a 7000m summit attempt. We went fast and light with normal trail running shoes and a 8-10 kg pack - thats how we like it! At the pass we found a tea house and we asked for a milk tea and when the guy asked for 600 rupees each we ended up in another of these eternal discussions: But in last tea house we paid only 80 rupees for a tea!. Yes, but now you got a big cup!. Ok, but not thaaaat big!. Very big cup mam!. Can I see menu please and what is the real price?. Oh, I see milk tea only 500 rupees, sorri…. And so on… We started the descent directly after getting a little warmer from the tea – and the snow continued falling… We stopped every now and then to wipe off the snow from the top of our packs since it melted down in our necks otherwise. We stopped quickly in the lodge at 4700m to grab a coke and cookies and continued fast down the valley. For obvious reason the snow became rain after a while and we tried to move as fast as possible on the slippery path. Philippe started to get some trouble with his stomach and needed to stop every now and then and the pouring rain just continued and continued... Around 15:00 we started to realize we would never reach Manang as planned so we tried to advance as fast as possible to not extend the next days route too much. Around 17:00 we called it a day and went into a warm dinner room in a lodge in Yak Kharka at 4000m to fill up our stomach and get a good nights sleep. Yeah right. Good nights sleep. A local mouse found it utterly exiting to browse around in our packs, trash bin and all plastic bags trying to find stuff to eat… We ended up trying to – please dont read this if you are sensetive or under 12 years old – pin the mouse on one of our pole ends and Philippe ran around after the mouse while I was tryingh to hypnoze the mouse with my head torch! I still remember the frightened mouses eyes but our sleep was more important. Did we kill it? No, no success but at least he left our room to go and bother someone else, less violent. During the whole night we could hear the strong wind and snowfall. But waking up early next morning we got to start running in a wonderful landscape, plastered with a thin layer of snow, a black and white scenery with the Annapurna summits in the background. A view we will never forget.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 06:16:02 +0000
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