Trip Report: A Short Walk Around the Annapurnas, Post-Monsoon
2012
First: the obligatory epigraph for all Himalayan journeys:
Something hidden. Go
and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges––
Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!
––Kipling
John McInerney and David Stevenson
had plans for the Khumbu region (Mera Peak, + ski descent) but were foiled by
six days in a row of cancelled flights to Lukla due to bad weather. Rather than languishing at the Kathmandu airport
among the increasingly restless masses, we came up with Plan B: after ten hours
overland via Land Rover to Syange, followed by seven days of trekking, most of
it on the fabled Annapurna circuit, we found ourselves in basecamp at about
15,500 feet, preparing for an ascent of Chulu Far East (varied heights given;
about 21,000 feet). The hoped-for ski descent
was nixed based on an “if-you-fall-you-die” terrain assessment. This became a moot decision when Stevenson awakened
with Acute Mountain Sickness with oedema-like symptoms. After a rapid 3,000 foot descent we
calculated that we didn’t have time for another attempt. Or rather, we did, but then wouldn’t have time
to both try again and get ourselves out of the Range and back to Kathmandu in
time for our return flights.
We
continued to work our way around the Annapurnas to the west, crossing Thorung
La, the highest pass in the Himalaya (about 17,760 feet) and descending to the
sacred medieval city of Muktinath, birthplace of Vishnu (although we didn’t see
the manger, or swaddling clothes. Oh,
wait . . . I’m confused. Nevermind). From there we continued around the trekker’s
circuit through the deepest gorge in the world between the giant 8,000 meter
peaks, Dhauligiri and Annapurna 1. We
finished walking in Tatopani (literally: hot water) where we soaked away
the grime and soreness in the legendary hot springs. From there we took a pair of tag-team taxis
to Pohkara, arriving there 26 days after leaving home.
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