Section 1 – Days 17 & 18

Day 17 to 18 A grandiose pass and a looming good bye to our Section 1 – Kangchenjunga team!

My God! The last two days were epic! It had snowed all night when we camped in Karka, the yak herders rest place before the pass at 4200m. We woke up at 5am and still heard the snow coming down onto the roof of our tent! As many nights before ice crystals had formed on the inside walls of our tent but once I opened the frozen zipper of our vestibule a forty centimeter wall of snow had stacked up around our tent and it was still snowing! Within the hour it cleared though and the decision was made to proceed as planned and cross the Nango La pass! Lhakpa and Arjun left ahead of us all to break the path through the snow, which in part was waist deep and certainly almost consistently knee deep! We started up at about 8am now in sunshine that caused me to be so hot that I ended up taking off my goretex pants and pulling the light windbreaker pants and thermals I wore underneath up to above my knees and on top wore only my icebreaker long sleeve and of course as always and everyday and all day my beloved beanie! A proper Pudelmütze that reminds me of when I was little girl and makes me smile! 🙂 Anyway it was a mega slog up the steep and very snowy slope to the pass! Shortly after Lex I reached the pass certainly grasping for air as one does at 4776m and it was such a wonderful happy feeling of achievement – but also once I caught my breath a feeling of humility in the presence of such massive mountains all around and a valley of old glacial ravines opening up in front of our eyes! We are so small and vulnerable! The wind bites us with its icy grip, the snow challenges us as it makes each steps harder either for the slippery unpredictability of its consistency or the sheer extra effort it requires in focus and muscle strength to journey across and through it! And then of course the altitude that makes each breath a mission… humility and such gratitude to be able to do this! For my body to be able and and and…

After about a half an hour descend Lex and Grahame had found a wonderful lunch spot and I joined them for a really special half an hour of song and music and stillness and reflection! A beautiful moment I am sure I shall never forget ! From there it went down and down and down… about 1000m through rocky and slippery terrain that continued to require enormous focus! I completely enjoyed walking on my own tracing the footsteps of the porters and kitchen team that were ahead of me! I so love the sense of being alone in these huge mountains seeing no one in front of or behind me! It was getting cooler and it even began to drizzle with snow! We followed a river for hours and the vegetation slowly got more and more lush with Rhododendron bushes and small trees and pine and fur trees further down – impressive almost eerie in the mist as they were covered In substantial moss that at times looked like rows of Koala Bears hugging the trees’ trunks!

Our camping spot was another Karka. A small meadow flat enough to pitch some tents right next to the river! It was clearly a herder’s spot considering the amount of yak dung that covered the ground. When I arrived at half past two none of the porters had arrived yet which also meant no tents for shelter were available yet. It was cold. I put all my layers on and soon had a bowl of noodle soup that the kitchen crew had quickly made on a wood fire! Lex and Grahame didn’t come much after me and as soon as the porters arrived we got active and helped to pitch our camp… anything to keep us warm

An epically wonderful day…. followed by today which ended up an even longer day – slightly unexpectedly! We followed the river downhill. The first hour or so we descended through a fairy like forest of a kind I have never seen: now the trees were big – not timid and stunted by the thin air of altitude anymore. The three dominant species that were intertwined in the most fantastical way were the tall and old pines, the thick moss that seemed to cover whatever surface available except the rhododendrons with their flakey paper thin bark. So those three the pine, the moss and the rhododendrons created the most fabulous rainforest like fairy forest. If only the path hadn’t been so slippery from ice, snow and later mud …. it took enormous focus to make it down to the river in one piece!

Across an old wooden bridge we went and then it was boulder hopping until we got to our lunch spot! Delicious as always we soon went on again knowing we still had a long walk ahead and another uphill at the end! And oh my! Was it ever an uphill!!! I loved it even though it was a cruel and relentless switch back gravel uphill with some really dodgy make shift bridges on slippery landslide slopes and it had started raining which soon turned into snow!!! And it seemed to go on and on and on and get colder and snowier with each step… we were low enough (climbing from about 2800 back up to 3235m here in Olungchuggola) that the snow didn’t stay and melted into rain quickly! We arrived in the village – beautiful at first glance with a monastery and four monks 🙂 (More details to be explored tomorrow on my rest day) Again way before all porters so we were warmly welcome by the local lady traditional Tibetan/Sherpa dress by the name of Pasangi, whose land we also are pitching our camp on. Inside her deeply traditional home with Tibetan paintings on the beams we were served hot freshly mixed and brewed butter tea around her indoor open kitchen fire! I hugged my mug as best I could as the cold just didn’t want to leave me although i think i had about six layers of clothes on at this point! I realize that that wet merino shirt has to come off otherwise it is close to impossible to warm up again…..will just have to find a make shift changing room from now on as soon as i get to camp!!!

We have made her kitchen/living room/bedroom our dining room and lounge- here, too, is where we had our final big dinner tonight (with a farewell cake with icing and the wish for a safe journey home written on top). It is strange to think that Lex, Grahame, Margaret and Tim will leave tomorrow while John and I will have our first real rest day since we started walking 16 days ago!

I truly enjoyed this first leg and will miss the laughter and fun we have had. I am so looking forward to what will come next and am truly excited about the strengthening connection of Nireka Adventures to South Africa!!! Thank you especially to both Grahame and Lex for that, I think you both have had previous lifetimes here in Nepal….and hopefully many more times in this one!!! Margaret and Tim thank you for joining us. You both were a true inspiration and thanks for the steady supply of licorice and chocolate sweets

It is late and freezing cold with my fingers outside my sleeping bag while I am writing this so I am going to sign out and Sujan our film maker and photographer on this trip is so kind to take all the past blogs down with him so they should be posted in about 5 days from now! We have NOT solved our WiFi and data transmission challenge yet!

Please don’t worry if you don’t hear for a while! We are all okay and i will keep writing and any chance we get we will post!

Greetings from the end of Section one! Xxx

Section 1 – Days 17 & 18

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