Yak Kharka to Thorung Phedi – and a bit further just to nosey around (4th blog today)

What a grim night’s sleep. Jet was out like a light at 8pm and I was awake most of the night. Gasping for breath again and waking bolt upright thinking I was drowning. I got a good couple of hours at 4am, with my rucksack behind me and the pillow leaning against that, flat on my back. About the fifteenth combination of positions but a successful one. 

The sun was rising when we set off at 7.30, illuminating the hills across the valley.

Looking up the valley towards our destination the clouds were lingering and hiding from the sun. Better start worrying he’s coming to get you.

Walking up, the Chuli peaks to our right were looming in the background. 

This is a tough walk, particularly with a rucksack, but it isn’t off the scale by any means. The main issue is the altitude. We’re not climbing, we’re trekking, but I say that we’re climbing because we’re going upwards, and quite steeply on occasions. That int climbing, that’s trekking.  Frickin trekkin. It’s a great route though. And even at these high altitudes there are little groups of two or three guest houses every four miles or so. The owners live in them from August to November and go down to their first homes in Pokhara or Kathmandu for the rest of the year. June to August is monsoon season so trekkers tend to trek in September, more in October and some in November. 

We crossed the river again but it’s getting smaller now and bridges are more rustic.*

Looking back south to the Annapurna range there was a handsome bloke and a fabulous array of mountains. 

Looking forward there was a beautiful girl and an enticing mountain path.

But beware young lady. It might be a popular and well served route but it has a harsh ability to kill people. Thirty five trekkers died in October 2014 on the section we are doing tomorrow when a massive snowstorm caught them between guest houses. Poor buggers. 

We checked into our next guest house, in Thorung Phedi at 15,000 feet, and had lunch. We’ve got a three thousand foot steep climb tomorrow to the summit of the highest pass in the world and then a long trek down to the next village. It will take us 7 hours to climb up. This is a mega tough day as oxygen makes itself scarce. We will be higher than Everest base camp. But I’ve been off the beer for 6 days as alcohol contributes to catching altitude sickness and tomorrow night we’ll be well down if all goes to plan. We’re setting off at 4.30am and after an 11 hour trek I might have one or two! 

To help acclimatisation to the altitude again we climbed a further 1,000 feet up the steepest part of the entire Circuit. Jetty was up there at 16,000 feet amongst the big boy mountains. But Everest is still 12,000 feet higher. Nine or ten times harder than this I would have thought. At least. Well done Ben Fogle, absolute hero. 

Clambering back down we are having an early dinner and getting up at some godawful hour in the dark and cold for breakfast at 4.00am. I hope we’re back down in warmer places tomorrow.

Night night.