The Himalayas: They're Really Big

(Julia stole the good blog post title)

By Tom

Pokhara, Nepal 

Well, we did it.  Victory is ours.  Following only the firmly laid stone stairs, the large posted trail maps, and our local guide Anup, Julia and I ascended to Annapurna Base Camp and made it back alive to tell our tale of glory.  While it wasn't technically a "first ascent," we were definitely among the first few of the dozens of people to "summit" base camp that day.  Unlike many other Himalayan ascents, we lost no toes, fingers, or limbs to frost bite, but we were at times in serious danger of our hot cocoa becoming cold.

"The Impending Storm"

Trekking in the Himalayas is a pleasant and comfortable experience, if not one of the solitude found on backpacking trips in other parts of the world.  Over 9 days, we gained and lost tens of thousands of feet of elevation, slept countless hours every night, and drank several gallons of tea.  We awoke every morning to the sound of goat bells between 5:30 and 6 am, and started trekking by 7 after a hearty breakfast.  We arrived at the tea house for the evening by lunchtime, after which we would take a long nap, have dinner, and then go back to bed by 7 or 8 pm.  The weather followed a fairly predictable pattern of being cool and clear in the morning, building up rain storms by mid-afternoon, and then subsiding most evenings.    

Julia waiting out the afternoon rain shower at our guesthouse

The afternoon rains give way to sunshine

We trekked through villages full of smiling young children, charming old houses, oxen, yaks, and chickens.  Every two hours or so we passed through another village with a couple of guest houses offering a place to stay for the night to the hundreds of trekkers with whom we shared the trail.  The trekkers ranged from (not to stereotype but) Japanese and Koreans hiking in jeans, cotton jackets, and sandals with a Nepali porter holding an umbrella over their heads, to people hiking with full camping packs filled with every piece of mountaineering gear imaginable.  The sad part was many of the trekkers who were overdoing it, geared to the teeth as though they were about to spend 2 months mountaineering above 20,000 feet, were followed by skinny-legged porters carrying 80 pounds each while they themselves wore not even a small day pack. 

Julia and I decided this is our dream house -I wonder if they would ship it to Vermont?  

Children growing up in the villages high in the mountains (Lucky!)

It was a relief to be in the cool, clear mountain air after spending so much time in Asian cities choked with black smog.  The Himalayas lived up to their reputation as giants, poking high above the clouds at times.  They were just as beautiful and breathtaking as I've always imagined these mountains to be.  There were fields full of flowers with intermittent waterfalls streaming down melt water from the high mountain glaciers.

Detail of the summit of Annapurna South at sunrise

Fishtail mountain behind a field of flowers

We were joined by our consistently smiling Nepali guide Anup.  Anup comes from a long line of Himalayan guides.  His father works as a climbing Sherpa on Mt. Everest and has been within 100 meters of the summit.  His uncle was also a climbing guide until he was swept away in a large, internationally-publicized avalanche on K2 (the world's second highest peak) that tragically killed 11 climbers in 2008.  To be high in the Himalayas is to be constantly in the face of tragedy.  Annapurna I is the most dangerous of the world's fourteen 8,000 meter peaks, with 103 successful summits and 56 deaths in the attempt of the summit.  There are memorials to fallen climbers scattered throughout the rocks at base camp, including one to famous Himalayan mountaineer Antoni Bukerav who saved several people's lives in the 1996 Everest disaster chronicled in Jon Krakaur's book Into Thin Air.  He was killed in an avalanche on Annapurna I within a couple of years after returning from Everest.  

Our fearless leader Anup

Annapurna Base Camp: Tibetan prayer flags send out prayers for the safety of mountaineers and memorialize fallen climbers 

Our time at the actual Annapurna Base Camp was brief.  We started hiking from a lower guest house at 4:30 am, arriving at base camp at 13,550 feet in time to see a cloudy sunrise on the mountains.  A light dusting of snow was on the ground from the night before.  After a quick breakfast, we turned around and headed back down.  Over the next two days, we descended over 10,000 feet, through deciduous forest with leaves changing color for autumn, followed by bamboo forest, mossy rainforest, and finally rice patties on terraced hillsides.  Stairs along the trail are counted in the thousands -one continuous set has over 3,300 steps.  It was a workout for the knees, but a journey we will not soon forget.  

The team, returning victorious from our assault on Annapurna base camp