NOTE: Missing a couple photos because of technical issues, but will add soon.
![]()
TREK DIARY DAY 4: Sickness (Dharapani to Chame, 6270 ft to 8943 ft)
DHARAPANI - A brutal but beautiful climb gets the day started right, with a virtual staircase spiraling 1500 feet up, clinging precariously to cliff-sides, winding through forests and spitting us out into an alpine mosaic of pine trees and horse-filled pastures.
Sweaty, tired, but in a good rhythm we of course hit one of the annoyingly frequent Nepali government checkpoints, where we are filmed by a documentary crew - look out for some exciting footage of me handing over paperwork and a sleepy bureacrat working slowly.
During the climb we cross an invisible line between the (relatively) lowland villages with their Indian flavor and Hindu symbols to the Buddhist climes where multicolored prayer flags flap over villages of stone and wood guarded on each entrance by a string of prayer wheels.
With the elevation comes the first mountain chill and a sudden violent illness. Connie is down for the count, barely able to eat even soup and in pain.
![]()
TREK DIARY DAY 5: A feet of endurance, a step back in time (Chame to Bhratang, 8943 ft to 9405 ft)
CHAME - At 7 a.m. Connie looks peaked but insists on hitting the trail. She's in pain and about a half mile down the trail I make a strong pitch for us to head back to town and have a recovery day. My pitch fails.
Step by agonizing step, Connie pulls herself four miles to the next town, looking like death but gutting it out. I don't know many people who could have made it in her condition.
Mercifully, we finally pull into the Wild West outpost of Bhratang, a two-donkey village with a handful of rough-hewn stone and wood buildings and the ruins of "old Bhratang" on the outskirts.
It's nearly a ghost town and its loneliness is accentuated by the frigid wind ripping through the narrow valley where Bhratang is perched between two glacier-scoured cliff faces that rise several thousand feet up and block the sun for much of the day. It's the hottest time of year and I'm freezing.
I admire the villagers and handful of scrappy pine trees that survive here - it must be a suicidal winter.
We pick the hotel with the crooked doors, leaning outhouse, and no lightbulbs - it was one of two choices we had. This is clearly not a normal stop for trekkers and it becomes my favorite village of the journey.
Two young women cook over an open fire; a three-month old baby coos in a basket, bundled in thick homespun wool. I wonder if he will ever leave Bhratang. The scent of woodsmoke hangs in the air and the streets are still, save for the bells of an occassional mule train. No one tries to sell us anything. I think to myself that this must be what it was like when my parents trekked the Himalaya more than 30 years ago.
![]()
![]()
TREK DIARY DAY 6: Pizza and yak heads or no mo' momo (Bhratang to Humde, 9405 ft to 11145 ft)
BHRATANG - The peaks are dusted by a fresh coat of snow and the air is cold with menacing clouds hanging low, but Connie has been restored by the peace of Bhratang and a serious dose of rehydration salts and we hit the trail in good spirits.
Ravens fly past and I spot the trip's first lammergeier, a condor-like vulture, circling hundreds of feet above, waiting for us to take a bad step.
In the eerie quiet of a pine forest, we pass abandoned shacks and an apparent religious site with piles of rocks left haphazardly and mysteriously throughout the woods.
The water station has burned down at our planned refill stop, so we fill up with well water and purification tablets. I do not love the taste of iodine in the morning.
As we pull into Humde, our rest spot for the night, a herd of goats walks with us and a filthy, smiling child salutes. The only action on the sleepy airport runway is a lone cow chewing the overgrown bush crowding out the tarmac. Perched high on a pole next to a stone hovel, is a ratty yak head with two prayer flags jammed into the skull. Very Mad Max.
The highlight of the day is a yak cheese pizza with barbeque sauce and carrots that actually resembled a pizza.
I am an ardent advocate of eating local when traveling, but the food in the Himalaya is one of the few downsides to trekking. Nepal may share a border with India, but gastronomically it's in a different hemisphere. There seems to be a spice embargo at the border, curry becomes watery lentil soup, and the highlight is water buffalo momos - and when your culinary highlight is steamed dough with meat something's amiss.
Each tea house has essentially the same menu - momos , noodle soup, fried rice, apple pie (surprisingly, prety tasty) - all blandly prepared over an open fire. After a week, you start to lose your appetite.
It gets to the point where something approximating pizza is like the best fois gras you ever had, followed by a cheese plate and a hearty bordeaux.
DHARAPANI - A brutal but beautiful climb gets the day started right, with a virtual staircase spiraling 1500 feet up, clinging precariously to cliff-sides, winding through forests and spitting us out into an alpine mosaic of pine trees and horse-filled pastures.
Sweaty, tired, but in a good rhythm we of course hit one of the annoyingly frequent Nepali government checkpoints, where we are filmed by a documentary crew - look out for some exciting footage of me handing over paperwork and a sleepy bureacrat working slowly.
During the climb we cross an invisible line between the (relatively) lowland villages with their Indian flavor and Hindu symbols to the Buddhist climes where multicolored prayer flags flap over villages of stone and wood guarded on each entrance by a string of prayer wheels.
With the elevation comes the first mountain chill and a sudden violent illness. Connie is down for the count, barely able to eat even soup and in pain.
That sweat-flavored orange electrolyte stuff saved the day.
TREK DIARY DAY 5: A feet of endurance, a step back in time (Chame to Bhratang, 8943 ft to 9405 ft)
CHAME - At 7 a.m. Connie looks peaked but insists on hitting the trail. She's in pain and about a half mile down the trail I make a strong pitch for us to head back to town and have a recovery day. My pitch fails.
Step by agonizing step, Connie pulls herself four miles to the next town, looking like death but gutting it out. I don't know many people who could have made it in her condition.
Mercifully, we finally pull into the Wild West outpost of Bhratang, a two-donkey village with a handful of rough-hewn stone and wood buildings and the ruins of "old Bhratang" on the outskirts.
It's nearly a ghost town and its loneliness is accentuated by the frigid wind ripping through the narrow valley where Bhratang is perched between two glacier-scoured cliff faces that rise several thousand feet up and block the sun for much of the day. It's the hottest time of year and I'm freezing.
I admire the villagers and handful of scrappy pine trees that survive here - it must be a suicidal winter.
We pick the hotel with the crooked doors, leaning outhouse, and no lightbulbs - it was one of two choices we had. This is clearly not a normal stop for trekkers and it becomes my favorite village of the journey.
Two young women cook over an open fire; a three-month old baby coos in a basket, bundled in thick homespun wool. I wonder if he will ever leave Bhratang. The scent of woodsmoke hangs in the air and the streets are still, save for the bells of an occassional mule train. No one tries to sell us anything. I think to myself that this must be what it was like when my parents trekked the Himalaya more than 30 years ago.
After a tea break in Bhratang it was back to the most brutal job in the world.
The lone resident of Bhratang.
TREK DIARY DAY 6: Pizza and yak heads or no mo' momo (Bhratang to Humde, 9405 ft to 11145 ft)
BHRATANG - The peaks are dusted by a fresh coat of snow and the air is cold with menacing clouds hanging low, but Connie has been restored by the peace of Bhratang and a serious dose of rehydration salts and we hit the trail in good spirits.
Ravens fly past and I spot the trip's first lammergeier, a condor-like vulture, circling hundreds of feet above, waiting for us to take a bad step.
In the eerie quiet of a pine forest, we pass abandoned shacks and an apparent religious site with piles of rocks left haphazardly and mysteriously throughout the woods.
The water station has burned down at our planned refill stop, so we fill up with well water and purification tablets. I do not love the taste of iodine in the morning.
As we pull into Humde, our rest spot for the night, a herd of goats walks with us and a filthy, smiling child salutes. The only action on the sleepy airport runway is a lone cow chewing the overgrown bush crowding out the tarmac. Perched high on a pole next to a stone hovel, is a ratty yak head with two prayer flags jammed into the skull. Very Mad Max.
The highlight of the day is a yak cheese pizza with barbeque sauce and carrots that actually resembled a pizza.
I am an ardent advocate of eating local when traveling, but the food in the Himalaya is one of the few downsides to trekking. Nepal may share a border with India, but gastronomically it's in a different hemisphere. There seems to be a spice embargo at the border, curry becomes watery lentil soup, and the highlight is water buffalo momos - and when your culinary highlight is steamed dough with meat something's amiss.
Each tea house has essentially the same menu - momos , noodle soup, fried rice, apple pie (surprisingly, prety tasty) - all blandly prepared over an open fire. After a week, you start to lose your appetite.
It gets to the point where something approximating pizza is like the best fois gras you ever had, followed by a cheese plate and a hearty bordeaux.
Really good writing brother, and quite a brutal climb indeed. That coupled with the altitude must've been something else, and I'm glad Connie made it out ok.
ReplyDelete