Walking with Giants — Descending
Posted Wednesday 10th November 2021
Contents
- Whale Song in The Mountains
- Blessings at Tengboche and Dyning in the Dyning Room
- Abandoned by the Expedition Dog
- Back at Lukla
This story started in Kathmandu in November 2003. Having had our first taste of the great high mountains we were now setting off back to Lukla and the start of a second high mountain adventure.
Whale Song in The Mountains
We had an early start again, this time walking out of the camp just as the sun reached the lake below. The valley was filled with a sound not unlike whale-song that in some obscure way was generated by warming of the ice on the lake far below. Every so often it gave off with a resounding thunderous crack as the ice warmed and split. A somewhat eerie sound for the high mountains.
As the ice warmed up it gave forth with an aural concert.
Jill had gone early on a solo side trip. In time, as we set out walking, the lake dropped behind us, but somewhere along the way we missed a turn that would have put us on the east side of the river, Lobouche Khola, and so we had to follow the west bank southwards.
At the same time, we caught up to Jill, who had Poon and the expedition dog to accompany her — they were wading across the river. That is all except the dog, which had to be piggy-backed across. We continued on the west side heading downstream.
In time it became apparent that while our cook and mobile kitchen were somewhere on the east side, we were isolated on the west side creating a bit of a problem for lunch. Eventually, after a long morning and with quite a few in the party beginning to fade despite going downhill, we stopped at a ‘restaurant’ at Orsho and sent a messenger to the cook to bring lunch to us rather than we go to it.
The Imja Khola wriggled its way down a deepening valley.
In time lunch arrived and normality (and blood sugar levels) were restored. The afternoon objective was Pangboche which turned out to be only a slow hour below our lunch stop. The route was down a steep sided valley with the river increasingly a long way below and the tops of the surrounding mountains going out of sight upwards.
A number of the trekkers slow walking along the track toward Pangboche.
By common consent we stopped at the Highland Sherpa Resort for an air cooled beer while waiting for our camp to be set up on a nearby small level plot of land with attached kitchen / dining room and with a hot shower (two kettles full of warm water per person).
By now we were down below 4000 metres (13,120 ft, the lowest since Phortse Thanka seven days ago), so things were rapidly getting better on that front. For a bit of variety, this being on the well-travelled Everest Base Camp track, we had the company in the dining room of several Americans and a Pom who were on their way uphill.
At this point we had a rest day coming up so were in no hurry. This was not for acclimatisation (we were on our way down) but rather just to have our first break since the evacuation at Dole, and the fairly arduous intervening high altitude crossing.
Next morning, we had a late start, largely occupying our time with domestic duties, such as clothes washing and particularly taking advantage of the shower facility, suitably punctuated with lemon tea in the dining room.
Following lunch, we trekked a fair way straight up to the local Gompa, where a number of monks and novices were reciting their 108 books of texts, a process that would take two weeks to complete. Their recitation was in a rather appealing sing-song chant, albeit far from synchronised. Although the language was quite beyond us it was a rather moving experience, which had an impact on all the group. The remainder of the afternoon was spent largely indoors in deference to the somewhat windy and cloudy afternoon.
Blessings at Tengboche and Dyning in the Dyning Room
It was back to a reasonably early start next morning such that we arrived at Tengboche, site of the fabled monastery, just as the sun penetrated the valley. Consequently, we had time to explore the place as well as having morning tea.
Tengboche Monastery, probably the best-known Buddhist monastery in Nepal.
At any time arriving at Tengboche from a western country would be exotic beyond belief, but arriving there from the high, cold uplands further north gave it a different complexion entirely. It had an aura of civilisation, albeit in a Nepalese context. In time we left for a long but fairly manageable descent to our old friend, the Dudh Kosi, on its way down from Gokyo.
Tengboche is overlooked by Everest and Ama Dablam.
This was a quintessential Nepalese day in as much we descended more than 800 metres only to have to ascend more or less the same to get to our destination at Kunde. Prior to arrival at our destination, we had a bit of a delay while our cook reclaimed food supplies that had been cached many days earlier.
At Kunde we arrived at an unattended Guest House, which in time we gained admittance to. The ground floor had a couple of bovines in residence while up a ladder was the ‘dyning’ room, which we were able to use until bed time — as always that was in the tents. The lodge was able to supply beer, which apart from not being refrigerated (not really an issue at high elevation), had been carried in either by a porter or on a yak train, something to give a bit of a pause for thought.
Abandoned by the Expedition Dog
We had an early start today into low cloud, which after a while dissipated enough for a bit of weak sun to break through.
Cloud rolling in to welcome the new day.
Our route was down to Namche Bazaar and then retracing our steps to Phakding, a total descent of nearly 1600 metres. At least by the end of the day we were at an elevation slightly less than half of that at Gokyo Ri and Cho La. At Namche we had time to send a few emails as well as have morning coffee (a pleasant change from tea) before a slow descent to again join the Dudh Kosi.
Namche Bazaar is nestled in a the only place that is not nearly vertical.
Upper Namche Bazaar — the route from Kunde is the zig zag track upper right.
Descending doesn’t require much actual exertion but the necessary braking puts an awful lot of stress on knees which generally slowly turn to jelly. It was notable that the rather agile Sherpas often cut the corners on zig zag sections enabling them to more than keep up with the trekkers with less effort.
In time we arrived at the river and stopped for a riverbed lunch at the same spot as on the way up two weeks ago. While we were lunching the expedition dog, which had attached itself to us at Machermo, deserted and instead joined one of the Japanese groups heading in the opposite direction.
The gorge below Namche, into which we descended, gives a new perspective to the word.
One of the numerous waterfalls we passed during our walk along the Dudh Kosi.
As well as trekking groups there were numerous porters carrying produce (meat, vegetables, beer), presumably for the Saturday Namche market, while later in the day we met another cluster of similarly laden porters, but in this case presumably from the Thursday Lukla market.
Sunrise Lodge and surrounds at Phakding.
We stopped off at the same lodge (Sunrise Lodge) at Phakding as we did on the way up. The thicker air, now around 75% of normal sea level, and marginally milder temperatures made for better sleeping all round.
Back at Lukla
The morning walk up to Lukla took only a fairly short time which meant we had most of the afternoon in the Paradise Lodge. I felt a bit off colour but, in the end, it came to nothing this time. The afternoon was spent whiling away time reading, playing cards — the usual concocted game of Oh Shit, or simply nodding off.
It was Jill’s last night with us so the cook produced a cake (cooked on a kerosene stove top) with a “Thanks for Visit” message iced onto it. Phakding was the lowest elevation we would be at until Boksum Gompa in around eight days’ time. In the mean time we were facing some fairly steep climbing and high elevations again — all the more reason to take things easy while we could.
Next morning we had an early start so that Jill could get her flight back to Kathmandu. The Sherpas did all the preliminaries such that we all had time for a second morning breakfast and a bit of cards before the flight was called (a relative term only — flight expected sometime is probably more accurate). We all went around to the terminal, all of a couple of hundred metres at most, at around 09·30 to say our farewells and despatch her through the security system.
The first plane to arrive was a Russian built helicopter, followed by a BKK 117 twin tail helicopter, both doing freight, before a stream of Dornier 228’s and a Twin Otter arrived, but from the wrong airlines. Finally, three Yeti Airlines Twin Otters arrived.
In increasingly marginal conditions and Jill was able to board around 13·00. Given this was the first day in the last three that flights were able to get into Lukla there were, unsurprisingly, a large number of people coming and going at the airport terminal — an area not much bigger than a basketball court. We spent the rest of the day, after a delayed lunch, relaxing at the lodge in anticipation of what would turn out to be some rather arduous days in the near future.
