Day 11: On to Thorung La High Camp

10.14.08

Thorung La High Camp
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Invading clouds obscure the landscape,
Window of blue sky and white peaks,
Golden clouds reflect the sunset.

- sitting a little ways up from high camp, I was watching the sunset as the clouds were moving in.

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This morning we had tsampa for breakfast - our host fed us in the kitchen since it was too cold in the dining room. He let us add our cost - he seemed to trust us and perhaps this business was more for fun. Maybe the missus prefers him to be busy and doing something out of the house - though I only presume.

Alex and I came up to Thorung Phedi in about 2.5 hours, enjoyed a quick snack then headed up to high camp and were up there in less than 4 hours (3hr 50mins). The time was good and we felt good so our acclimatization schedule was working well. We did a little bit of running at altitude with our packs on since there was a fear of landslides at one section. Alex had also had a rough night since the daal bhat didn't sit too well with him - a combination of all this made him a little sick at high camp. Now he's doing better, which is good, since both of us prefer to stay here instead of going down. In the evening we walked to the deurali (viewpoint) - it was lovely. We could see the summit of Annapurna III and Gangapurna and 360deg views of snow covered peaks. We see the Thorung la pass, it looks like a slog. There is a dramatic rock face with some snow one one side (southwest?).

High camp is an interesting place, you hear many languages: Hebrew, Russian, Swiss German, Nepali, and Hindi because I'm conversing with a guide who's also a management student and watches Bollywood movies. We also met a female guide with the 3 sisters trekking company. Alex met a group of Russians doing the trek. One of them, from St. Petersburg, thought I was a journalist because of my voracious note taking. He's a construction working, an expert crane operator. He and his friends started on the 9th, are at high camp on the 14th - fast - they fly out of Delhi on the 19th so they have to be fast. Incidentally, their pace was too much for their guide who got altitude sick and went down while they continued - I thought that was pretty funny!