Over Thorung La Pass
Manang, with its prayer flags and maze of narrow flagstone streets and steps, is both a destination and a starting point. For many trekkers who have laboured up the Marsyangdi valley from Dumre this cluster of low stone buildings, perched across the valley from the towering snow-clad peaks Gangapurna and Annapurna III, is the climax of their journey, a place to relax and savour the grandeur of the Himalayas before retracing their steps to Dumre.
For others, like ourselves, Manang, with an elevation of 3,351 m, was a place to pause, go for a climb, and acclimatize before moving on to the 5,380 m (17,650 ft) summit of Thorung La pass.
Despite the resonant snoring of an Italian chap who shared our room, we left Manang feeling refreshed and energized by the previous day's climb. Half an hour later we passed through Tengi, the last permanent settlement below the Pass, and followed the trail northwest up a tributary of the Jargeng Khola.
The dry, alpine landscape criss-crossed with low stone walls is uninhabited except for a few sheep and yaks. An occasional goTH (shepherd's hut) and patches of scrub birch along some of the streams provide the only shelter from the wind. We paused for lunch at one of the streams and watched a large American party pass. Their porters, decked out in war-surplus GI uniforms, legs of folding tables and chairs protruding from huge packs, looked like a legion of troops headed for the front.
Three hours out of Manang we arrive at Leder, set up our tent on a low hill well away from the small bhaTTi (Nepalese Inn), and watch the human pantomime unfold as group after group of trekkers roll in.
The Americans who passed us earlier have taken all the space in the bhaTTi and are holding their ground. A small French party, suffering from cold and altitude sickness, turned back from the Pass and is trying to negotiate a spot inside. Below us a German group is ordering their porters, armed with a wooden hoe, to level out a tent spot on the rocky slope, repeatedly testing and rejecting each effort. They are still at it when we go to bed.
Even bundled up in all our clothes we were cold during the night, and it is good to warm stiff hands on a cup of hot tea before starting the day's climb. Lama left before daylight to secure our group a spot inside the small shelter at Pheti, where we will spend our last night before crossing the Pass.
Leaving Leder we pass the three Germans standing dissolutely beside a great pile of gear. According to Babu their porters finally rebelled and headed back to Manang.
Our slow ascent from the lowlands of Dumre was beginning to pay off and, unlike many of the other trekkers, we arrived early at Thorung Phedi (4,404 m.) barely aware of the altitude. Two of the Italian girls had throbbing headaches and the group headed back to Manang.
Later that evening an Israeli girl, face swollen, delirious, was literally dragged through Phedi by two of her comrades. Young, strong, and foolish, they had flown in to Jomisom and headed over the Pass without any acclimatization.
Hunkered down out of the wind, Babu coaxed a pot of warm tea from the tiny fire he had built in the shelter of a low rock wall. After a cold lunch Betty and I spent the afternoon climbing to 4,600 m north of Phedi, where we watched a heard of blue sheep foraging on steep, cliff-bounded talus slopes. By the time we got back to the beds Lama had secured for our group it was clear the goTH-keeper was not limiting his sales to the space available. The straw-covered platform where we had placed our packs and planned to spend the night was fully occupied. But, as the bitter cold of evening settled in, we wedged ourselves in among the down-covered bodies of other exhausted trekkers and tried to get some sleep.
It's not necessary to start the climb across Thorung La Pass at 2:30 in the morning but Lama was determined to stay ahead of the large groups. An unseasonable storm had dumped five feet of snow, closing the Pass until only a few days before our arrival and the trail was now a thigh-deep trench, making it impossible to pass a slow-moving, overburdened porter.
We were the first to leave Phedi. Bundled up in down jackets and using flashlights to follow Lama we made good progress and were at least 300 m above Phedi before the lights of the next group began blinking their way up the trail.
About two hours into our climb the brilliant display of stars was joined by a crescent moon that cast eery, silver shadows across the glistening snow. We put out our lights and traversed across a steep avalanche slope where Lama paused to tell us, in his usual reassuring way, that this is where a Japanese party got wiped out a couple of years earlier.
At about 5,000 m the effect of altitude kicked in and we slowed to a steady, robot-like pace, each deliberate step timed to maintain normal breathing- and heart-rate. Half way to the summit the stars in the eastern sky began to dim and the peaks of Gangdang and Chulu, both over 6500 m, were silhouetted against a deep yellow sunrise.
The eastern approach to Thorung La is a seemingly endless series of false summits, a succession of hopes, disappointments, and continued upward plodding. When we finally reached the top, five hours after leaving Phedi, it came as a surprise. Suddenly, perched on the 5,380 m divide between Marsyangdi and Kali Gandaki drainages, we could look west toward Dhaulagiri and east toward the mountains of Tibet.
Betty and I lingered at the summit with Lama for about an hour while the rest of the group headed down. Biress, our young porter is suffering from altitude sickness. He is not alone! We watch the American group arrive. Their porters, exhausted, many of them nauseated, drop their loads and collapse beside the trail. Lama explains that these are farm or city people who accepted the offer of good pay but had never been in the high country and were unprepared for either the exertion or the altitude.
By the time we started down toward Muktinath the sun was high and warm. The trail, slick and icy at first, quickly thawed and we found ourselves running down the switchbacks, oxygen-starved lungs rejoicing in the thickening air. At the first teahouse the trickle of water beside the trail had grown to a small stream, where a girl of six or eight squatted in the ditch washing the establishment's cups. We ordered some tea with hot milk and presented our own cups, which were slightly larger than theirs. Not to be cheated the proprietor carefully ladled the brew first into one of his cups then poured the correct amount into ours. We thanked him, wondering who was unsure of the concept, him or us?
Reluctantly adding a few drops of iodine, we took our tea out into the sun and reflected on what seemed an eternity since we left Manang but was, in fact, only three days in the surreal, larger-than-life world of the Himalayas.