Nepal: Snowy Himalayas!

For April 9 & 10

Tengboche was up at the top of a hill, which meant the first thing we did in the morning was head downhill.  But we didn’t stay down for long because after crossing a bridge it was time to head back up.  At the time I couldn’t help but think, “there are so many ups and downs on this trail, that the way back home could end up being almost as hard.”  

This was the day that we watched a nak herder trying to train some young nak.  There was one nak that was either too young to understand what was going on, or was just the problem child.  Instead of following the trail when it turned, the young nak just kept going straight up some rocks.  The herder kept trying to call it down, but it wouldn’t come.  I wonder how long it took for the nak to come back down, or if the man eventually had to go up and get him.

Some yaks passing us on the trail.  You can tell these are yaks because of how much hair they have.  Naks are less hairy.

My legs were definitely still weak which didn’t make the day any easier than the one before.  I did at least get some more garlic soup in me, which helped boost my energy after lunch.  I was still dealing with diarrhea, which was no fun.  Thankfully, while I was up and moving, for the most part it was fine.  It was when I settled down that my bowels felt it was time to be frequently evacuated.  

Partway to Dingboche (14,272) we crossed a confluence of two rivers.  If we had kept going straight, we’d head to Pheriche, which was how we were going to come back down.  Instead we headed to the right towards Dingboche.  It was a cloudy day so we couldn’t see really how high the mountains reached above us.  We knew that the mountain Ama Dablam was near, but couldn’t see it.  We also crossed the treeline and went from the forests that we had been in, to just small brush.  The lack of trees certainly made the wind increase, as well as the steepening valleys.  

Almost to Dingboche!

We finally made it into Dingboche, our resting place for the next 2 days, as the following day was another acclimation day.  The tea house we were in wasn’t nearly as nice as the others, but I got lucky with a room that actually had its own toilet.  This was important because there was a lot of time spent on the toilet (or actually squatting above the squatty potty) during the night.

It was that first evening in Dingboche that we met Kai and Ian, two guys from Germany.  Kai was planning to spend a while traveling in Nepal and Asia, while Ian was only staying to hike up to EBC and back.  This was also the first night we pulled out the UNO cards that Amy brought with her.  We taught Anil, Pemba, and Kai and Ian’s guide Kami how to play.  They got so into it.  We miraculously stayed at the same places as Kai and Ian for nearly the remainder of the trip, and I’m pretty sure this had something to do with UNO, so Kami could keep playing with us. We played UNO nearly every evening after for an hour at least, if not more. Usually Pemba or Kami would come in, smile, and say "UNO?"

Our first day in Dingboche was also the first day we heard rumors that there was Covid on the mountain.  We started being a little more cautious.  Little did we know that we were bringing Covid up the mountain.  I obviously wasn’t feeling well, and Louie looked at me and asked if there was any chance that I had Covid.  I said “no, my body just decided it wasn’t a fan of the altitude.  This happened to some of the guys on Kili.”  I shut down the idea of Covid quickly and I really truly did believe it was altitude and not Covid.  Just because you hike up a mountain without issues one time, doesn’t mean your body will readily accept it the next time.  Anyone who has hiked up to high elevations has read that and knows it is a risk.

One of our stops on our acclimation hike.

On Day 2 in Dingboche, we had an acclimation hike to do.  There was a ridge on one side of Dingboche with 3 flags on it at varying elevations.  Our goal was to make it as far as we could, though I was told I could take it somewhat easy and to just push as far as I felt I could. 

We hiked down to the lower end of town and made our way up to the stupa overlooking the village.  Even that was a bit exhausting.  From there we moved up higher to the crest of the ridge.  As we were doing this we had trekkers passing us on their way over the ridge and up to Lobuche, the next stop on the trail.  These were people who had already had their acclimation day and were moving on, just as we would the following day.

Our sort of clear day very quickly became an extremely unclear day.  I hadn’t really noticed the weather changing because I had been watching in front of me as we hiked up.  But what made me notice was the sound of a helicopter fly right over us from one side of the ridge to the other.  Fog/clouds were chasing it down the valley it had been traveling.  We then watched as it dropped down low over the river near Dingboche and continued down the valley as a quickly moving dense fog rolled up the valley.  Then the helicopter reappeared and settled down on a helipad in Dingboche, obviously deciding the fog was too thick for it to safely traverse through.  I bet in the matter of maybe 10 minutes we went from being mostly clear to mostly fogged/clouded over with short visibility.  It was amazing how fast the weather changed.

The yellow helicopter being chased down by the fast moving clouds.

We continued hiking up and eventually my legs said stop, so Anil and I sat down and waited while Pemba continued up the ridge with Amy, Renee, and Louie.  I figured I would sit up there and wait for the others to come back down.  I mean, hanging out 600 feet above where we were sleeping was better than nothing right?  So we stayed up there for an hour or so chatting.  It was interesting.  Anil was asking questions about living in the US.  Some of the questions were a bit difficult to answer because I know the answers vary so much depending on where you live and what you do.  He was asking about how much people make and what it costs to live there.  And we talked a bit about our families.  Eventually we decided we should head back down because it was windy up there, even out of the way where we were, and a bit chilly.  The others would meet us back down in Dingboche.  When I got back to the tea house, I snacked on raisins and crackers which I was doing alright with eating.  

A little while later the others got back and we set out to explore the village.  There wasn't nearly as much to explore as Namche Bazaar, but we found two different bakeries to stop in and relax for a bit.  As we walked through the village we also stopped to look at some of the shops.  I needed more toilet paper because my continuing diarrhea had me going through a lot more tp than I had expected to use on the entire trip.  I don’t remember what I paid for a single roll of toilet paper, but it was probably something like $5.  Oh well, I needed it.  I was also looking for more crackers since that was something I was doing alright with eating.

In the afternoon I was able to grab a shower, which felt nice.  This was something that was different from Kilimanjaro.  On Kili there were no showers.  While on the trail we even sang about how nice a shower would feel when we got back.  But on the EBC trail you could find showers in most villages, so I took advantage of that on 3 occasions.  

In the afternoon things finally started to clear out and we got an amazing view of the mountains that surrounded us.  Out one direction you could see Ama Dablam towering high above some of the other mountains in the area.  Looking in another direction you could see the top part of Tobuche sticking out over the ridge we were set to hike.  For the first time we were really surrounded by a number of true (by Nepali standards) mountains.  They were amazing.  I took so many photos!

Ama Dablam showing itself over out tea house.

In the evening before supper we did yoga out back of the tea house.  In one corner of the yard there were two small horses hanging out, tied up to a post.  One of them was a naughty little horse.  It pulled its post out of the ground, then walked around the yard, before eventually ending up at the corner where there were bags of hay.  He then decided he needed a bit of extra snackage and started eating it.  Renee went over and led the horse back to where he was supposed to be, but that didn’t last long.  She hadn't gotten the post put back deep enough into the ground so he quickly pulled it loose again and returned to the bags of hay.  Eventually a porter walking through the yard to his lodgings noticed the naughty horse and took him back to where he was supposed to be, before pounding the post back into the group with a mallet.  And that was the funny end to our day.