Happy MO-vember

To all the gentlemen taking part in the coming month's facial hair festivities, I wish you the best of luck. I've got a bit of a head start on the 'ol soup strainer. Hopefully it'll keep me warm up the mountain.

Off Again - Mt Everest and Island Peak

This one should be fun...

Tomorrow I fly from Kathmandu into Lukla, onto a paddock, I mean runway inclined at 18 degrees, which should make for an interesting start. From there Ill make my way up through the villages to The Mt Everest base camp, sitting at 5400m. Hopefully the weather will be clear and I'll be able to stand at the bottom of the Top of the World with a decent view of the surroundings.
From there, (hopefully fully acclimatised), I'll stroll back down the hill to Dingboche and hook a left to Chhukung, where I get to strap on the big boots, sharpen up the crampons and ice axes, and practise my knot tying in preparation for Imje Tse, better known as Island Peak. The name Island Peak was given as the mountain sits as a land mass surrounded by glaciers from larger surrounding mountains, including Lhotse and Nuptse.
We will have one practice run up to the top of Chhukung Peak, which is around 5700m, before moving through a couple of camps to the base of Island Peak. Then a 3am start will have us trenching through the dark to hopefully reach the summit (that sound so cool) by around 9 or 10am. 6166 metres above sea level should give us a clear view of Pumori, Ama Damblam, Nuptse, Lhotse, and maybe Everest. The photo below is the final 100 mtres on the South Ridge.

This will be my first taste of proper climbing, and though I've been assured it's 'an easy one' by my sherpa, (a real sherpa!) I'll still be taking my time. Harnesses, ropes, carabinas, sharp things on my hands and feet, pitching tents in the snow, teas brewing on a propane stove, endless amounts of Gore-Tex, -20 degrees on a clear night: should be fun?
I'll be back in kathmandu between the 18-22 of November, depending on the weather. Again, wish me luck!

Time On My Hands in Kathmandu

The Kids of Nepal

More Annapurna - Week 2, Over The Pass

At the top of Thorung-La Pass. Icy cold.

Day 13-Appalling Fashion 101 in the Mustang Valley.

Day 14-Suspension bridge #294. The longest bridge of the trip was a shaky 150 metres long.

Day 15-Danny looking way more buggerred than usual. We were all nursing the only hangover of the trek, after spending 7 hours in the 38 degree natural hot springs the afternoon/evening before, where they serve cheap beer and popcorn in a 5 hour 'happy hour'. We weren't the only ones doing it tough as a result.

Day 16-The best views from the trek at the delightfully named Poon Hill. I wish dawn was at a more civilised time of the day, as it seems all the nice places to see on this trip are best viewed at sunrise, which in this case meant our walk started at 4am again.

Mount Machtapuchre (fishtail)

Dhaulagiri in the centre.

Day 18-The bus back to Pokhara, where 3 eye fillet steaks and a hot shower were waiting patiently...

More Annapurna

Day 5-The mayor of Chame, a village of around a thousand people. After requesting his photo, he insisted I enjoy a drink with him of the local rice wine. Kind of a cross between vodka and Windex.

Day 8-Gangapurna Lake, 4000m. A run up 10 stairs left you struggling for 5 minutes. Climbing up to this fluoroescent lake had us needing a rest day.

Day 9-Yak Khaka. Creatively named after the yaks. This guy was a total poser.

Day11 - going over the top of Thorung-La Pass at 5416m. This was the one bit of sky we saw on this day. Seconds after this photo was taken I was enveloped in snow, and visibility fell to about 15 metres.

Annapurna Circuit - 18 Days of Nature's Finest

The journey started out with my 2 travelling partners pulling out cause they're sooks. Who ever heard of a landslide hurting anyone.... Luckily the father and son combo of Danny and Andrew Hogan from Melbourne were standing by to jump in their place. Danny is the CEO of a local council who lives in a town of 100 people, and Andrew is an accountant that lives for the Collingwood Magpies, but they're actually really fun and interesting guys.

Andrew (left) and Danny, smiling at 4 am in shin-deep snow at -8 degrees C. Troopers.

Me at the same time: colder than it looks.

We left on the local bus from Kathmandu with our guide Sajit, and our porter, Bessunta. Sajit started as a porter when he was 12 years old, serving his apprenticeship for 4 years until he graduated to trainee guide. For 2 years he acted in this role before successfully passing his exams to become a full-blown guide at age 18. Now aged 23, he demands quite a bit of respect from his peers, as he is fluent in all Nepali languages, English, French and German. Bessunta was 32 years old, and happy to be a porter. So we were in good hands.

Sajit

Bessunta (he's in there somewhere, above the thongs)

I could bore you with a day-by-day account of the trek, but the best way is just to show a couple of photos from each day. The photos should give you an idea of the countryside, but there really is no camera lens wide enough to show you the magnitude of the scenery. It's just bloody huge.

Each day started at around 6am, walking by 7, finished by 2 or 3, in bed by 8pm.

Day 1 - Riding on the roof of the bus with the locals

There were enormous slips of land like this puppy every half an hour for the first week. We didn't see any in action luckily.

Day 3 - Marajuana grows wild up around here. These little guys rub the buds and leaves between their hands, then scrape off the resin that gathers and sell it to the trekkers as smokable hashish. Clever kids. Stupid trekkers with the altitude rising.

Day4 - Waterfall #628

More to come....

It's OK

For anyone that's concerned, I made it back OK. Photos will be up in the next day or two.

On To Annapurna

Apparently the weather on the mountains has settled now, and the snow/landslides have stopped, so tomorrow my sherpa I set off on a trek around the Annapurna Circuit, which I am now aiming to complete within 18 days. The maximum altitude reached will be at the peak of Thorung La Pass, which at a height of 5416 metres above sea level stands as the highest publicly trekked mountain pass in the world. It's actually higher than the Mt Everest Base Camp, and has a realtive oxygen level of around 55% compared to sea level, so this bit will be taken a little slower.

I should (hopefully) be back in civilisation by about the 22nd or 23rd, so I will put up some photos and comments then. Wish me luck!

Kathmandu - waiting for the landslides to stop (!)

Thamel, the main tourist hub of Kathmandu, is full of interesting arts and crafts stores, separated only by an equivalent number of trekking stores, hostels and travel agents. This store seems to be packed all hours of the day, with demonstrations available on request.

This is a plate of delicious Nepali 'buff momos'. Like the Indians, Nepalese people don't eat cows (but mysteriously there are none in the streets here?), but they cleverly get around it by eating the equally tasty buffalo.

Today I was supposed to be setting off on a 20 day trek around the Annapurna Circuit, however some adverse weather and a series of landslides have put that plan on hold for a few days. That has given me some more time to enjoy Kathmandu, including holiday stuff like reading, eating, drinking, watching the cricket with the locals and sleeping in.

More goods are transported by people-power in Nepal than all other forms of freighting combined. This includes food, water, fuel, textiles, building materials, and in this case, a fridge.