Today’s route: Annapurna Base Camp to Dovan
Starting elevation: 13,669ft
Finish elevation: 8,228ft
Ascent: 837ft, Descent: 6,430ft
Fitbit active zone minutes: 40
QOTD: “I don’t like dark food” – Aqua
Today is a day I’m going to remember for a long long time (or at least until the dementia kicks in). We had arrived, triumphantly, at Annapurna Base Camp yesterday with the plan to get up early this morning and watch the sun rise over the Annapurna range, turning the peaks a blazing gold. There is a viewing area just a short walk from the back of the tea houses, so we were to meet in the dining room at 5.30am then head over to get in place for the main event. As ABC is extremely busy, the 8 of us were split across only 2 rooms (up until this point, we’ve had 3 or 4 rooms as a group), so Alison, Amanda, Aqua and I all bunked in together. It was a bit tight quarters – but at least having more bodies in the room warmed it up a bit!
As you saw from yesterday’s post, it was quite overcast and cloudy when we arrived. The weather closed in even more as the day progressed and by the time we all went to bed, the mountains were completely shrouded in thick swathes of cloud. We crossed our fingers and hoped for clear skies by the morning. We were all up at 5am, met at 5.30am in the dining room as arranged and were eager to head to the viewing area. Unfortunately, the weather still had not cleared so Sandip suggested we have a cup of tea first, to allow time for the skies to improve first. This was not a good sign.
When we finally did head over to the viewing point, we were greeted with the disappointing sight of Annapurna still covered in heavy cloud. We could see a tiny corner of Annapurna South – but that was pretty much it. Obviously, we could still see the rest of the valley and the glaciers which was still impressive- but not the main sight that we had come all this way for. It was hard not to be gutted as this was supposed to be the highlight of the trip – search for “Annapurna Base Camp” on the internet and the image of the mighty Annapurna Range shining golden in the sun will likely be the first one you see.
Afterwards, we headed back to the dining room for breakfast – a bit despondent, but determined to Look On The Bright Side and be grateful to be here and to have had this experience. While the food on this trip overall has been pretty underwhelming, breakfast today was especially strange as my oatmeal tasted distinctly of garlic on the first bite. Given how strongly the dining room smelled of garlic yesterday, it was probably not that surprising (Aqua also had oatmeal and made the same comment) so we think the kitchen might not have washed the chopping board between the metric tons of garlic they clearly worked their way through and the one apple they chopped up for our oatmeal. I sprinkled it with a metric ton of sugar and chalked it up as a New Taste Sensation. After brekkie, I went back to the room and started packing my duffel bag as we were going to be leaving around 8am. I started to hear some commotion, some cheering and the like, but I didn’t think all that much of it (maybe they were getting an early hand of Pizza Taco Banana Cat in?) – until suddenly Sandip was knocking on the door saying “come quickly, come quickly” and I realized that the beautiful, majestic Annapurna had finally decided to put on a show for us (it is said that she decides who to reveal herself to).
It was truly magical. We quickly hurried back to the viewing area and there she was – the full Annapurna range, stunning and impressive against a clear blue sky. We could see Annapurna South, Annapurna I, Annapurna II, GangnamStylePurna, Annapurna IV and Machhapuchhre (aka Fishtail mountain), It was actually almost emotional (high drama for a Brit), standing there, looking out across this breathtaking view and thinking of all the effort it had taken to get there. It really has been an incredible journey. As you can imagine, after the initial disappointment, the atmosphere of everyone there was one of celebration and jubilation as we all shared the same emotion of joy and wonder. Everyone had huge smiles on their faces and we all jostled for position to get the best shots, posing (safely, of course) on top of big boulders with arms outstretched, with the gorgeous mountains providing the perfect backdrop. Sharing in such a happy collective experience was just wonderful. I hope you get a least a little sense of that from the pictures below.
BUT! The fun was not over yet! For what goes up – must come down! And that was to be the focus of the rest of the day – in the words of our fearless leader Sandip – “descending, descending!”. We were going to be doing the exact same route from ABC back to Dovan, so retracing our footsteps through the villages of Himalaya and Deurali, through bamboo and rhododendron forests. We were to lose over 4.000ft of elevation over the course of about 5hrs, taking us back under 10,000ft.
The trail was brutal. I think it must have rained or snowed overnight as it was quite wet and slippy underfoot, especially as we were going through the forest, navigating tree roots, loose rocks and mud. We had just short of 9 miles to cover, taking us from ABC, past MBC and finishing up in Dovan, so today was a very long day’s hiking. As much as the demands were physical (lots of downhill = lots of stress on the knees), it was also very mentally challenging as you had to be constantly alert as to where you were placing your feet , so as not to trip and twist an ankle (or worse). We had to navigate the patches of avalanche that we’d crossed previously and also the trail felt a lot busier than it had been a couple days prior, so that was something else to be aware of. Its at times like these that I do wonder WHAT THE HELL I’M DOING as the potential for disaster is only one misstep away (Mum, feel free to skip this part of the blog) and that can start to freak you out if you think about it too much. A couple of ladies did slip and stumble (nothing serious, thankfully)- but that can really cause you to loose confidence quickly, which then makes everything even harder!
So, it was a bit of a slog – and honestly, I have no idea how on earth I managed to climb all this way upwards, a couple days ago, in the throes of my cold! I think I probably blacked out and walked on autopilot as there are stretches I don’t really remember at all!! I am starting to feel a bit better now (helped by a decent night’s sleep last night) and I certainly needed every bit of extra energy today. By the time we arrived in Dovan (the same tea house as before), it was just before 4pm, my feet were sore and I was completely knackered. Alison and I went and treated ourselves to a cup of Actual Coffee and slice of banana chocolate chip cake from a bakery/tea house a few steps away – and it was delicious. And we had earned every single last bite!
Tomorrow promises to be another brutal day (again!) as we are heading from Dovan, back to Chhomrong and onwards to Jovan Hot Springs. According to Sandip, there are several very steep inclines and declines and thousands of stairs. Oh good. He also says that this trek, to ABC, is actually harder than the route to Everest Base Camp, due to the stairs and the condition of the trail. That’s good to know as I consider what my next crazy adventure might be. I actually learned that I may suffer from a condition called Type 2 Fun – where something kinda sucks at the time, but then you look back on it and think “well, that was actually fun – lets do it again!”. So we’ll see!!
