Day 9 - Manang (3500m) to Lattar (4200m)

Toby Diary

Manang to Chui Lattar 4250 metres! Up 750 metres.  Walk out of Manang at 8am in cold but sunny conditions (clear sky despite a few clouds around yesterday evening). Tilocho hotel had been good but expensive compared with others we have been through at R90 a night per head (hotel in Pisang had been basic but only R20 a night!). Long and steady climb up into the valley towards Thorong La with ever improving views behind us of Annapurna II (which we had not actually seen until today) and Gangapurna Glacier.  View ahead comparatively dull, just a steady plod up the path gaining height all the time.  Getting breathless and headache present again.  Also, though there is bright sunshine that is burning my legs, it is very cold.  Time for the caffeine to keep some warmth in my head and help the headache. 

Eventually stop for lunch at Yak Kerkha.  Noodle soup and momos go down without touching the side.  Ravens and Lammerguyas wheeling overhead all the time with other eagle like things.  Manage to snap some Lammars and, just as I do, a Yak train appears behind me.  This is a pleasant surprise as I thought we would not see Yaks until we were over Thorong La as indicated by Tensi.  The temperature is now 

well down and I put my fleece on to walk the next hour up to Chui Lattar.  This is getting to be really hard work now – where has all the air gone?!  Pass the Yaks grazing.  Mark A and I are finding the walking harder than the other two and are very glad to arrive at the Pera Chuk Letter Lodge (as recommended in the book).  There is absolutely nothing here except four or five lodges.  We can see what I think is Sya Cay which marks the southern flank of Thorong La itself.  We are only three hours and 150m from Thorong Phedi so an easier day tomorrow.  Arrive with a headache which luckily fades after some water and hot lemon.  After half an hour in the sun it is time to order dinner.  Then we sit around freezing our butts off for an hour and a half waiting for it to appear.  All the usual faces are in the freezing dining room.  All are up to Thorong Phedi tomorrow to go over the pass the day after.  After some good noodle soup for me the two Marks go to bed to stay warm at 7pm!  Jules and I try to stay up a bit longer.  Mark comes back and a bloke called Alex (Chinese from Vancouver) joins us for a few hands of cards until someone leaves the door open and the cold comes in.  We go to bed as it is well below zero and feels much worse.  Lots of stars but who cares, my bed beckons.

Middle of the night piss stop very unpleasant. 

Mark Diary

Leaving Manang at 3351 metres we enter into a barren and wild landscape.  It is colder now and none of us are now wearing t-shirts.  Where the path lies in shadow there is ice and despite the warming sun on our backs the wind from the front brings with it the cold of the snow covered peaks higher up the valley. 

The altitude is now beginning to tell; on the flat we press on much as before.  When you hit a hill though things are different and the body retaliates.  You are slower and it takes only a few steps before you are panting in this thin air.  You do not think of time or tiredness or how far to go, you think only of keeping a rhythm of your steps to help you along.  The rhythm is everything; sing a song in your head to help, nothing is more important.  Slipping and losing the rhythm is worse than rounding a corner on the path and seeing more ascent.  Keep the rhythm.  Trudge.  Trudge.  Trudge.  Your legs do not complain; they are strong after a week.  It is your whole body that wants to stop and you must focus the mind on walking.  You have little time for the scenery, for the mountains and the blue sky.  You focus on the ground and the rhythm.  And then the path flattens.  A whole weight is suddenly lifted.  The need for effort is gone.  You walk naturally again at a steady pace and your mind, now freed from fighting your body, takes in once again the fantastic mountain views. 

This pattern of relaxation and effort, of looking at the scenery and then focusing on the climb, repeats itself as we head gently upwards into the thinning Himalayan air.  We head up through the arid valley and along its edge, nothing but dry shrub and juniper bushes and occasionally a herd of Yak until we round a final spur and see the next valley dropping away to our left.  And then we see Lattar, nothing but a couple of buildings perched on the side of the valley.