Right well finally the internet seems to have a decent connection so I will tell you about the trek. There is so much to tell but I will attempt to keep it brief. As you know the plan was to trek up to the Annapurna Base Camp (4135m) and then further up the mountain to a high camp after which we would attempt to climb Tent Peak (5665m).
Now firstly I will say that we decided to trek in the monsoon season. Not too many people do this and in fact in the trekkers guide to the Himalaya it describes people who decide to trek in the monsoon "as either extremely experienced (no), extremely enthusiastic (well sort of), or extremely stupid (ah right there's us then)." There are many reasons for this - the first one is that it is leach season. Now I have never actually seen a leach before and to be honest I had thought of them as somewhat mythical creatures. They are in fact very real and very fast and there only aim in life is to suck out all of your blood. They only exist in the monsoon and there are absolutely millions of them on the trekking trails at this time. There is no way to stop them getting on you they are so quick to jump on your boots, or they wait in trees until they feel the heat underneath and drop on your head (yes your head) then they start to suck. At some points we would have over 20 leaches crawling up our legs it was like something out of a horror film.. one day I even found one in my bra... yes that was a definite low point. They were only on the lower grounds so luckily we only had a few days of that but you can believe me when I say that was more than enough.
The other problem is that it rains continuously, which would not be such a bad thing because when its not raining it is so ridiculously hot that you wished it was raining, had it not been for the state of the trails. The "trails" were mainly made up of huge stone stairs going straight up or straight down the mountains (nothing was ever flat just up and down all day) and so the rain made them slippery. Very slippery. Moss covered, wet stone stairs they were just death traps waiting to happen. Right so apart from those two main problems there were definite benefits to trekking in the monsoon and the best bit was that we hardly saw any other trekkers the whole time and we literally had the whole place to ourselves which was great.
Next our team. We had a team of seven in total consisting of:
Endra - Our technical climbing guide
Dawaa - The Living Legend Technical Climbing Guide/ Porter/ Cook/ etc etc
Kissna & Pritibi - Our Porters also
Plus us.
That is quite a big team and we were quite suprised as we were all carrying all of our own personal gear but we hadnt considered the gear we would need for high camp these guys carried food, stoves, cutlery, tents etc and they were incredible. On the first day we all arrived gore-tex'd up to the max with all our coats and hiking boots and new bags - I managed to fit everything I owned into a 28 litre day pack which to anyone who goes hiking will know is tiny. These guys arrived sporting flip flops that were invariably at least two sizes too big and carrying two huge back packs tied together and then bundled into baskets along with around twenty other items on their heads. Talk about feeling inadequate.
Ok so we trekked up to ABC which took 6 days of trekking for around 5 hours a day - this is fat camp at its best I definitely see a business opportunity here for fat brits. Once at ABC we trekked up around 500m and back down again to help acclimatise. We all had headaches and flu symptoms by this point due to the elevation and they didnt go away until we descended a few days later. The day after ABC we trekked over a glacier, up a gulley and over some stupidly high hills to make a camp at around 4800m. That really was one of the most terrifying things I have ever done and if I can get some photos up of the sheer cliff drops we had to scale I will. The gulley was moving and shifting underneath us as we climbed and all around were fresh rocks the size of houses that had fallen down just a few hours earlier. Had they have fallen while we were there it would have been sudden death. I am not kidding it was insane. We were pretty relieved to reach the high camp and set up the tents and rest the past seven days had been really strenuous and we were now all suffering from the altitude to varying degrees.
The next morning was our summit attempt. Each night we had been taught various little techniques.. knots, how to use the Ice-axe & Crampons, cravass rescque etc so we had been training along the way. We were woken up at 1.30am and set off about an hour later. We had to trek for 2 1/2 hours to reach the crampon point and very soon after we set off it started to snow. Unfortunately the snow did not stop and in fact only got worse so around 7 hours into our attempt we turned back due to the conditions. We made it to within 300m of the top which is not bad for a first attempt on such a big mountain but we all felt defeated and a bit deflated. The trek back was horrendous. The snow had made the boulder fileds that we had climbed in the morning icy death fields and we were so exhausted that I just stopped caring about the possibilities of breaking an ankle or worse and just slipped and slopped the whole way down. Back at hight camp after a total of around 10 hours we were met with hot chocolate by the team and we just slept for the next 24 hours and then slowly made our way down.
The whole experiencewas trully amazing and we all have a real taste for mountaineering now. We did have another trip planned for November to Island Peak in the Everest Region but unfortunately I had a big fight with our guide on the last night about gay rights and now we hate each other. So I think we need a new plan as I dont trust him not to push me off if I actually made it to the top next time!!!
Ok off to work at the new orphanage this afternoon after some more fun at the visa office and we just said goodbye to Tim who is heading back to England after attempting Asia's highest bingee jump in Kathmandu.
Speak to you all soon,
Caroline x
1am start in the snow
These are the bridges we had to cross - double tree trunks rotten and slippery wet with huge drops underneath
See the blue building - that is ABC - the sheer cliff drop is what we had to climb down and later back up with all of our gear in order to get to High Camp.
And finally the team (Kissna, Dawaa, Pritibi)
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