Trek The Unknown

We decided to leave early as we were worried there will be no accommodations available in high camp. High camp is the highest and closest camping place to Throng La pass. If you want the hardest day of the trek the be as easy as possible, try spend the night before crossing the pass at High camp.

High Camp has a accommodations for 110 persons, whoever reaches too late gets to sleep in the dining room. nobody get to be thrown out, don’t worry

Eventually instead of leaving at 7AM we left at 8:30AM. We knew we have something like 2.5-3 hour of walking till Throng Phedi (That’s the place to stay for the night before High Camp). Throng Phedi means, under the mountain or hill, which is of course under Throng La pass area, the highest place around.

We reached Throng Phedi at 9:50AM. This was a good start for the day…Walking there includes some uphill walking but a lot of it is also straight surface.

Throng Phedi was discovered to be a VERY nice place. We stopped there to get used to the height of 4450 meters.

At 10:30 we decided to go on. We understood that the hardest climb of the trek is just beyond us. The Climb is one hour long it’s slow hard to breath walk. Some people that want to acclimatize thmeselves get to Throng Phedi climb to high camp and then walk back down to Throng Phedi. Then next day they climb this again. we acclematized ourselves enough in Mananag and along the way, we stayed extra nights at some places and climbed a little every day.

Entering into high camp we found there are 2 camp sites. The 1st buildings you’ll see on your left are the old buildings. don’t waste your energy that you don’t have anyway to walk around there. Keep walking up a little more to the buildings on the left. This is the new camp.

At High Camp we took 2 rooms. it really didn’t seem the acoomodation there were too crowded.
After resting and settling out breath we decided to go for a walk around. there is a mountain right beside the camp which is 100-150 meters higher than the camp itself. There is a great view for there and it’s highly recommended.

At the Time of year we were there (end of October) the whole mountain side was covered with snow. It’s was great sliding on it using the plastic coats we had! Try not to slide accidentally to unknown places where only a helicopter can help getting you out of.

Since high camp is a almost the highest place around, if the sun is out there aren’t any mountains disturbing it’s way into the greenhouse like dinins room. It’s VERY plesent and warm (as long as the sun is shining), with big glass windows watching the whole area around.

pricing:
room for a night: 320 NR
Spaghetti: 190 NR
potato curry (recommended): 130 NR
Veg fried rice (recommended): 190 NR

Since high camp is an isolated place there is no meat in the menu, only veggie stuff.
also, There is light at the rooms (on some other guest houses on previous days there wasn’t) and an early dinner is served at 4:30 PM.

We went to sleep very early at around 6:00 PM , because our plans were to wake up at 4AM in order to cross Throng La Pass.

We Left Manang, it was Thursday morning. I had mixed feelings…after the unsuccessful previous day, I was a little disappointed from it, but on the other hand was anticipating to reach Throng La.

We Left at 8:55 in the morning and reached Yak Karka at 12:15 PM. walking from Manang to Yak Karka is easy. A little bit of an uphill trail but really not too bad. Towards Yak Karka there is an half an hour to an hour of almost straight walk, with no uphills or downhills. These are the times when we had our chance of really enjoy to views, without worrying about our next physical challenge.

We decided we will spend the night at Yak Karka. It was the beginning of November which is high season. We were afraid there won’t be any rooms left for all of us ( we were a group of 4 people). Eventually we found a guest house. It wasn’t even too hard.

Since we arrived early, it was only noon time I sat in the dinning room and learned some Chinese. I started talking to a 60 years old man from Canada. His name was wain. He said that it’s the toughest physical challenge he ever had. At some point he showed me his camera and said it’s not working, he thought he needs a new charger…I needed a few minutes to figure out that a remarkable button named “RESET” would solve the problem. He was very greatful!

I think this is the greatest magic in traveling. I love these encounters with people from all around the world. learning about their culture, home, work. It’s fascinating!

here’s some common pricing at Yak Karka:
2 Boiled eggs – 80 NR
Chapati (2 pieces) – 80 NR
Vegetable soup – 95 NR
double room – 150 NR

The next day we headed to Letdar. Letdar is just a few guest houses on the mountains. It’s not really a village. villagers from Manang built these Guest houses ( there are 4 of them, I think) for travelers. Letdar is very close to Yak Karka, 35 minutes walk…We took it easy and spent Friday and sauterday resting there.

Letdar is more expensive than Yak Karka since as you go higher all services are more expensive. just think that the food you are eating made the same way you did on the back of one of the many porters working in the area.

costs at Letdar:
2 Boiled eggs – 100 NR
chapati (2 pieces) – 100 NR
Veg spring roll – 180 NR
Spagetti with tomato souce – 190 NR
double room – 200 NR

Leaving Out Chame in the morning let’s you enjoy a pleasant walk, except of one climb before reaching Bhratang. We left Chame at 7:25 in the morning and reached Bhartang at 9:05, total of one hour and a half. The road goes along and reaches Dhukur Pokhari, we were there two hours and 10 minutes later, the walk was still nice and easy.

At this day you reach a dryer part of the Annapurna range. The vegetation is thinner and less trees are around.

Sometime later we reached Lower pisang ( Acap map show that you 1st reach Upper Pisang and then Lower Pisang, but on the way we took which was shorter it goes the other way around ).

the trails inside lower Pisang are a little big confusing. There is one split on the way that goes to Upper Pisang, from there the road continues to Ghyaru.

A shorter way would be to keep go straight on the road until you see a big prayer wheels wall. From there you get 2 choices. The harder and nicer one would be to turn right towards the end of the well and cross the bridge. If you want the easier ,less scenic way just keep walk straight. This is a pretty straight road with no ups and downs going all the way to Manang. We chose the harder one and turned right.

When you cross the bridge after turning right you will see Upper Pisang on your right (even when you are in Lower Pisang, you always see Upper pisang on the other side of the river). Take a left turn right after the bridge. This is the way to Ghyaru.

The way now is very easy with short climbs up. You will walk by a small clear lake and right after it there is another bigger lake (The clearest one I’ve seen in my life!Beautiful!). In order to enjoy it’s view, leave the trail and go along the shore. If you keep go along the lake shore you’ll bump again to the trail so don’t be afraid loosing it.

Again…walking is fairly easy now…until you reach a bridge. Cross it…and look up…Ghyaru is up there. The Climb is long and took us almost an hour ( I think it was around 50 minutes). But I must say after almost a week of walking I felt this climb was easier for me to climb than I thought it will be. Your body will get use to these kind of climbs and walks.

The view is more beautiful from each moment to another. When you reach Ghyaru you see a few of the annapurna range tops. From left to right you are able to see: Annapurna II, Annapurna IV, Annapurna III, Gangapurna and Tilicho Peak on the far right.

It’s truly amazing!

This Day begins with a hard climb inside a forest , then the trail goes above the Marsyangdi River again. Towards Tanchok the trail goes down again and crosses a small river and goes up again for a short steep climb. Right after this climb there is a very nice place to rest on top, so gather all your strength and smile!

A few minutes walk more further and you’ve reached Tanchok Village. The trail doesn’t go straight through the village.

After Tanchok, it’s a really easy nice walk to Chame. The Next Village after Tanchok is Koto and it took us 45 minutes reaching there. 20 minutes after Koto and you are in Chame ( ACAP map states it taked 45 minutes walk from Koto to Chame).

On total we started walking at 7:25 in the morning and reached Chame at 12:00 ( 4 hours 35 minutes) , including some stops for rest.

Have a fun walk!

All I can say about Day 2…It was a HARD day! It doesn’t seem so hard on the map we got from the NCAP ( Annapurna Conservation Area Project ). 460 m climbing on a 16 KM walking…But This was our 1st day of really walking and not sitting-on-the-bus type of day….We started at 8:20 in the morning in Bhulbhule and finished at 17:20 in Jagat village which is almost dark by then.

The next day (day 3) we walked from Jagat (left at 8:00) to Danaqyu (arrived at 16:20). This day was a little easier from the day before. On the ACAP map (it’s not really a map but just tells you how much you need to climb/go down from one village to another, how much time it suppose to take and how many KM you walk) it says that the end of the walking on that day meaning from Dharapani to Danaqyu? suppose to be a very steep hard walk.

We were very tired at that point but wanted to go a little more. eventually that part of walking was climbing but a really easy walk comparably to other parts we already done that day and the day before.

On that day after a hard climb before Tal village We met the Maoists. On the previous post I also talked about them. Generaly speaking, they are a political group, that makes this country unstable politically and that’s why people are afraid to come to Nepal ( By the way…no need to be scared. read the previous post )

Anyway, after this really hard climb ( It was even written on my map: “hot steep climb!” ), we see a bunch of people sitting near a table with a red flag next to it. As we approached the table they were really nice and said: “hello, we are the Maoists, We take donation…”

We’ve been told by our porter that they ask for money according to the number of days you are trekking, therefore you need to say you finish in a closer place than you are really going to end your trek. They take 100 Nepali Rupee per day per person.

After a short negotiation my friend and me each paid 1000 Rupees. We even got a receipt so the next time we meet them , we can show them we already paid.

We also met some large groups of people traveling together that just walk though them without paying…So if you really broke and can’t pay…well…get your own conclusion…I don’t want to cause any harm to any tourists because of that…also, we haven’t seen that they are carrying any weapons …:)