Trekking in the Solukhumbu - Day 13: Starting the Descent

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Gokyo Lake

Dateline: April 8th, 2010

My sack time last night was interesting. Sleep was light enough that I had some really weird dreams going on. I'm talking about the type of psychedelic weirdness that I also experienced while on anti-malarials in Brazil. I'm pretty sure I was pregnant at one point during the dream. And I can guarantee I wasn't on drugs unless somebody slipped something into my food or my tea. Otherwise, the sleep was good. It was cold last night, but the blanket I had was marvellous – the thing locked in heat better than anything else I've had during this trek. I was perfectly comfortable despite the temperature dropping to below freezing.

I woke up to a good layer of frost on the ground. After almost two weeks of trekking – and a good week and a half in the cold above the tree line – my morning routines are set in stone. First, I have to force myself to get out from under the blankets, or out of my sleeping bag, and into unheated lodge air. Then I have to pull on cold clothes – which at this stage of the game feel musty and damp given that I've been wearing them for eight days straight. After trying to put order to hair that hasn't been washed in over two week, I stick my contacts in. I pack my bags. Pulling on my boots finishes the ordeal.

Everything seems to move in slow motion up in the cold and high altitude. Such a simple series of steps can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to a half-hour. I was out of bed this morning at 0655 and didn't stumble up for breakfast until 0730. I wasn't particularly hungry, so it was just a bowl of rara noodles before we set off on our descent through the Gokyo Valley.

The theme for the trekking today was a lot of long, level stretches before a sharp descent into a village settlement. Because my left leg is still a question mark – the area around the nail bed on my leg big toe just looks like a giant blood blister – I popped a couple of Advil during breakfast. Depending on our progress, we were planning on giving up anywhere between six-hundred to over a thousand vertical metres of altitude. That's a lot of strain on a bum leg and I'd take any edge the painkillers would give.

The ibuprofen kicked in quickly and by 0800 I was striding down the trail at a good clip. We descended through the Gokyo Valley, with the moraine of the Ngozumpa Glacier to our left, and the mountains and the lower Gokyo Lakes to our right. The slope was gentle. A stretch of track that would ordinarily have taken less than two hours took us a little over two-and-a-half hours. Our slow pace was not due to any physical limitations. I merely took advantage of the clear conditions this morning to stop off at every opportunity to snap away with my camera.

Through the Gokyo Valley

The scenery throughout the valley was fantastic and I can see why many might prefer Gokyo's eye candy over the views on the way to Everest Base Camp. But opinion is subjective and I still find myself leaning towards what I saw in the Khumbu Valley. Maybe it's because the Gokyo Lakes are still predominantly covered in ice, blunting some of their majesty. Maybe I prefer the rocky desolation and higher, snow-covered peaks found leading up to Mount Everest. Or maybe it's just because I suffered much, much more for the views on that side of the Solukhumbu.

Just after 1030, we made a sharp drop into Machhermo, where we stopped for a quick bite to eat and a one-hour rest break. I popped a couple more Advil before we set off again – my leg had started to stiffen while we were sitting at the teahouse. Our next destination was the village of Dole. There was a lot less doddering on this section of the trail. Haze had already started to move into the valley and I stopped off far less for pictures. Also, I was finding that the longer I stopped off, the more my left leg would cool down and stiffen, so I kept rest breaks down to a bare minimum. I certainly walking pain-free, but the Advil was keeping things well within manageable limits.

Trekking – Day 13

Once we were past Machhermo, there was a quiet determination on my part to cover as much ground as possible in the least amount of time. I wanted to maximise the amount of time I'd have to rest at the end of the day. It was much easier to go slow – to soak in the journey – when photographic conditions where ideal earlier in the day. Now my main concern was my leg and how much progress we could make on our march down towards Namche Bazaar.

We dropped into Dole around 0145, a little more than two hours out from Machhermo. We could have arrived sooner if it hadn't been for a minor scare with of Arun.

Santosh, Arun and I in the Gokyo Valley

While I (and Santosh) kept in relatively constant motion, Arun had been hiking by covering ground more quickly but taking longer periods of rest. Here's how it would go: Arun would hike ahead of us, and then sit down for a break. Santosh and I would pass him and go on ahead. He would catch up with us about five minutes later and get ahead of us again. Another ten minutes or and he would sit down for another break. After two weeks of lugging around twenty kilograms of my stuff, I could hardly fault him for wanting to take the weight off his shoulders at every opportunity.

The problem came when Santosh and I were ahead of him and dropped down below the last ridge before the steep descent into Dole. We stopped off for a quick breather in front of a pair of chortens above the village, expecting to see Arun coming over the hill any minute. Five minutes passed. No Arun. Ten minutes went by. Still no sign of Arun. At the fifteen minute mark, I started having paranoid visions of Arun falling off the trail into the valley below. I wanted to go back and find him was this was hampered by both the throbbing in my leg and a lack of desire to climb back to the top of the ridge. At the twenty minute mark, just as Santosh was getting ready to go look for him, Arun came striding over the ridge. Apparently he'd met up with some friends who were ascending the Gokyo Valley and had gotten engaged in a long conversation. I quickly resolved never to let either Santosh or Arun get that far out of my sight again.

Trekking on the Edge

We had the option of stopping off for the night, but given the rest I'd had whilst waiting for Arun, I made the decision to push ahead to Phortse Thenga, two hours further down the valley. The extra effort would mean a longer day of trekking today, but shorten the day tomorrow to less than four hours. As we descended past Dole, we dropped back below the tree line. My eight days above 4,000m were over.

I was on auto-pilot from there on in. My range of vision was no more than a metre or two in front of me -- my focus was on making sure that no errant rock or awkward pratfall caused more damage to my leg. I could have used some music to while away the time, but my iPod battery is completely dead. In fact, that battery has been dead since the start of the trek – a situation that came about because I forgot to charge my iPod before leaving Hong Kong, and then left the USB cable sitting at my parents' place.

The only music I've had in the last fourteen days has been Arun's Nepali folk songs, sung heartily whilst on the trail; some Nepali radio at the guesthouses; and whatever songs have been stuck in my head. My favourite Nepali pop song so far has to be the love song (they're all bloody love songs) where the woman laments losing her man because he manages to get a Hong Kong ID card while she's stuck behind in Nepal – I had Santosh translate that one because "Hong Kong ID" was the only thing I could understand, and it was repeated every other line. The songs that have played through my head for the last two weeks aren't much more help – a odd mix of Kate Bush's Hounds of Love, Colin Hay's acoustic version of Overkill, MGMT's Kids, and Defying Gravity from Wicked (though I have to admit it's less the London West End Cast Recording version and more Kurt and Rachel's diva-off from Glee).

Below the Treeline

We finally arrived at the River Resort Lodge a little after 1500. I was lucky to get a room – the place was lousy with trekkers heading north up the Gokyo Valley. They all look so clean and energetic. I'm sure I looked that way once. As much as I've enjoyed my time in the Solukhumbu, I'm starting to go a little trek-crazy. I need to get to a place where I can have a Coke or Fanta without paying NRs.300 for a freaking 250mL bottle. My clothes feel absolutely disgusting, but I can't bring myself to change into clean clothes before I've had the chance to wash the last ten days of grime off my body. I'm so bloody sick of daal bhat. Above Namche, the alternate food choices aren't much better. My "spaghetti bolognese" this evening was nothing more than watered down ketchup over pasta buried under a mountain of nak's cheese.

One more day and I'll be in Namche Bazaar. It's not much, but it's looking like Shangri-La right now.

Altitude Stats:

• Starting Altitude: 4,780m
• Ending Altitude: 3,650m
• Maximum Altitude: 4,765m
• Minimum Altitude: 3,625m
• Total Ascent: 190m
• Total Descent: 1,325m

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Related Entries:
1. Trekking in the Solukhumbu - Day 12: Arriving in the Gokyo Valley
2. Trekking in the Solukhumbu - Day 11: Hauling Myself Over the Cho La
3. Trekking in the Solukhumbu - Day 10: Attempting to Heal