Phortse
Dateline: April 9th, 2010
God, I'm glad to be back in Namche Bazaar. This little mountain village, nestled at the crossroads of all the major Solukhumbu trails, is the closest thing I've had to civilisation in two weeks' worth of trekking. And now I'm back for two nights of rest and recuperation. I have one, possibly two, days of trekking before I'm finished in the Himalaya but I can worry about the hard descent to Lukla when I'm actually doing it.
I slept really well last night. As we were more than a kilometre in altitude lower than Gokyo, we had two major advantages: there was significantly more oxygen in the air, and being amongst the trees took some of the edge off the cold mountain air.
My left toe was feeling particularly tender but couple more Advil took care of that. Given yesterday's extended push – seven hours' worth of trekking from Gokyo down to Phortse Thenga – we could look forward to a shorter day today. But things in the Himalaya are never so easy. To go down, we first had to go up. We had to start off the day with a four-hundred-vertical-metre ascent up to the village at Mong La.
Two days ago I was trekking through the cold and biting wind above the tree line. Today, I was stripped down to just a single layer within the first ten minutes of trekking. The sun was blazing down and there was little wind on the Phortse Thenga side of the ridge. I didn't have many problems with the physical climb – I suppose I can thank two weeks of high-altitude acclimatisation for that – but we were slowed as I stopped off in just about every pocket of shade to cool down. After an hour-and-a-half of switchbacks, we were at the Mong La. A cooling wind rushed up the south side of the ridge and we immediately started our descent. Now that we were done with the climb and the worst of the heat I had no wish to waste time.
Climbing Towards Mong La
The descent was fairly gentle and we dropped the four-hundred vertical metres again in less than an hour. At Sanasa, we reached a trail junction and rejoined the path we had hiked ten days previously – when we were headed in the opposite direction between Namche Bazaar and Deboche. Everything was familiar as we retraced our steps. We made good progress along that stretch of relatively level track, stopping only once in next hour to rehydrate.
When we finally turned the corner to the plateau containing the tiny museum and the Nepalese Army barracks above Namche, I felt an overarching sense of relief. It still took us fifteen minutes to descend from the upper reaches of the village, but we were back in the Buddha Lodge a few minutes before noon. I was tired. I was thirsty. I was starving. And I was elated. I ordered a big plate of vegetable, egg and buffalo fried noodles. I also splurged on a bottle of Fanta Orange. Both went down great. The Buddha Lodge easily has the best tasting and best variety of all the guesthouse food I've encountered in the Solukhumbu.
After lunch it was time for a shower. Despite its rather rustic nature – barely warm water and less than ideal water pressure in a grimy room in the basement of the guesthouse – I managed to wash off eleven days' worth of grime. I was highly sceptical that a single shower would do it, but I feel clean (except for the hair – that will have to wait until a shower with better water pressure). My grungy clothes finally made it into the laundry bag.
I had every intention of forgoing Internet access until my return to Kathmandu but I shelled out for thirty minutes when I got an overwhelming urge to make sure nobody had died, or nothing had blown up, while I'd been out of contact. Nobody had. Nothing did.
Once I was clean and satisfied that all was well in the world, I stepped out of the guesthouse for about an hour or so to check out Namche's weekend market during the late afternoon. I wasn't interested at all in buying, but it was interesting to see a mix of second-hand trekking supplies mixed it with the all the spices, fresh vegetables and cages of live chickens. Also scattered around were supplies that had obviously fallen off the back of a yak train – dented cans of Pringles and battered boxes of Hob Nobs that had once been destined for guesthouses north of 4,000m.
My evening was spent playing cards, relaxing and socialising back at the guesthouse. As the vast majority of guests are at the start of their treks, I'm one of a handful of grizzled vets and I spent much of the evening answering questions about my experiences higher up in the Himalaya – especially about altitude and acclimatisation. These people were me eleven days go – eager, excited and just a little paranoid about AMS.
My dinner, like last night, was a plate of spaghetti bolognese. This time, however, it actually tasted good.
The Lower Himalaya
Altitude Stats:
- Starting Altitude: 3,650m
- Ending Altitude: 3,365m
- Maximum Altitude: 4,025m
- Minimum Altitude: 3,340m
- Total Ascent: 930m
- Total Descent: 1,225m
Related Entries:
1. Trekking in the Solukhumbu - Day 13: Starting the Descent
2. Trekking in the Solukhumbu - Day 12: Arriving in the Gokyo Valley
3. Trekking in the Solukhumbu - Day 11: Hauling Myself Over the Cho La
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