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We climbed from the last big village into the mountains, feeling strong and with time on our hands. Many people here on holiday had to complete their trek and be back in the city within 10 days or so, but we had a whole month to explore Nepal. We had already taken a longer, higher route to get to Manang, the last big stop, and so we felt fit and were acclimatising well. Most people stop in Manang for a few nights before heading off to finish the trek, but we walked straight through to go off on a side trek.

We left the more modern part of Manang, with restaurants, coffee shops and even small cinemas showing films like Everest and Touching the Void (I assume to try and dissuade people from leaving town to continue their trek… The last films I wanted to watch at that moment), and passed through the old town. At the far side we came to the crossroads. The main path lay ahead, a 2 day trek would take you over the Thorung La pass and down to the Tibetan Plateau, while other paths led to small side treks. We would take the fork towards Tilicho Lake for an extra leg to our journey, a decision we had made at the last minute, and which would be one of the best decisions of our travels so far.

The Nepali tourism board will tell you that Tilicho Lake is the highest lake in the world, which is a flat out lie. They then might qualify it with ‘lake of its size’, which is true, but if you measure a lake accurately enough I suspect that every lake in the world is the highest of its size. There are higher lakes which are bigger and smaller, but these entertaining distortions do nothing to dispel the magic of this place. Everything we had read about Tilicho Lake described it as a wonderfully beautiful place, and it wasn’t to disappoint.

It was a 3 day round trip to the lake, though as you cut off a corner in getting back on the main circuit it is maybe a little less. Significantly it adds such good acclimatisation that you can carry on the trek far faster afterwards. We had time to spend, so we set our sights up the Khangsar Khola river to where it flowed from Tilicho.

That afternoon we would head to Kangsar up a trail which services a few jeeps a day. Tilicho Lake was made famous in Nepali pop culture by a film, and now it is a very trendy place for young Nepalis to visit. They get a 4×4 all the way from Kathmandu to Kangsar and then walk the rest of the way. This skips the week of training and acclimatisation we had to this point, and means that the trails were scattered with young Nepalis unable to walk, many throwing up, suffering from altitude sickness. They weren’t suffering in the first evening though, and as we arrived to Kangsar the lodges were full of party groups.

We had a system by now, whereby one of us would sit with the bags in the middle of a village, and the other would scout through the lodges to find the best quality / value for money. We were the only people we met who did this, but for the sacrifice of just 15 minutes a day we found that we stayed in far nicer accomodation, and saved a lot of money. This was Ness’ day, so I sat with the bags as she went scouting. She returned with a suggestion and I went to look at it.

I rounded the corner at the lodge, whose name I definitely don’t remember, and was welcomed by a young owner who seemed quite sensible at the time. He showed me around, and as I went to look in the communal bathroom, a deep Scandinavian voice spoke from behind me “my wife is in there”. I turned and saw an unecessarily good looking guy, about my age, chilling at the table. I instantly decided that it was best for my ego if I didn’t stand too close to him, and that I certainly shouldn’t allow Ness to see me next to him.

The quality of the bathroom in a lodge is a big deciding factor, so I hung around. The Scandinavian guy asked the owner about WiFi, suggesting that it wasn’t working properly, the owner just smiled and showed that his phone was working fine. This was the first indication of the nutter that the lodge owner would turn out to be.

I learned that the other guest was a Norwegian named Pål (spoken as Paul), the same age as me, who was here on an extended honeymoon. Aside from the shared circumstances, I saw that on his feet were a very nice pair of approach shoes, normally worn by climbers, and figured that we probably had some things in common.

I gave up on waiting to inspect the bathroom, and we moved into a room. Ness and I sat chatting to Pål, and after 5 minutes his wife emerged. Inevitably, Elise was a petite blonde, who wouldn’t look out of place on a poster of Scandinavian swimwear models. The more we talked to this couple, the more we realised that they were not just irritatingly cool (😉), but were two truly lovely people. They had planned to go one village further that afternoon, but stopped a bit early and settled here, a bit of luck that worked out very well for us.

Also in that same lodge was Christian, a German who towered over me in every dimension… If he looked like an elite rugby player it was because he was one, and having stopped playing was now the head of sports at Potsdam University. The fascinating thing about him was that, even though I think he could easily have ripped my head from my neck if he’d wanted to, he spent the evenings sat in silence, writing in his big book of reflections, he was the epitome of a gentle giant.

It was at nightfall that the farce began. Most lodges have a stove in the centre of the living  area for heat, and you would think that lighting it wasn’t too difficult a task if you do it every night. As this young man tried to light the stove he instead managed to fill the lodge with smoke.

When it came to dinner, Pål and I were treated to some salt flavoured curry, Elise to some salt flavoured soup, and Ness to some salt flavoured rice. After smoking the room out again we tried to arrange breakfast for the next morning. It is common to set off early when trekking, for various reasons, but he said he wasn’t happy to get up before 8am. After some negotiation, he agreed to breakfast at 6am, but come 6am we weren’t surprised to find that he was still fast asleep on the dining area floor.

After breakfast from our host, who had clearly taken some drugs to wake him up, we set off. We hadn’t specifically planned to walk with Pål and Elise, but evidently we all quite fancied staying together… And so it would be for the next 8 days.

We had been particularly keen to leave early that morning, because we were headed to Tilicho Basecamp. This is the last stop before the lake, and with only 3 lodges it fills up very quickly, if you don’t arrive early then you sleep on the floor.

We stormed up there along the side of the valley, past some amazing landscapes. First, winding through beautiful green hills, then an otherworldly area of stark grey rock and gravel, begging to landslide us down to the bottom of the valley. By leaving early, before the sun softens the ice, we were hoping to minimise the shower of rocks that would come down on us from above.

We arrived safely before 10am, and claimed the last few rooms. They were basic, but served the purpose. We settled in with ginger, honey and lemon tea, and watched a glorious day go by. People who had set off for the lake early that morning came back, had their lunch then headed off, as more people followed us up the valley. Christian, the German machine, had decided to go up to the lake and back the same day. No doubt possible, but a very hard day, and we watched him fly off up the slopes.

By 11am, anyone arriving was starting to mark out a space on the floor to sleep, and it was getting busy! Having given up our table for a sunny perch on a wide window ledge, I noticed two faces that I’d seen before. Whilst on the circuit you often fall into a cadence with other trekkers following a similar route and pace, though this gets mixed up by rest days and any route variations like this extra loop. I recognised a very small woman with huge brown eyes and a beaming smile, I remembered seeing her and her father sometime before, but cannot remember when. They decided to claim this window ledge as their bed for the night, and we got chatting. Na’ama is a professional mountain bike rider, I later learned that she is ranked No.1 in her home of Israel, and in the world top 75. It was fascinating talking to her, and with her father Anon they would become a big part of the rest of our stay in Nepal.

Crystal blue skies turned navy as Christian returned from the lake. The man mammoth staggered into basecamp and we went to chat to him. He told us how it was incredibly beautiful, and he was glad to have gone there on this perfect day, but he described how he was ‘crying inside’ on the descent having done two days in one. Nonetheless, he’d made the most of the clearest day we’d seen yet in the mountains, and as the sun went down our fingers were tightly crossed that the weather wouldn’t worsen overnight.

The lodge was rammed that evening, we ate on our laps sat on the floor, surrounded by tourists and Nepali trekkers alike, the latter either rowdy and excited, or sick and struggling.

The next morning we were up for breakfast at 5am, outside as many people were still on the floor of the lodge. We set off up the slopes to Tilicho Lake, and soon were amongst the first plodding up the slopes. One of the few ahead of us was the pocket rocket Na’ama, her pro-athlete legs a blur as she sped off into the distance.

We had set off in the dark, and as we gained height we saw the first rays of light coming over the distant mountains. Those first beams struck the giant wall of snow and ice directly ahead of us – the ‘Grande Barriere’.

When a team of French mountaineers came to the Himalaya in 1950 and set about climbing Annapurna I, they thought that there might be a route through Tilicho. They came here and found what leader Maurice Herzog described as the Grande Barriere, an obstacle he believed they had no chance of overcoming.

Hoping to find a route through the Manang Valley, he descended the route we were climbing. He found only desperately poor villages which couldn’t even sell him food, and no signs of a route. On the way back up the route we were now taking, but long before there was a path, he fell into the icy river and became hypothermic, crawling up the valley to camp at the lake, barely alive. That expedition would later prove successful, being the first ascent of an 8,000m peak, at the cost of all of Herzog’s toes and most of his fingers. Annapurna wouldn’t be climbed again for 20 years!

We finally crested the col and the view opened out across our right, revealing the beautiful Tilicho Lake. At around 5,000m above sea level, and in still air, the waters were like a mirror, a huge sheet of blue glass reflecting the crystal sky and the walls of ice overlooking it.

A small teahouse served coffee, we couldn’t work out whether it was actually good or just tasted good because it felt special, but it was an amazing cup of coffee which we sipped gazing at this beautiful landscape.

We descended quickly down to Basecamp, and after collecting our big bags we hurried on to Shree Kharka where we would stay the night. This hadn’t been the original plan, but we had changed plans to align with Pål and Elise, who already had booked a room there. We were the first people to arrive there in descent, but the lodge was almost full from people on their way up to basecamp, and we got the last 2 beds in a dorm room. It was quite remarkable really that out of the whole trekking experience this was the only night when we weren’t in a private room.

After an evening of cards and lemon ginger honey tea (which we have on our list of food and drink to make when we get back home), we set off the next morning for Churi Ledar. Having taken the left fork to Tilicho, we were now able to cut a big corner in getting back to the right fork on the main circuit, and in doing so went over a big dividing ridge, giving us stunning views down the Marsyangdi Valley from Manang back to Swarga Dwari, the giant banked rock formation we passed five days earlier.

We sat at lunch, having a fantastic veggie burger, discussing plans. We had plenty of time and so wanted to take it slow, enjoy the route and maximise acclimatisation; Pål and Elise had less time on their hands so had planned to push on a few hours further than us to cut off a day by the end. We spoke to Na’ama and Anon at lunch and bade them farewell as they were pushing on hard and fast, but we were very pleased when Pål and Elise decided to take it a bit more slowly, in part to minimise certain risks from rockfall on the route. (Ness and I didn’t tell them that we had pre-agreed to go ahead with them if they did chose to push on)

A few hours later we arrived at a great lodge called Churi Lettar, where we basked in a conservatory overlooking the stunning scenery, and drank a lot of tea while playing cards. Pål and Elise are card fiends, while I am not. Lacking in much competitive drive I tend to mess about rather than playing to win, causing Elise a lot of frustration when she was forced to team up with me and get annhialated by Pål and Ness!

The next day was a short one but a steep one, taking us to the final camp before the Thorung La pass which would be the high point of our route at 5,416m. This was another spot where accomodation was limited, and we didn’t want to end up sleeping on the floor.

We stormed ahead at full speed, wanting to overtake the long line of people snaking into the distance up the steep slopes. At well over 4,000m there was only around half as much air as there is at sea level, and our lungs screamed as we pushed ahead. We were the first to arrive at the camp, and so got the best rooms.

Arriving early gave us time to go the short distance up to a viewpoint above the camp, at 5,000m. From here we spent a long time admiring the stunning view back down the valley, seeing the jagged spire of Annapurna I peeking out behind another mountain, as a golden eagle soared around us.

By this stage in the blog you’ll be stunned to hear that the afternoon was spent drinking ginger lemon honey tea, chatting to Pål and Elise and playing cards, while looking out the big windows at the expansive view.

There is a belief on the circuit that to do the Thorung La Pass you must wake up at 3 or 4am to start the day. This seems to be a self-perpetuating myth amongst the trekking community, and is utter rubbish. If you are well trained and acclimatised from the trek to this point then the climb over the top is a bit breathless, and not really ‘easy’, but is fairly short and straightforward, with no need to get there first thing in the morning. It seems to me that by leaving early you are just creating a risk from cold injuries in the bitterly icy temperatures before the sun rises around 6.30am. Lots of other trekkers were heading off to bed very early, while we continued chatting and enjoying ourselves.

As we went to bed a thick fog descended over the camp, and we became concerned that the next day might be spoilt by bad weather. As Ness lay in bed I went outside to take another look… as I was there the cloud began to lift to a magical, crisp, clear night, with a huge moon illuminating the white mountains around us. With a quick word to Ness, who had no desire to leave her sleeping bag in the freezing temperatures, I grabbed my camera and headed up the hill towards the viewpoint. I spent about an hour on the hill above the camp, taking in this incredible starry night. My photography skills could never do justice to it, but hopefully hint as to the beauty of the scene.

The next morning we awoke at a very comfortable hour and got ready for breakfast at 6.30 or 7am. As I brushed my teeth in front of the room, I felt very smug watching the huge trail of people, some still with headtorches in the dawn light, spread above and below the camp. Some were clearly not well acclimatised, and we’re finding each step a huge effort… Understandable on the summit of Everest but unnecessary here if you have done everything you should have in the way up. I later learned at that a lot of people take ‘preventative’ altitude sickness medication, something we didn’t do any which also seems totally unnecessary, probably just leading you to misunderstand your level of true acclimatisation.

After a pleasent and relaxed breakfast, we set off with big smiles on our faces. While Ness and I planned on another week of trekking, for Pål and Elise this would be their last day. We were dreading saying goodbye to them, but excited to be going on to the next stage of the trip as we passed into the Tibetan Plateau the other side of the pass.

We may not quite have had a spring in our step, feeling the thin air in our lungs, but we nevertheless felt good as we pushed ahead. We really felt the benefit of having done things by the book to get strong and well acclimatised.

For an hour and fifty minutes we climbed up weaving scree paths, through multiple ‘false summits’, and past many a collapsing trekker, until we crested the brow.

I had spent a long time researching and planning this trek, and had chosen to do the circuit long before I was aware of this specific high point, and that many people finish the trek after reaching that high point. Ness had learned about the route whilst walking it and talking about it with other trekkers, and so had embraced the idea that the Thorung La Pass was the pinnacle of the route, a point to work towards, like reaching the summit of a mountain.

It was thoroughly anticlimactic.

Set between two dull rocky outcrops was this pass, a gravel covered saddle with little to remark other than many an out of breath trekker and a lot of prayer flags. We were clearly reminded that the joy and achievement in this trip had been in the journey and not the arbitrary high point. The view from the hill the day before, the magic of Tilicho, the peace of the environment and the connection to other trekkers…. All were far greater a feeling than that of standing beside a sign which read 5,416m. That is not to dampen the achievement of getting there, nor to suggest that we weren’t happy and proud, just that the joy and satisfaction had been over the whole trek and did not culminate in this moment.

We smiled to each other and took the obligatory photographs, but suffering from mild headaches and surrounded by the crowds we didn’t linger long before beginning our descent towards Muktinath.

This was the awe inspiring part of the day. We had spent the best part of two weeks on the Manang side of the Annapurna Massif, a lush vegitated area with deep narrow valleys and snow covered peaks. We now descended onto the Tibetan Plateau, a wide dusty expanse of very little. Huge mountains spring out of the plain, but contrasted so sharply to what we had seen before in lacking much snow cover. The weather comes from the Nepali side, dumping all of the snow on the Annapurna Massif, leaving little for these peaks, saved only for the towering giant of Dhaulagiri, even higher than Annapurna I and looming over everything around.

The descent was as easy as you could imagine for losing 1700m in three and a half hours. On the way up we had passed many people pushing mountain bikes, and a lot of bikes being carried by porters and donkeys, so now we saw people riding them down. What we found weird though was that most people gave up riding them fairly soon, apparently realising that the terrain was a bit technical. Surely if you’re going to go to the effort of getting a mountain bike up to over 5000m, you’re going to know that you can actually ride it down rather than just push….. apparently not.

We stopped only for a quick lunch, to realise that Nepalis do not make good pancakes, and soon were coming into Muktinath. A word of advice to anyone doing this route, people often talk about arriving in Muktinath, but actually Muktinath is just the religious site, a very sacred place to Hindus who travel from around the world to worship there. The true destination is Ranipauwa, a demoralising twenty minutes further on.

We arrived at the permit checkpost, a ten minute walk before the jeep station that Pål and Elise were heading for. Our plan was to spend the night here and bid them farewell as they got a jeep and then a flight back to the city of Pokhara. As Pål and Elise went into the checklist office, I turned to Ness and said “do you want us to go with them”.

I think this shocked her a little. While I was feeling the tiredness a bit, and was looking forward to a comfy hotel, I was quite ‘into’ trekking. Ness was also all over it, but struggles with the cold more than I do and was craving clean clothes, a warm bed and the ability to wash her hair; all quite sensible really!

Ness said she didn’t know, and in her ever-insistent way stated that we had set out to do the whole circuit, and that we should do it.

We walked further to the jeep depot, and I asked her again. As I asked her, I welled up a fraction, and realised that I also wanted to get in the car. Not for a lack of love of trekking, but for other reasons.

Pål said that he had their tickets, and went to say goodbye. Elise had been warmly pressuring us to come back with them, and gave us big puppy eyes. I turned to Ness and said “what do you want to do”….she said she wasn’t sure….I said we were getting a jeep.

Five minutes later we were flying down a dirt road towards Jomsom, through a surreal landscape. Each of the four of us commented that it felt like Mars, this arid landscape of reddish sand and harsh cliffs, it was hard to imagine people actually living there. It was awe inspiring, and I was a bit gutted that we were going through it at 50mph, unable to really take it in. Then suddenly I no longer felt as gutted… We rounded a corner into the valley of the Kali Ghandaki river, and it felt as if the plateau had suddenly turned it’s wrath onto us. This wide, open valley tunnels brutal winds laden with sand, blasting anyone who dares step outside after the late morning. We saw some poor trekkers in the road, wrapped up like Bedouin nomads as they battled forwards. I later learned that there was a less abusive trail which we would have taken, but nonetheless we had no desire to be outside in this place.

We arrived in Jomsom and I found us a hotel while Pål and Elise bought their tickets. Ness described Jomsom as one of the biggest disappointments of our travels so far, this place had been described to us as a nice, developed town with a party atmosphere… Instead it was an enclave of practicality trying to survive in a very hostile part of the world. We nonetheless found a good coffee shop and settled down. Ness and I had a big decision to make!

Our plan at this point was to take a rest day in Jomsom, say goodbye to the guys, then push on. We certainly needed a day off, we’d been going at it for 8 days since our last rest day, and we were both carrying some mild but frustrating injuries. We now faced the possibility or opportunity, staring us in the face, of flying back to Pokhara with Pål and Elise. One of the looming factors had been the desire to avoid the road journey we had faced on our terrible first day of trekking, and we endlessly discussed logistical options which would avoid a drive down death road. We were also feeling a bit negative about the prospect of going out to trek when the weather was like a sandblaster. The reality though was that this was a bit of an excuse to address another issue…

For four months we had lived a lifestyle where we make countless acquaintances a day moving from place to place, but where all of our friends are in different time zones… The reality was that we had made two good friends – A friendship forged in the rewards of journeying together – and we weren’t ready to let go of them yet. I stood up in the cafe, said to Ness ‘we’re getting on a plane tomorrow’, and walked out with Pål to get us booked on a flight with them. Whatever it was we said to Pål and Elise, Ness and I both knew the reason at heart.

We enjoyed a relaxed evening with a menu far more diverse than in a lodge, and a bed which almost felt like an actual bed, and came to terms with the fact that our trek was over.

I felt deeply mixed emotions. I went to sit up on the roof and gaze at the mountains one more time… I was excited at the prospect of getting back to city comforts, but was really sad to be ending this adventure, and to be doing to earlier than planned.

The next morning we went to the airport, and of course being in Nepal it didn’t go quite to plan. There was fog in Pokhara so the plane hadn’t been able to leave to come to Jomsom, and when it did there was one flight ahead of us on this short shuttle flight.

We eventually boarded a very small aircraft and watched out of the window as we skimmed low above trees and through valleys for the 20 minute flight. I looked down at the ground we should have been walking over, a little sad that I wasn’t there. We had walked 159km and done 9694m of ascent, it was time to head back.

We didn’t realise that only a few days later we would be back in our boots on those same paths we were skimming over, having a whole new adventure.

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