Wednesday 16.10.2024
Summary:
Trekking Tilicho Base Camp – Tilicho Lake – Tilicho Base Camp – Shree Kharka
Start: 04:30, 4200m
Tilicho Lake: 08:15, 4900m
Finish: 14:25, 4070m
Weather: frosty in the morning, sunny during the day, shell jacket, long trousers, long-sleeved Brynje underlayer shirt, hat, gloves
Drink: 4 L
Expenses: 1300 (Thai Red Bull, water, Pringles)
Today was one of the longest days of the trip. Wake up for the departure to Tilicho Lake was 03:30, breakfast 04:00 and departure 04:30. Most of the guests at the lodge were on a roughly similar schedule, although only a few ate breakfast in addition to us. Almost all the people at the guesthouse were locals, and some of them were wearing unbelievably thin clothing. Many had no rucksack at all and only had some kind of water bottle in their hands.
It was clearly freezing outside, as the surface of the table in the courtyard, for example, was frozen. We set off with fairly light rucksacks in the dark, lit by headlamps. The route started to climb right from the village of Shree Kharka. Many locals had started before us, and a long line of lights could be seen on the slope. Of course, many people also left after us, so after half an hour there must have been a line of lights a kilometre long on the slope. There really was a lot of hikers. Surprisingly, we quickly began to pass locals standing or sitting along the trail.
At quarter past five the sun began to glimmer behind the mountains and half an hour later the horizon was sufficiently illuminated for us to turn off our headlamps. The journey continued uphill. Fortunately, there were no downhills in between, which would have added to the already strenuous ascent of 700 meters. Heikki was clearly going faster, but as we approached the bottom of the hill I started to fall well behind Pude also. A little before seven o’clock, I really started to run out of steam and when sat down for a rest, my breathing didn’t level out at all. I sat there for at least 15 minutes with our guide Amrit. I was already thinking about turning back, because we were on a long hill and I could have descended several hundred metres very quickly. However, Amrit said there was not much uphill left and I started to trudge on. There really wasn’t much uphill left, but there must have been about a kilometer of slightly undulating plateau. I was going at a snail’s pace, but on the other hand I was passed by several ponies with people on them who couldn’t even manage a snail’s pace on foot. I arrived at about a quarter past eight, half an hour after Heikki and Pude. I was at the lake for half an hour, and we spent the time taking photos of the views and our group.
The return to Tilicho base camp was fortunately a completely different story. Of course it was easier to go downhill and the body started to work better as we descended quickly. We were back at the lodge by 10:40 for lunch.
The visit to Tilicho Lake was not the only stage of the day, however. After lunch, we headed back towards Shree Kharka at noon. We had already hiked this section in the other direction, so we knew how annoying section it was. Between the start and end point there is almost no altitude difference and when hiking towards Shree Kharka the end point is even slightly lower. However, the profile of the route is like a v character upside down, and one gets to push uphill for a quite a while in either direction.
Thursday 17.10.2024
Summary:
Trekking Shree Kharka – Yak Kharka
Start: 08:10, 4070m
Finish: 13:00, 4050m
Weather: mostly sunny, windy towards the end, long trousers and long-sleeved shirt
Drink: 1,3 L
Expenses: 370 (Coke during break), 500 (Thai Red Bull, Oreo)
There is virtually no vertical drop between Shree Kharka and Yak Kharka. This was certainly important for acclimatisation, but we were also hoping that the day’s route would be reasonably easy and quick after the strenuous previous day. Unfortunately, we were quite wrong about that. Today’s route was different from the previous ones, being mainly a path through scrubland. The route itself was nice, but started to climb almost immediately after Shree Kharka. After a while we reached the ruins of the old village of Khangsar. There hasn’t been any habitation there for a long time, but there was a very large fenced area next to the ruins. It was said to be a winter shelter for various animals. The journey continued uphill until we reached the top of the mountain, where we could see Manang at the bottom of the valley. From this vantage point we descended to the river valley on the other side and stopped at a guesthouse for a break. As we had descended into the river valley, after the break we had to climb some more to reach the path leading to Yak Kharka. We arrived at Yak Kharkha around 1am, so we ordered lunch right away.
