NEPAL: TAKE MY BREATH AWAY
Matthew Sterne discovers the agony and ecstasy of a challenging hike in Nepal
WE are hiking up a steep, slippery path in the darkness of early morning when George slips, rolls over and pukes three times. With the light of my torch, I see how pale he is.
George has been struggling with altitude sickness for the past few days and it is clear that this is as far as he can go. He leans against a boulder, wiping his mouth, exhausted and defeated. We have a quick talk and decide what to do. I feel terrible leaving him but there is little choice. I need to do the pass now. We say a hasty goodbye and George wishes me luck, visibly relieved his trauma is over. I go up to the High Camp, where I rouse a sleeping porter to help George down the mountain.
I go on, hoping to catch up to the other trekkers but am well behind them. We have taken two hours to do a climb the others did in one. As the morning sky slowly illuminates the surrounding mountains, I try to make up lost time. At an altitude of 5 000m, it is difficult to rush as any exertion means I am panting, reeling with my hands on my knees, leaning on my stick. I shuffle up sluggishly, barely moving my feet with every step but am still forced to take regular breaks, gasping desperately for air. My hard breathing scorches my throat.
Ten days ago, we started the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal and every day we steadily moved higher, edging closer to the mountains we had come to find, each day better than the last. We followed a valley often wedged between a cliff and a drop to the river. We went through villages with groups of curious children acting as toll merchants, demanding sweets, chocolates, school pens or balloons. We crossed suspension bridges every day, always swaying and bouncing and unnerving. We kept going, pushing onwards and upwards, getting glimpses of the looming snow-covered mountains in the far-off distance.
George, my hiking partner, and every other trekker shared in the growing excitement. We would discuss our wonder at night around the fires in the teahouses. We made friends easily, the joy of the journey easily breaking down any barriers. The villagers were particularly friendly and warm-hearted, asking inquisitive and simple questions about Africa like “What do lions eat?” Or “How big is a giraffe?”
Before the trek in Kathmandu, I exchanged a book for Paul Brunton’s Hermit in the Himalayas. It is a story about an Englishman who spent months meditating in the Himalayas almost 100 years ago. I started reading it at the beginning of the trek and, in it, I read: “To travel through its calm solitudes, so far removed from the tensions of peopled places, will be to travel into sanity and serenity out of an insane and uneasy world.” As I read it in these mountains, the words and thoughts seemed to carry extra significance.
Halfway to the pass, we climbed through small forests with the reds of rhododendron bushes bursting through the green. The air was particularly colder than the previous days and, after the
forests, the terrain became barren as we entered a high-altitude desert. The changes were an encouraging sign of progress. We walked past a massive wall of slate, a sheer cliff face that was perfectly flat and smooth and 1 500m high. It was a strange and intriguing sight, unlike anything any of us had ever seen. As we passed, we stopped often to marvel at its incredible magnitude.
We walked alone or with others, talking a little but simply content to be moving and making our way. We ambled up and up. The only thing we needed to do was to keep moving, not necessarily at a fast pace but always to just keep moving. Then we neared the pass and a completely new challenge.
After three hours of solo toil, I come upon other hikers who had been feeling very sick and nauseous and moving very slowly, even slower than I have been going. With their spirits faltering, the news of George’s withdrawal seems to only add to their struggle. While resting, we remark on the view and our inability to appreciate it in our fatigued states. We start off again. The angle of the climb is less severe than before but still we walk at a crawling pace for the next few hours up and over small hills. Eventually, after a period of quiet desperation, we reach the Thorong La Pass at 5 416m.
We enjoy the most expensive cup of tea in Nepal at the tiny teahouse and try to gather some strength. Outside, we look down the other side onto Mustang, known as the Last Forbidden Kingdom, whose current king can trace his lineage directly back to the warrior who founded the Buddhist kingdom in 1380.
Staring out over this vista, I recall a passage I read the night before in Hermit
in The Himalayas: “In the Himalayan highlands there arises the true charm of mountaineering; civilisation is so remote, towns so distant and serenity so prevalent. They carry the suggestion of eternity … Here one is face-to-face with the universal mystery itself, hiding behind no man-made façade of gregariously built cities but revealing its calm challenging face directly and assuming its wildest form. Himalaya embodies the grand forces of nature.”
As we are marvelling at the mountains, clouds envelop us and the view disappears. Almost immediately, it starts snowing, spurring us to start our descent. We clamber down jubilantly, joyous with our achievement and that the hardest slog is over. At the steeper parts, we slide down the snow on our bums and pause at intervals to stare out into the whiteness and catch snowflakes on our tongues.