consultation,’ he mumbles. ‘I feel like death.’ I help him to his feet and watch as he shuffles through the snow. He looks old and doddery, yet trekking is supposed to be a healthy pursuit.
Seated outside the lodge with another pot of tea, I watch as Sherpas collapse a snow-coated tent on the roof of a neighbouring building. As they shake the snow from it, one of their group emerges from the dining room below and receives the full bounty on his head and shoulders. One of the Sherpas sees this and dodges back out of sight. He and I burst into laughter. The snowbound trekker is not amused.
Alan returns, head low, shoulders hunched. ‘A virus,’ he says. ‘It could be with me for days.’ He slumps on the bench beside me, holding his head as though it weighs more than his shoulders can manage on their own. ‘It’s no good; I’ll have to go down.’
I say nothing, but think much. We’re not yet halfway round the Circuit, but if he’s really sick there’s no way he can contemplate crossing a pass at almost 5500 metres, so I understand his decision. But what do I do? Do I leave him to his own devices and continue on my own – or go down with him to make sure he’s okay? He knows what I’m thinking and appreciates my dilemma. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘But I can’t see any alternative.’
Then a compromise comes to mind. ‘If I could get down to Hongde,’ he says, ‘it might be possible to fly out from there. But not today. I’ve got no energy.’ So I offer to go down-valley for him to enquire if any flights are scheduled in the next few days. If so I’ll get him a ticket. As I understand it, Hongde is supposed to have a flight on Thursdays – weather permitting, that is. Today is Tuesday.
It’s a glorious walk without a rucksack. The deep snow squeaks beneath my boots, and wherever I turn a world of pristine beauty greets me. On my right the Annapurnas form an enormous bank of snow and ice; ahead and on the left Pisang Peak sends out spurs that cast blue shadows against dazzling white, and throughout the valley multi-layered cushions of snow are piled upon chortens and half-concealed mani walls. It’s heaped upon drystone walls and flat-roofed houses, and on the posts either side of a cantilever bridge spanning the Marsyangdi. Rafts of snow drift downstream, shrinking in size as they go. When I come to pine trees, each branch wears a basket.
‘No flight Thursday,’ says the RNAC official at Hongde. ‘If no more snow, next flight maybe one week. If more snow, next flight could be three, four weeks. Maybe not till spring.’
I find a bhatti and sit inside with two handsome Bhotiya women. Sisters, they are, chatting as one washes dishes and the other makes noodle soup for me. There’s so much garlic in the soup it almost blisters my lips. The cook-sister sees my eyes water and laughs. ‘Good for cold,’ she tells me.
I give Alan the news as soon as I get back to Manang in the early afternoon. ‘No flights, thanks to the snow. As I see it you have three choices. One, you die here. Two, you walk down to Besisahar and have your body shaken to bits on the truck to Dumre. Or three, you get better and cross the Thorong La with me.’
He still looks decidedly unhealthy and weak, but half an hour after my return, while I’m enjoying a tin of pineapple chunks bought at a local shop, he staggers to the back of the lodge and spends several minutes being violently sick into the snow. When at last he reappears he wears a smile. ‘That’s cleared the system,’ he says. ‘I’m going for some tea.’
With that I assume the trek is on once more.
In Letdar we manage to locate a two-bedded stone cell for our accommodation in an unfinished building. It’s cold as death inside the room at over 4000 metres, so we sit at a table outside with a tremendous view down-valley to mountains of the Annapurna Himal that have grown even higher in the aftermath of the snowstorm. Just a few extra-steep bands of rock remain exposed. All else is caked with snow – high ridges corniced with layers of unimagined depth above a soundless avalanche that pours down the face of Gangapurna.
While our socks dry in the sunshine, our faces burn with reflected heat and snow-glare. Alan is happy now but, weak from his days of sickness, he’s arranged for a local man to carry his rucksack to Muktinath. Our man from Manang looks tough as a yak. Clad in winter-proof clothing and size 12 expedition boots, he has few words, and as yet we’ve not managed to discover his name, for in response to our attempts to converse, we’re offered a few grunts only and dark eyes that refuse to meet ours.
The dining area of our so-called lodge has no roof. As night falls we sit in what appears to be an inner courtyard with a starry sky in place of a ceiling, ankle-deep in snow – adding new meaning to ‘alfresco’ as we fight a way into plates of daal bhaat. The primus stove which serves as the cooking range is only a couple of paces behind us, and the food is hot and steaming when scooped onto plates, but by the time it reaches our table – seconds only – it’s just luke warm. Luke-warm rice quickly solidifies and is difficult to swallow.
It takes only a couple of hours to reach Thorong Phedi, at the foot of the pass, where soaring cliffs form an amphitheatre round a bed of snow-carpeted meadowland. Alan and I sit with our backs against the lodge and gaze up at the steep slope that leads to the Thorong La. It looks as formidable as the North Face of the Eiger, and a very unhappy Dutch woman confirms that it feels like it. She’d set off for the pass early this morning, but halfway there was affected by the altitude and had to be brought down by her friend. Now she clutches her head in misery and wonders whether she’ll make it tomorrow. I tell her she should descend further, but she and her friend refuse to listen.
Since the Thorong La is the high point of the Annapurna Circuit, tension among our fellow trekkers vibrates like the build-up to an electrical storm. Almost everyone feels the altitude, and none can be certain how they’ll be affected by tomorrow’s climb of almost 1000 metres. Some have grown irritable, others have gone to lie down, while yet more sit in the sunshine and grow fearful of tomorrow. No doubt the words of the HRA doctor at Manang ring in their ears.
As soon as the sun dips behind the mountains the temperature drops like a stone. Shadows bring frost, and in moments the scene is transformed as everyone rushes indoors, where orders for hot drinks are shouted across the room. Appetites are diminished by the altitude, yet mine remains as strong as ever, so I tuck into a large plate of boiled potatoes almost explosive with chilli sauce, then retire to bed. It’s only 6 o’clock, but I’m one of the last to go.
Alan and I share a dormitory with two Germans, three Americans, a group of airmen serving with the RAF, and a young married couple from Sheffield with whom we’d spent several hours at Dhaka airport on the way to Kathmandu. As for the airmen, one of them tackled the Circuit two years ago and was so impressed that he couldn’t wait to repeat the experience. ‘The Thorong La? A tough day, but wow – what a crossing!’
At 4.30 we breakfast on porridge and three cups of tea each, fill our bottles, then step out into the pre-dawn grey at 5.15. The thermometer reads minus 16 and my feet soon lose feeling – how do the porters cope, I wonder? Dawn will flood the hills in another 30 minutes or so, but for now the route is picked out by the head-torches of trekkers who’ve beaten us to it. But we’re in no hurry; this is not a race; so Alan and I settle to our own steady rhythm with the porter from Manang kicking in behind. Ahead of us a string of heavily laden men zigzags slowly under loads belonging to a group; we leapfrog a shape losing his breakfast in the snow; and a little later, just before the sky brightens, we pass a couple standing face to face, one sobbing and clutching her head, the other no doubt battling with indecision. I’m thankful just to feel old, and am aware of the privilege of tackling the route on this day of all days.
Night makes way for the briefest transition to a morning of sparkling brilliance. Around us moraine ribs hang on to their snows, while ice gleams and flashes minute diamonds from cliffs that capture the first sunlight.
Hour
