night only.
At an altitude of more than 4600 metres, the pasture is hemmed in by a curving black wall of moraine just short of the point where the valley makes an abrupt turn to the north. Two herders’ huts stand on a slope behind our tents, and above these Boktoh scratches at the sky. With nightfall the temperature plummets, and when I brave the chill for a pee shortly after midnight everywhere is coated with frost and Boktoh glows in the light of a full moon. I stand entranced by a heaven flushed with stars, each one diamond-sharp and close enough to touch. I’m tempted to pluck two or three from the sky to carry back to the tent to use as candles.
Bed-tea is early in that frost bowl, and we breakfast on porridge long before the sun is awake. Cocooned in down we trudge round the bend of the valley towards the bulk of Kangchenjunga, which gradually appears like an impregnable fortress at its head. An avenue of snow peaks, anonymous still in shadow, draws us on. It’s bitterly cold and too early for words. Day may have dawned high on Kanch, but here in the ablation valley night still holds sway. But before long, across the Yalung Glacier the great crusted ridge of cornices that links Ratong with the many summits of Kabru, and Kabru with Talung, begins to appear translucent. Beyond those mountains the sun is working its magic from a secret Sikkimese meadow where it has spent the night. I sense its rising. Then there’s an explosion of light, a halo appears and ice crystals dance in the still morning air.
Kangchenjunga, to which we have been walking for so many days, now offers its Southwest Face for inspection. Broken here and there by black ribs of rock, it has a formidable presence, its glaze of ice and snow stippled by what appear from this distance to be minor cracks, but which in reality no doubt are monstrous glacial shelves. Almost 4000 metres higher than where I stand, the wall is topped by a crest of ice carved against a sky of deep intensity. A glorious mountain it truly is, but so too are those to the right and left of me, each one no less spell-binding in its beauty than Kanch itself.
Pemba grabs my arm and points up the left-hand slope. ‘Bharal,’ he hisses. These are the so-called blue sheep of the Himalaya, and I stand rooted to the spot to watch as a small herd of the short-horned animals skitters across what looks like a vertical gully. A few stones rattle down. Then peace is restored.
My Sherpa friend is excited to be back in close contact with Kangchenjunga. Today it is his mountain and, full of stories of his time here with the Japanese expedition, he directs my attention to individual features on the massive face. In honour of his return he’s wearing a pair of red quilted trousers from that expedition as a souvenir.
We clamber onto the moraine crest and look down upon the glacier. In the Alps it would either be riven with blue-green crevasses or carpeted with snow. Here in the Himalaya we gaze upon a junkyard bearing the debris of the mountains that wall it; a chaos of rock and rubble – grey, drab and lacking appeal.
Pemba presses on, now joined by Dendi, while I follow close behind, panting with the unaccustomed altitude. I am made breathless not only by the thin air, though, but by the scene ahead, above and behind, for this is the culmination of a dream; the Himalaya at last!
At last we reach a prominent chorten, like a huge milestone on the moraine crest, with an uninterrupted view of Kangchenjunga as a backdrop. A cluster of bamboo wands wearing strips of printed cloth rise from the top of this pile of stones. We stand before it without words as a gust of wind snaps at the flags to disturb the prayers. A flotilla of ‘Om mani padme hums’ is released to the mountain deities. Kangchenjunga, abode of the gods, absorbs them all.
Pemba and Dendi move to the other side of the chorten, where they deposit grains of rice and a few small-denomination rupee notes on a flat stone shelf. In unison they begin to chant their prayers, deep mumbling sounds like the hum of the universe, while broken thumbnails flick prayer beads. I stand to one side, deeply moved.
When they finish, Pemba turns to me and commands: ‘Now you must pray.’
‘Okay,’ I respond. ‘What should I pray?’
‘You pray like we do. That you come back again.’
So I do.
CHAPTER 2
Annapurna
THE ANNAPURNA CIRCUS (1991)
I trek the Annapurna Circuit with an old friend, but reach the Sanctuary alone, surrounded by 7000 metre peaks.
After trekking to Kangchenjunga I was hooked. That trek of a lifetime could not be filed away in memory as a one-off; I’d have to return to the Himalaya. So before my flight home I spent two hectic days in Kathmandu visiting local agents and quizzing seasoned trek leaders. Plans took shape, but the following year writing projects diverted me to the Alps, to eastern Turkey and the Russian Caucasus. The Himalaya had to wait, but not for long…
For eight hours I’m forced to crouch almost double in the cab of a bus, a metal box above my head, knees embedded in the back of the driver’s seat, so when we arrive at last at the grubby township of Dumre, between Kathmandu and Pokhara, I hobble down the street bent like Quasimodo. One glance at the open-backed truck which provides onward transport to the trail-head convinces my companion, Alan, and me that there must be an alternative. There is. We locate the driver of a jeep, negotiate a price and encourage two other travellers – one Swiss, the other American – to share the costs, and depart for the mountains in a cloud of red dust.
The 40-odd kilometres of dirt road to Besisahar consume three and a half hours, and by the time we arrive a dense film of dust covers everything – the jeep, our rucksacks, the driver, us. Our nostrils are caked, eyes sore, my head is splitting. Next time, I swear, I’ll walk all the way from Kathmandu.
This is Alan Payne’s first visit to Nepal. Raised in Derbyshire, but now living in Devon, where he’s a planning officer, we met in the Atlas Mountains in 1965 and have since trekked and climbed numerous times in the Alps and Pyrenees. He’s fit, good company, easy-going and undemanding, and content to leave me to make decisions as to where to go and when, so when I told him of my plan to trek to Annapurna, he jumped at the opportunity to join me.
Annapurna is an obvious choice – its reputation for dramatic scenery and cultural diversity make it one of the most prized of all trekking regions. Mountains apart, the landscape varies from sub-tropical forest and lush foothill terraces in the south to frosted barren wastes on the northern side of the Himalayan divide, and from a trekkers’ pass at almost 5500 metres to the deepest river valley on Earth. Within this land of extremes live an assortment of ethnic groups – Magar, Newar, Gurung, Chhetri, Brahmin, Thakali and Bhotiya – many of whom have abandoned traditional farming practices to become lodge- or teahouse-owners, converting the family home to accommodate foreign trekkers, thereby making it easy for independent travellers to trek here without the need to backpack heavy camping equipment and food supplies.
No wonder it’s popular.
Beginning our counter-clockwise circuit we follow the Marsyangdi upstream, crossing tributaries on a variety of bridges and, in one case, wading through the water aided by a self-appointed river guide all of 10 years old. We share the trail with porters carrying crates of bottled drinks; others are laden with four metre wooden planks, sheets of corrugated iron, shiny metal trunks or dokos filled with pasta and tins of coffee. Western voices are heard in wayside bhattis, and some of our fellow trekkers on the early, humid stages of the route are dressed as though heading for a Mediterranean beach.
Wandering
