Throng La

Hi! at last, a computer! I havent seen one for days and my gmail does not work at this place, so, here goes, hopefully I can quickly send this off. It is Wednesday, April 13th and I am in a place called Jomsom, Nepal and have, at last been able to get some money from an exchange place here in this ancient village.
In short, mission completed. I got to the summit of Throng La the day before yesterday and what a thrill it was. 17,765 feet. The highest pass in the world! We started just after 4:30 am, in the dark, and crossed ice and snow and climbed into the oncoming day. It was a perfect morning. The silence and concentration as we climbed step by step towards our goal. At the beginning it was so dark you could barely see patchs of snow and ice and small gulies. Unfortunately my questionable porter went far ahead of us and we could not see him for hours!!! But, Gis and I plodded pumped upwards, retgardless.You had to go with faith, I guess. Others had left before us, and many came after. Gis, my french friend was having difficulyt iwth her breathing and was carrying a very heavy pack. I stayed iwth her or just in front and waved my head (lamp) for encouragement. After about an hour of climbing slowly the darkness began to lighten and I could see the outline of the spectacular mountains around me, just black at first and later, as the sun came over the mountains, you could see the deep \white snow, shiny glaciers, crevacies, etc. At first the moon was a tiny arc in the dark early morning and then was taken over by an ever blue sky and bright sunshine all around. We still kept our very winter gear on (it was the first time I wore this stuff). The sunrise, as you can imagine was thrilling to see; it appeared over one peaak then rose to include the neighbouring peaks. It was a thrill for me to stop a while to watch the sun as it rose to our exciting Throng La peak. The last three to four hours of constant climbing upward saw many of us in various stages of exertion, flagging of will,and resting and sharing stories of others somewhere below fighting or trying to stop their dizziness, headache or sick stomach. I met, remet some folks I had encountered during my past ten days of trekking the Annapurna Circuit. Unique yet wonderful friendships, shall I say "dangerous liasions?"! I had heard a few days previously that trekking Throng La was quite difficult at the beginning, thenwould get harder then, extremely tough and then, PURE HELL! As Gis and I wsere going slower were at the almost 4th hour, almost 9 am and i was still waiting for the PURE HELL! but it did not come for me, for us. It was hard work, yes, we had to stop to breath, sip water and take in the experience... but the peak or the part leading up to the Throng La Pass was ok. We arrived, folks there beside the welcoming board and Tibetan prayer flags... Gis was emotional for a minute or tweo. We were thankful and happy to have arrived at our goal. I went about 50 yardsfor a few minutes to self to a stupa and spent a bit of time out, took some pictures, plantedsome Oojchook (sp) stones for Arran and all my family and then joined the other relieved trekkers. We danced, had tea, touched the Tibetan flags and just hung out a while. We celebrated the ones that finally made it to the top despite awful odds....

After an hour or so we started our way down... about 15,000 feet of down hill Himalayan mountains. In short it was the worst afternoon of my entire trek! My right tibia, right side of leg gave me an awful time. Also was worried about twisting leg, or ankle, not being able to enjoy/ continue trek not to mention be able to stay in Nepal to help out in Childhaven for three more months .... Yes, the head took over. I was exhausted and cranky and worried. On top of this my guide forgot to bring lunch!!!! and we had had breakfast at 4 am and it was now 2 and 3 pm!! Anyways, we arrived back finally at the Mukinath Hotel exhausted and I had tea and biscuits and flopped into bed EXHAUSTED. Next day, yesterday, work up feeling a new person. Gis and I joined a group of new friends at the famous ancient temple (Hindu and Buddhist) and had a very interesting time there seeing the birth of wind, water and fire ... more later. One of the gals in the group is a physio, and here she was giving me exercises to help my (not serious) problem of my right leg. Laughs!

I have, as you can imagine, SO MUCH to tell you. But this costs big bucks and I must leave you now. I have 5 or 6 more days left of my Annapurna Circuit and I will get to my blog sometime when I can. Forgive the grammar and the rather factual note here, but I wanted to share a little about my actual Throng La experience.

I hope that this finds you all well. I will try to get to my gmail now and hope to find a note or two from you!!

hugs from the Himalayas! Dyane