forced inactivity; others voice concern that the Thorong La will be impassable for several days, even if the snow stops now, for if it’s snowing like this here, what’s it like 2000 metres up?
We visit the Canadians at the Yak Lodge, where Linda remains in her room, snug in her sleeping bag. Ray is hunched beside the stove, cramped between down-wrapped trekkers. ‘There’s no way we’re going down to Hongde in this,’ he says. ‘We’ll wait a day or two and see what the weather brings.’
Braga is the next village down the trail from Manang. Built in tiers against steep outcrops in a shallow amphitheatre of crags, in the snow it looks like a multi-layered wedding cake in danger of collapse. When we’d passed below it a couple of days ago it had attracted our attention, desert brown against rust-coloured rocks, but we’d been unwilling to stop then as the afternoon was fading and Manang beckoned. Now, with time to explore, we shuffle our way through neglected drifts up to the gompa at the top of the village. The caretaker appears, rattling a bunch of ancient keys, and lets us in.
Innocent of Buddhist culture, I can only feel a reverence I do not understand in this dusty place of nine hundred Himalayan winters, lit as it is by butter lamps with a faltering orange glow. My wandering eyes drift across racks of rectangular manuscripts – scriptures borne down the ages by followers of the Buddha, whose words took shape hundreds of years before Christ began his own ministry. I’m aware of how little I know.
More than a hundred terracotta statues appear as my eyes grow accustomed to the moody light; there are coloured banners hanging from the ceiling, a gong, a drum and smaller instruments used in times of prayer. A large bronze Buddha watches every movement until the caretaker directs us to an upper building where yet more Buddhas gather dust, and in an ante-room we find a collection of archaic knives, swords and rusted muskets, then return to the lower room where silk scarves are placed around our necks with a blessing.
We’ll need that blessing when the snow stops, if we’re to cross the Thorong La.
The stroll back to Manang is through a stark monochrome landscape. The wind has dropped, but heavy clouds fill the valley and empty their contents of damp white flakes. When we call at the Yak to see how Linda is, the room is crowded with more than 50 trekkers as today’s acclimatisation lecture has been transferred here from the HRA building, so we return to the Annapurna to find some French trekkers who’d left yesterday, bound for Letdar. They tell us conditions are very bad up there, which is why they’ve returned, and we speculate that it must be much worse above that. Since it could be days before there’s sufficient improvement to allow a crossing of the pass, the atmosphere is charged with what-ifs and if-onlys.
But next morning all that has changed, the snowfall has ended and remnant clouds scatter to reveal a canopy of deepest blue. Stepping out of the lodge I’m almost blinded by the intensity of light. Flashing crystals of ice prance in the air, the valley is bewitched and I’m excited by its rebirth.
Alan, on the other hand, is still feeling rough. During the night he’d been outside vomiting and now huddles in his sleeping bag as waves of nausea sweep over him. It looks as though Manang will have the pleasure of our company a little longer, so I take him a mug of black tea, which he glances at and gags. ‘I’ve decided to go over the road for a 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