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 succeeds hour, and figures in the landscape are no longer bunched – some have fallen by the wayside, heading back to Phedi in misery and disappointment. Some are just slower than others and trudge their own journeys through their own secret worlds. Each of us deals with the effort, the cold and the altitude in our own very personal way, shrinking within to find a barrier of comfort to deaden the reality.
But I’m relieved to find I’m enjoying myself. My toes have come back to life, my head is not even muzzy. Okay, I’m short of energy and puffing like a steam engine, but I haven’t come here to run, and even in the snowdrifts, where the trail is a series of holes instead of a well-trodden groove, I pick the way cheerfully enough. Whatever the route may be under snow-free conditions, today it meanders from one false col to another as steep slopes converge, bringing us not to new valleys but into hollows and snowdrifts between mountains. Behind us the Annapurnas are slipping away, soon to be vanquished by minor ridges and mountain folds. Then the slope ahead eases, and mountains to right and left give way to create an impression of space as the pass beckons.
At a little after 9 o’clock Alan and I stand misty-eyed by the 5415 metre summit cairn among the wind-disturbed prayers of high places. ‘Om mani padme hum’ swirls silently around us. Even our man from Manang is smiling as he stands between Alan and me while a trekker with a German group takes our photograph before starting her descent. I’m jubilant, and on this day of gifts I wander away for a few minutes and, finding myself alone, turn slowly in a full circle to embrace the scene and whisper words of gratitude.
There are no Annapurnas to gaze upon, but in the northwest an arid, dun-coloured landscape tells of the Kingdom of Mustang. There’s romance in that vision – a vertical desert dusted with snow, Tibet beyond its borders and the hidden land of Dolpo forming a buffer on the far side of mountains without names. The Thorong La not only rewards our presence, it taunts with forbidden horizons.
The descent to Muktinath proves more tiring than the climb to the pass. On this west-facing slope there’s less snow than on the route from Phedi. Two days of sunshine have melted open patches, but the melt has frozen again and a treacherous sheen of ice makes every step a challenge. Half an hour below the pass we come upon the German woman who’d taken our photograph on the Thorong La. Just 15 minutes ago she fell and broke her right leg, which now juts misshapen with an ugly bulge midway between knee and foot. Friends fuss around her offering comfort, while the group leader and his sirdar make a rudimentary stretcher from trekking poles and items of clothing. They’re competent and unflustered, and when we offer assistance they assure us that everything is in hand, so we continue down the slope, moraine ribs spilling towards the valley, ice reflecting the sun, stones projecting through retreating snowfields. Alan and I both fall several times. Not so our man from Manang. He remains on his feet, big boots digging grooves in the slope behind us.
Now with a clear view into the Kali Gandaki, the harvest fields of Kagbeni can be seen, as can the graceful cone of Dhaulagiri. Pausing for a moment, I collect its simple beauty and commit the scene to memory.
At the foot of the moraines we reach grass and stop for a cup of tea at a bhatti that looks less like a building than a ruin. Apart from the cairn on the pass, it’s the first man-made structure we’ve seen since leaving Thorong Phedi. A Sherpa from the German group is here arranging for the bhatti-owner’s pony to carry the woman with the broken leg down to Jomsom. From there she should be able to get a flight out to Pokhara in the next two or three days.
Our porter suddenly comes alive, for the bhatti-owner and his wife have with them a short Bhotiya woman who’s clearly a friend of old. She and our man from Manang huddle together in animated conversation. She giggles like a teenager on her first date, and I worry that we might have difficulty encouraging him to leave with us. None of it. When we’re ready to go, he rises too, but now there’s a spring in his step. I suspect I know where he’ll be spending the night. And with whom.
An hour later we reach Muktinath. Set in a grove of poplars and a walled enclosure, sacred temples and 108 water spouts mark the culmination of a famous pilgrimage followed by generations of Hindus – for after Pashupatinath this is the most revered Hindu site in Nepal. Buddhists are drawn here too, for the footprints of the eighth-century saint Guru Rimpoche are said to be embedded in stone nearby. Yet in our weary state the site attracts little interest. Our knees ache, toes are sore, and the prospect of unlimited drinks, a plate of food and a bed spurs us on. Thankfully we have no need to go far, so Alan hands a clutch of notes to his porter for his three-day journey with us, and moments later our man from Manang is striding back the way we’ve come. He has a date.
Standing naked on the flat roof of the lodge at a little under 4000 metres, I feel somewhat bemused. Having spent an hour celebrating our safe passage of the Thorong La with bottles of Star beer that proved potent on empty stomachs, I’d asked the lodge-keeper for some hot water. ‘You want shower?’ he asked.
‘You have a shower?’
‘Velry good shower!’ he assured me.
Anticipation is a marvellous thing. A single word transports me into a fantasy of steam and soap, clean hair, pink glowing flesh, and an end to the accumulated dirt of mountain Nepal. As I’m led upstairs and out to the rooftop overlooking the village, Dhaulagiri hangs over the valley to the southwest, a symmetrical mountain of purest white against the azure of an unclouded sky.