Each day’s hike is getting noticeably more difficult due to the altitude. We tend to walk VERY slow… with small, deliberate steps. Admittedly, this day in our trek is less about enjoyment of the scenery (hopefully that will come more in retrospect as we look back at our pictures!) and more about just getting over the pass in another day. At this elevation, we are far above the tree line and the only plant life is shrubs and thorny bushes.
We opted to sleep in the village of Thorong Pedi as opposed to going up to ‘High Camp’, another 400 m up (which would have saved us an hour of hiking early in the morning the next day). From our medical briefing in Manang two days prior, we learned that you are supposed to ascend, at most, a net elevation of 600m a day to avoid altitude sickness… going up to High Camp would put us over that threshold and we decided not to chance it (plus, we were pretty tired already!).
There was an unusual quiet in the guesthouse that night… a collective mix of excitement and anxiety about the pass the next day. We had dinner by 6pm and were in bed by 7pm. Tomorrow would be the biggest ascent (and at the highest altitude) of the trek so far.
The raging river we’ve been following the past 9 days is reduced to a trickle at our current elevation (this picture taken from a suspension bridge).
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