15/7/25
Jonathan was up and about all night. His belly was still dodgy. That bloody uncooked dough. Frankie, on the other hand, slept great. We woke at sunrise, 6:20am. We couldn’t see the Sun of course. It was hidden behind the beautiful mountains. The clouds that had kept us warm overnight had gone. Now it was clear, and cold.
We had our cold oat breakfast after we’d swiftly packed everything away. The tent was of course soaking. Frankie, ‘wore’ plastic bags over her socks to keep warm while we packed down. We waved goodbye to our temporary compadres, then set forth for a day of climbing. Within five minutes we’d reached a vantage point over the valley giving us a premium view of a mountain covered in snow, a timid glacier still rolling down its side. It must never see the Sun, we thought.
Our shoes were still wet and we had to keep crossing rivers. Tiny streams really. Our feet didn’t get the chance to be dry. It was very annoying. We bumped into some Chinese walkers. When we told them of our plans to go through the pass they seemed doubtful we’d still have time. Not what we wanted to hear. Maybe we hadn’t gotten up early enough.
We continued climbing steadily. Occasionally we left the river below us. The land was still meadow like, but more wind swept. There weren’t any trees this high up. The further up we got, larger and larger peaks were revealing themselves. “Tiny”4000m mountains, dwarfed by their snowy opposite numbers.
The valley continued to widen. There were tens of yaks enjoying the cool water and glorious sunshine. They were mostly black, but we liked the white ones with curly hair on their heads. As we were walking over a knoll Himalayan marmots scampered away from us. Birds of prey soared above.
It was hard going. Every step got more difficult. We got increasingly tired as the air got thinner. We contemplated whether we should just sit in the valley all day. It just felt a little odd not to keep going. We decided that if we couldn’t make it over the pass we’d come back down and camp.
After meandering through the valley, we got to a dead end. We couldn’t see where the hell anyone would go over such a jagged ridge. After a few steep grassy hills, we saw a path through the scree. A couple of people, who looked minuscule, were coming over. Now we knew where we had to go. It didn’t look appetising at all. We could barely breathe already. Every step was difficult. We would take 10 steps and then stop to rest.
A clear path over the loose gravel revealed itself as we got closer. We still had 150m of ascent to go. It was insanely steep and we went even slower. When we arrived at the bottom of the final steep slope we were filled with joy. We were going to make it. We took two steps, then took two breaths. Over and over. The view from the top surprised us. It looked like a desert. Horses roamed the steppes. The snowy mountains didn’t even look real. It was impossible to conceive of such a place.
While we were going up it was much harder to look at the mountains and appreciate them. We had been focused on getting over the pass before 1pm. We managed it at ten to. It gave us the best chance of not experiencing bad weather. Now on the way down, we were blessed with even more spectacular peaks. They were much closer, snowier and far more dramatic. The cherry on top was knowing, because of the other hikers, that none of the river crossings would wash us away. That and it was all downhill from here.
We saw the lake below Reddomain, 6112m. Geodesic tents situated below, at its base camp. We stopped for a short break and had some nuts and dried fruit. The path was rugged. We’d got used to the nice soft path coming up the other side. The rocky path made going downhill slow going. Many different alternative paths had been formed by the influx of unabated tourism.
It took forever to get down. We got closer to a very large encampment. Rather than a suitable campsite it was like a small city. Tents, gazebos and everything else. Below the snowy mountains, yaks and horses grazed together on the grass that separated the many paths of the river.
The encampment was a jumbled mess of waste. Old tents dumped in the river and people trying to sell us food. We didn’t spend a moment longer there than we had to. We were still at 4300m. We’d have to descend further to find a suitable place to camp.
The path went steeply down, alongside gushing waterfalls. Everywhere we looked there was rubbish. It was horrific, gas canisters, chairs, tents. If it had anything to do with walking, it was dumped here. Streams of walkers were coming up towards us. Occasional packhorse convoys.
It was awfully slow going. The path was very rocky compared to what we’d been used to. Our thin soled trail runners desperately seeking a soft surface. We were keen for the walk to be over.
There was one more river crossing with insufficient stepping stones or a bridge. We ended up getting completely soaking wet feet. Five minutes before we stopped walking. The wind was blowing strongly up the valley. We tried to find a spot out of the breeze but it wasn’t possible. We nestled the tent at the bottom of a small gully. It wasn’t too difficult to erect, we hoped the wind would abate later on. The river water was cloudy. We filtered it and it was much clearer. Our dinner was cold oats, mushrooms and some chives we’d picked near the top of the pass.
A couple from Singapore arrived to camp. They were super excited to find other foreigners who could speak English. They’d found information about the trek with a great deal of difficulty. They also confirmed the difficulty they’d experienced getting into these mountains.
It was very early when we got into our sleeping bags. It was still light. We were very tired and felt unusual. A combination of the altitude and a hard couple of days hiking. We didn’t even know we’d fallen asleep. It just happened.
Surly They Won't Make It 