I was worried about getting there too late and not being able to get a room. (This happened to me the previous year on the Annapurna Sanctuary hike.) The trail had been packed with tour groups the previous day. I knew they would be sending porters ahead to get rooms. I volunteered to get up early and secure rooms for Kasia, Rob, Tom and me.
It was well below freezing and pitch dark for the first hour. When we crossed the pass we would be on the Tibetan Plateau, the world's highest desert. As I hiked closer to the pass the landscape became increasingly more bleak.
I didn't see anyone on the trail. The only other life forms I saw were blue sheep, which are easy to identify because they're ... brown?We were told it would take 2.5-3 hours to hike from Yak Kharka. I didn't think I was pushing it but I made it in 1:50. I was the first person to arrive. I felt like a dork. Everyone else was probably still sleeping! I booked some rooms, ordered some milk tea and eggs and sat in the common room to wait for my friends to arrive.
I didn't feel quite so dorky a few hours later when a flood of hikers arrived. I might have arrived a bit too early, but better too early than too late. The common room had big windows facing south so it was quite cozy during the day. We all sat around passing the time various ways including, yes, obsessively re-reading the menu.
Thorung Phedi sits at 4450 meters (14,685 feet). This is higher than any point in the lower 48 states, so altitude is a major factor. About an hour's hike up the hill towards the pass is High Camp, at 4,800 meters. The camp is behind the rocky outcrop on the right.
A lot of people walked up there to acclimatize and pass the time. I started to walk up, but I had a bit of a headache, so I decided to play it safe and just rest at the lodge.
This is looking down at the steady stream of people making the acclimatization hike up to High Camp. In the center of the picture is a relatively flat patch with a big H in the center. It's a helipad for airlifting out people with altitude sickness.The weather, again, was perfect. The sky was so blue it looked almost fake, like a child's drawing of a sky, and so clear the moon was visible at mid-day.
The common room was packed that night. The young Americans I had met on the bus to Besi Sahar were there. Ruby, the girl standing on the right, was celebrating her birthday. She was worried that it might not be "a birthday to remember". (She's still at the age when birthdays are something to look forward to.)
Her fears were unfounded. Soon everyone knew and soon after that she was crying, after hearing "Happy Birthday" sung to her in five different languages.
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