Trip Reports

Manaslu Circuit - 13 Oct to 4 Nov '12

Written by Leader Paul Westwood, November 2012

Early Saturday evening and five of the team met up with expedition leader, Paul Westwood, at T4 Heathrow airport. This would be the first day of their 23-day trip that would hopefully see them complete a circuit of Manaslu, the world's eighth highest mountain.

There were actually three Jagged Globe trips flying out on the same Jet Airways flight, so we soon amassed a great number of eager mountaineers and their big red kit bags. The flights to Kathmandu via Delhi went without a hitch and we enjoyed the short coach ride from the airport through the bustling streets to our haven of quietness and tranquility that is the Summit Hotel.

As ever here the welcome was warm and the formalities with the hotel and our local staff were completed without fuss. We also met up with the final two members of our team, Jamie and Liz, who were on their honeymoon and had flown out a couple of days earlier to do some sightseeing in and about Kathmandu.

A short briefing by Paul, to make sure everyone was fully prepared and kitted up, was followed by a buffet dinner and off to bed for final packing/rearranging. Early rise the following day to get breakfast, meet our Sirdar, Karma Sherpa, and his crew and pack the bus for our long journey to Arughat Bazar and the start of our trek. The bus ride to Gorkha was a little rough, but nothing compared to the final section beyond Gorkha. The bus was fully laden both inside and on top and the driver deserved a medal for the way he managed to weave and sway his way along the twisting and rutted track, high above the valley floor many hundreds of feet below. There was more than one occasion when sharp intakes of breath could easily be heard and other times when breaths were clearly being held - quite an experience in its own right.

Once at Arughat the crew set about getting our campsite set up and, as would generally be the case, getting the kettle on for a brew of some description. Jamie wandered off for a call of nature and got a little more than he bargained for when he met quite a large snake - as it would transpire the only one that would be seen on the trip. This would also be where we would see the first of a number of Nepali sports for young children. Here we witnessed 'chucking the chick' and later would see others like 'sling the goat' and 'stone the mule, not the crows'. They made us cringe a little but it all seemed quite normal behaviour to our hosts.

Our first night's camp was at an altitude of a little over 600m and was consequently quite hot and humid, as were the next few nights and got a few of the team wondering why they'd got so much cold weather clothing and down sleeping bags - they'd find out later for sure. These first few days followed a similar pattern of bed tea at 6:30 followed by wash bowls, breakfast at 7 and off walking by 8 or thereabouts, getting to our next night's camp by early to mid-afternoon.

The terrain was what we would later joke as Nepali flat, which actually meant not rising too much in the day but may have quite a few ups and downs on the way. The scenery was lush green with increasingly larger hills on both sides and the occasional glimpse of a snowy peak or two. The weather was clear and sunny, save for a handful of raindrops on two early days, and this weather would also follow us for the majority of the trek. It did however start to get a little chilly once the sun had dipped down behind the adjacent peaks and a few layers of those warmer clothes started to appear. There was even an incidence of mass hair washing at Tatopani, which roughly translates to 'hot water', as it's the site of a hot water spring and Trekkers and local take advantage of the natural phenomena.

By day 7 or so it was also obvious that there was another amazing natural phenomenon but this one travelled along with us - it was Nima Lhakpa Sherpa our cook and his little team of helpers. The range, quantity and quality of food he prepared, not only for dinner but also for lunch, was nothing short of amazing, and all done on a couple of paraffin stoves.

By the time we got to Deng at 1,800m we had definitely left the hot and humid and were entering the chilly stage of the trek, not cold but getting there. The nearby lodge owner had installed a gas geyser shower and female team members followed by Andy and then Josh took full advantage of its moderate warming properties. Steph would be pleased that beyond here as we seemed to lose the large spiders that she was so obviously not keen on. Beyond Deng we also saw our second troop of monkeys - quite a lot of them and not too far away on the other side of the valley.

After completing National Park formalities at Namrung we ended up having a couple of cultural days, visiting monasteries at both Lho and Samagaon. The young novice monks at the monastic school at Lho entertained us with their 'bamboo guns' that fired chewed up paper balls and the key-man at Samagaon kindly opened up one of their really old manuscripts for us to have a look at - quite a privilege. Paul also took advantage of a free afternoon to go through the operation of the portable altitude chamber (PAC) that was carried with us each day by one of the Sherpas. Samagaon was also where we had our first acclimatisation (definitely not rest) day - it really means we didn't move camp as we would normally do but instead would do a circular/linear walk out from and back to the same campsite. At Samagaon this would be a walk up towards the site of Manaslu Base Camp and also where we'd have our only sustained snowfall of the trek - break out the even warmer and waterproof layers!

With the cold with us we moved up to Samdo and quite an airy and exposed campsite above the village - at one point a big gust of wind blew down our mess/dining tent and Geoff, Jamie and Paul struggled to hold on to it and re-erect it at a slightly better angle before our crew realised what was happening. Our acclimatisation trek the following day was preceded by a helicopter evacuation of a local from the village - apparently there had been some kind of altercation and a local had been seriously injured - it was a festival day and Karma speculated that a fair amount of drinking had probably taken place. We trekked up the ridge behind the village to a set of high prayer flags and returned through a pasture with many yaks, both old and young. We were now just one day from Dharamsala (Larkya Phedi) base camp and one more from the pass itself - there was an air of nervousness within the camp. Josh had a brilliant day walking strongly and confidently all the way to Larkya Phedi. Babu Sherpa had been sent off in the wee hours, again, to secure us a good pitch at the camp site which he'd done well - some of the other groups' tents were on quite a slope.

That night's briefing revealed that tomorrow we'd have a 3am (no I'm not joking confirmed Karma with a wry smile) wake up, bed tea and breakfast before heading off at 4:15 - and so it was!

Karma and the kitchen crew were up at 01:30 preparing breakfast for the porters and then us and we all headed off with our head torches on by just about 4:15. It was bitterly cold but a good full breakfast and those oh so important warm clothes kept us warm through the climb up to the Larkya La pass at an altitude of 5,213m. We even managed to pick up an extra team member in the shape of a lone German lady who had been left behind by the rest of her group for going too slowly! Congratulations all round as we reached the pass but not too much time to dally as we still had quite a long way to go down before we reached the comfort of our tents at Bimtang (3,590m). 5hrs up and 6hrs down took its toll on Geoff in particular and Suddha Sherpa had to help him along the last few minutes into camp. Irene, Geoff's partner, tended to him with bed soup and dinner despite having been a little unwell herself 24hrs earlier. Everyone was tucked up in bed by 7pm! - a good hard day by anybody's standards.

You might say that our first day’s descent from Bimtang went from the sublime to the psychedelic as we camped at Gho right in the middle of fields of Hashish! - It has actually been all around throughout pretty much all of the trek. The following day we trek through Dharapani, where we merged with the Annapurna circuit, and continue on to a lovely campsite in the gardens of a tea house/lodge in Tal where we encounter Timmy Mallet - not the real Timmy and it’s too difficult to explain but it was quite funny! Continuing down the river valley, back into hot and humid 'jungle' surroundings, we have our penultimate night's camp in a school yard at Bahundanda. Bahundanda is right at the top of a steep stepped hill and Jamie, Steph and Andy showed their competitiveness by sprinting to the top - it probably took the rest of us 20 minutes!

Our final destination was to be through Bhulbhule, where we had a nice relaxing lunch, before heading off to the end of trek at the large town of Besisahar. A town centre camp site doesn't sound too good but we hardly noticed. We had our dinner, a few celebration drinks with the crew, gave them their well-deserved tips, had a bit of a sing song and dance - well Pemba and a couple of the lads danced - and we hit the hay, dreaming of clean bed sheets, unhealthy food and drink and the 'comforts' of civilisation - whatever that may be?

The return bus journey was relatively ‘tame’ and Summit Hotel didn’t disappoint. The trip was finished off for the team by taking in some of the sights, sounds and smells of Kathmandu and two comfortable fights back to the UK. The consensus of the team was that this is very unlikely to be the last such trip they take and that Jagged Globe will figure highly if not exclusively in their deliberations.

Paul Westwood
Expedition Leader
05.11.2012 « | Next report »

Jagged Globe Newsletter

We publish an email newsletter with trip reports and latest availability, plus features, competitions and general news of our climbing, trekking & skiing activities.

Categories
Archives
 
Follow Us:
1