Himalayan Days 11-14

We are officially 2 weeks deep into the trek. Just waking up now on Day 15. Lars showed me his pics from a 28 day Nepal trek from a few years back, and that's just nuts. Luke is also trying to organize a 45 day trek up near Nanda Devi, which just seems crazy. We've done so much in just 14 days and beat the hell out of our bodies. 45 days would be intense. I'll miss the mountains but I'll definitely be ready to be in a hotel bed in one week.

I experienced my only true "rest day" in Gyama Barma the day after the glacier extravaganza. We think we may have been the first people to ever traverse that region, known as the Rupshu ice field. We're definitely going to google it when we get home. The rest was nice and I finished the book, "The Monk who sold his Ferrari." I thought it was a quick easy entry level book into spirituality. It was very basic, cut many corners, and didn't challenge me like the other books I've already read. I'm happy to be done with it.

I read all the way through the Bhagavad Gita the next 2 days. It was nice to be able to read through it as a story instead of jumping all around the chapters to focus on specific verses like we did at the ashram. I had been very confused and relatively uninterested in our Gita classes, but the limited amount of info that I retained then helped me very much as I read through the story here. I thought it was an interesting way to get the main teachings of Hindi across and It has inspired me to look through other religious texts like the Bible and Koran when I get home. I think it's useful to understand this stuff to be better prepared for interactions with religious people.

I've also started reading Swami Vishnu's "Meditation and Mantras" book in the natural way instead of jumping around like we did in the ashram. Had I never taken the time to sit down and go through it on my own, then most of my study at the ashram would have been forgotten. It's very helpful for truly understanding the theories behind every type of meditation. I'm about 40% thru it and Shantaram is all I have left afterwards, so I'm going to have to get on that beast soon.

Moving back to the physical trekking, we succeeded in mounting 2 more 6000meter peaks 2 days ago. Yalung Nong and it's twin mountain. Once we got to the summit of the twin (6090m), we had an excellent view of Lake Tso Moriri and the surrounding mountains. It was windy as hell though and I was freezing despite wearing 6 layers. It was the first time the whole team made it to a summit together so that was nice.

The day before the summit and the day after, there had been talk about going back up and attempting the 6350meter peak, Spangnak Ri, that we failed to summit during the glacier traverse. Despite being ready to go at 3AM, it never happened. Luke was beat and figure he'd save his energy for new peaks that Project Himalaya hadn't explored before (Jaime has done Spangnak Ri before).

Instead of going for that summit, I went off on my own to explore the Korzok mountain range and do recon on possible high camps. Each day was a 4 hour solo trek, which really put marathons and ironman training days in perspective. I hiked to a gorgeous glacier lake beneath a huge triangular snow face of a mountain, and also hiked up a valley that runs into a glacier stream about 250meters higher than that lake. That 2nd hike also has great views of Tso Moriri and I took some sweet pics. I've recommended the 2nd option for our high camp, and we're all packing up and heading there in 2 hours in preparation for a 12 hour summit up an intimidating 6260 meter peak tonight. Let's hope my camp recommendation is good!

I had a Godfather beer and some local rum the other night, which I think contributed to some explosive diarrhea yesterday, but luckily I think I've moved that all through. You really don't appreciate the intricate differences between explosive diarrhea and regular smooth diarrhea until you are able to compare and contrast in a beautiful outdoor nature setting. Needless to say, smooth is far superior.

I taught a short basic sivananda yoga class to Ana yesterday. She joined me after I had already started my own practice, so I was teaching as I was performing, which obviously is not proper, but it was still nice to get the rust out. She's already good at yoga so it was workable. She can do headstand no prob and also is like a pro at the peacock, which I think only 1 girl at the yoga course could do by the 28th day.

I'm really looking forward to our attempts at the Korzok range these next few days before an easy 3 day trek back to the Manali-Leh highway, where we'll get picked up on August 8th and brought back to Leh. We've met a few other trekking groups the past couple days, and none of them are attempting any peaks. I mean, it's beautiful and everything but I would get bored of just walking through valleys for 3 weeks. I definitely need the added challenge of vertical movement. So far we've made it to 6 6000m summits, and might pick up a few more before all is said and done. Considering our original itinerary had us only doing 2, I'd say it's been a major success (and incredible Ironman Louisville "alternate" training)