The first day, Luke and I trudged through the night and through morning fog to reach a peak that was 6173 meters. It was a very efficient hike and I was really excited about my first summit. Unfortunately it was quite cloudy so we weren't able to achieve a splendid view. We were back to camp by 10AM and I spent most of the day reading.
The second day, the whole group except Lars headed up to 2 peaks that were 6090 meters and 6160 meters. The weather was perfect and the views were spectacular. I really felt strong this day, pushing to the summits with intensity. We took many amazing pictures and I did some really stupid yoga poses near cliffs but luckily survived. We ended up back at camp at around 1:30 where I ate lunch and passed out.
The third day, Luke, Ana, Lars and I attempted to traverse a huge glacier and summit a 6350 meter peak which is the highest one around the area we are trekking. This was my first time on ice and it was incredibly challenging. The day got off to a bad start for me when I slipped and fell into the river while crossing some icy rocks. I was pissed for a while, and unsuccessfully tried to think positively and get over it. When we finally reached the glacial starting point, I was good again. We all strapped into our ice gear an roped ourselves together in case of falling into ice crevasses (luckily this was averted) We had lunch on the glacier at 6020 meters, but had already been moving for 5 hours and the ascent to the summit was very vertical and we were all so spent that we chose to skip it. However this was still only the beginning of the adventure. We had to descend down the other side of the glacier and this involved serious ice climbing and repelling. Luke was a masterful guide and set up all the rope lines and everything. Unfortunately I totally messed up on the climbing as I incorrectly fastened my crampons and one fell off my shoe halfway through my climb. In my panic, I scraped up all my knuckles on my right hand and they were bleeding pretty bad. I ended up getting up to the top on my second attempt but even then it was an insane struggle while the other 3 climbed up with ease. They said my shoes were the problem, but I think they were just being nice and that I sucked. I need to work on that. I could see it being super fun. Repelling was easy. Luke created an ice bollard to descend himself in order to maintain all his gear. Eventually we were off the glacier and sludged 3 hours to get to our new camp. The final 2 hour walk ended up being quite beautiful through an incredible open valley. I'm in camp now but the bottom line is I was thoroughly defeated by the glacier today. Really looking forward to an actual rest day tomorrow.
Really these last 3 days have consisted of just trekking, eating, reading, and sleeping. And pooping of course is still amazing. The food continues to be stellar and Tempa and Phuntsok keep whipping up new creations. Somehow we had cake last night.
I finished Ghandi's autobiography and "The Power of Now", both of which follow a lot of Vedantic spiritual principles and also touch on other religions as well. I found both to be good books which taught valuable lessons. I'm halfway through "The Monk who sold his Ferrari" now and I think it's way too sugarcoated. Gonna skim through the rest of it then start Shanturam.
This trekking adventure through the amazing scenery has really allowed me to expand on what I learned during my yoga teacher training course and I'm really excited about the discipline and ability to analyze the inner workings of my mind. Almost every day after the difficult treks at altitude, I had a headache. This is totally expected, but instead of taking Tylenol or ibuprofen, I attacked the pain through breathing and relaxation exercises and I've always been successful to eliminate it purely mentally within an hour. I'm growing very confident in my ability to maintain my personal practice and I'm really looking forward to sharing it with others.
It's been 10 full days with no contact with the outside world, and I can say that I'm quite happy and don't miss it at all. It's quite refreshing to have an escape like this to avoid all the problems that exist in our world. Obviously I'm also missing good things, but again that's a sacrifice that I'm fully able to wrap my head around. I couldn't live like this forever, but I certainly wouldn't mind 3-4 week escapes like this at least once a year. (I'm also quite enjoying the bowel movements in nature...I've got a pretty good technique worked out!) Washing my clothes in rivers and drying it on clotheslines still sucks.
1 comment:
so cool! love it:)
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