Himalayan Days 16-17

Well, I spoke too soon about the crew messing up. As one may have predicted, the location of camp turned out to be a blessing in disguise. After dinner at our arrival, Luke, Ana and I decided we'd try to wake up at 4AM that night and scale the massive peak above us that looked super steep and near impossible for my amateur mountaineering experience.

At midnight, I woke up to take a pee and the sky was clear and beautiful. Our original plan (had we been staying at the "right" place) was to start our trek to a different peak at midnight. When 4AM hit, it was snowing heavily. Had we been off on our originally planned summit attempt, we would have been screwed by the snow. As it was, we just returned to sleep for another couple hours, and eventually the snow cleared and we headed out towards our "backup" peak at 7:06AM.

5 hours later after a challenging and beautiful climbing experience, we reached the summit of the daunting peak. It was a great feeling and even more amazing view. We found a pile of rocks at the top protecting a Gatorade bottle, inside of which held names of previous summiteers. The most recent date was 2008. It was a neat time capsule of sorts.

After spending a good half hour in comfort at the summit (6277 meters), we headed back down to our gear and pushed onwards along a ridge to another (lower) peak and finally I went on my own to a 3rd peak to scope out a possible route for a trek the next day.

So what began as a total screw up day ended up in 3 additional 6000meter "peaks" for me while our original plan would have gotten snowed out and put us in a hairy situation in the middle of the darkness while we tried to traverse a glacier!

Funny how things work out.

That evening, the three of us tried to convince the rest of the team that an even more beautiful and challenging peak was possible the next day (the one I had checked out on my own). Everyone agreed to give it a shot.

The next morning, we took off at 5:25AM towards the lake I had been to a few days prior. When we arrived at the lake, Luke took matters into his own hands and instead of taking the "boring" route along rocks p the left ridge, he said we are going directly up the glacier and then up the snow as far as we can get. This initially caught everyone off guard and we thought he was nuts, but an hour later, we were all roped together traversing a beautiful glacier and loving its awesomeness. After scaling to about 5850 meters in altitude, we had lunch at a grouping of exposed rocks about 5 hours into the day. Feeling optimistic about our summitting chances, 5 of us continued directly up the snow wall towards the peak. It ranged between a 40-50 degree slant all the way up for the next 400 meters. As we continued up, we were all struggling and tired, and eventually we got through the snow to a vein of very loose dangerous rocks that we started climbing up. Some pretty ominous storm clouds were approaching, and we really tried to push it. Luke went ahead and made it to just below the summit before animatedly encouraging the rest of us to hurry the hell up before the weather hit. I was the 2nd one up, and Ana, Piotr, and Lars soon thereafter. We took a few pictures at the summit, but Luke told us we had to get down ASAP. Unlike the previous day, there wasn't much of a chance to enjoy the well-earned achievement. This kind of sucked because it was the toughest peak we had climbed and it would have been nice to get rewarded a little more. Oh well.

Anyways, coming down was just as challenging as getting up. It was super steep and slippery and rocks were flying down when people slipped. Plus the storm was coming. After about 10 minutes of frantic descending, we caught a brief stroke of luck when the storm dissipated. This was bittersweet of course because it meant we could have stayed at the summit longer. Oh well. We eventually fought our way down and ended up back in camp 11 hours after we started our day.

The 2 consecutive days of successful 10 and 11 hour challenging hikes were very ironman-esque in their mental difficulty. When I get to Louisville in 3 weeks, I will not be 100% physically ready for the race, but I do expect to be mentally prepared. This will be an interesting experience, a near opposite to my approach in Florida.

I managed to finish "Meditation and Mantras" while in camp below these massively beautiful Korzok peaks, and finally moved onto my final book, Shantaram. We've got 3 nights left so we'll see how far I can get.

Himalaya Day 15

Beware the ides of trekking.

Wow what a royal screwup today on behalf of the crew. At the end of the day, we netted about 5km horizontal distance and 150 meters vertical. Gross distance was about 20km horizontal and 1.3km vertical.

Basically despite Luke giving explicit directions to half the team, they went in the complete wrong direction with no explicable reason. Our entire goal of the day was to raise up about 500meters to get to a high camp in order to scale a massive peak tomorrow. I had personally done recon to find the best place for this. Luke knew my findings and vividly explained it but apparently no one listened and now we've spent about 10 hours of hiking to accomplish nothing and there's no chance of ascending a peak tomorrow.

On the bright side, we have our tents and gear, which was far from a given at 3:00PM when we had no clue where our staff was and we were debating our next move. Luckily 2 small figures appeared on a peak in the distance and we saw through Lars' camera zoom lens that they were part of the staff who had come looking for us.

Also, in my personal quest to become a better person and live in the present instead of dwelling on the past or holding expectations of the future, this was a trying day but I think I handled it as well as possible. I realize that people make mistakes and you just have to deal with them no matter how large of an inconvenience it may seem at the time. The staff has been very nice and helpful since we just arrived beat as hell (and had to wade through a raging stream at the final point) and they realized they screwed up, so there's really not much more I can ask for. It's all about non-enjoyership!

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)

Himalayan Days 8-10

I am beat. We just got to a new camp in Gyama Barma after spending the last 3 nights in Spanglung. Each of the nights in Spanglung, I woke up at 2:30 to do Alpine starts on attempting 6000 meter peaks. I was 2.5/3 as far as success is concerned.

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.

Himalayan Days 4-7

Coming to you live from camp at Spanglung at 5250 meters. We arrived during a torrential hailstorm filled with lightning and all sorts of goodies. I had split with the group just after brunch, and I chose a path that allowed me to somehow catch up with the staff and horses about 30 minutes ahead of the rest of the group. After walking another 30 minutes uphill with Tempa, the clouds started to dump. We luckily had just about made it to our campsite and everyone started getting all the gear off the horses asap. Since this usually is a 45 minute process in sunny skies, there was no way it was going to be a smooth in these conditions. I was of minimal help, and after throwing tarp over all our bags, Tempa yelled at me to get under the tarp myself. By this point the hail was intense and lightning was on top of us so I gladly obliged and chilled under the tarp for the next 15 minutes while the staff went to work setting up camp as best they could.

Eventually the storm let up, and they came to take me out from under the tarp. It was hilarious. Slowly they started building tents and warming water as the rest of the team arrived. All were much wetter than myself. It was certainly uncomfortable for an hour but now everyone is dried off, warmed up, and relaxing as we sit inside a cloud.

This is definitely the most excitement we've had yet on the trek. The last couple of days were absolutely amazing as we trekked through the vast valley of Tso Kar, with endless desert landscapes surrounded by snowcapped peaks and a gorgeous lake. I actually went for a swim as we walked past the lake. It is quite salty, and was fun to float in, though nowhere near as bouyant as I was in the dead sea. I wonder if it is the highest (4500meter) saltwater lake, as that would be a nice feather in my cap to have swam in both the highest and lowest saltwater lakes.

The night before we reached the lake valley, we stayed in another spectacular valley where a nomad tent nearby was selling rum, so I bought a bottle to share with the staff and Tempa whipped up a mixer of water, ginger, cinnamon, and lemon, and it was fantastic. Our staff is truly awesome. They are fun, smart, strong, hard-working, and passionate about mountain exploration. They all do their best to communicate in English while I learn a little bit of ladakhi, nepali, and tjbetan from them. Harish, the main horseman, is my favorite. Dude just got a haircut and with his ballcap and sunglasses looks total gangster just like Eazy E. Vivek rocks a Chicago white sox sweater. I want them to trade to complete the look.

I've been extremely disciplined with my yoga practice, waking up every morning around 5:25, and getting in at least an hour of practice before breakfast. I think the breathing exercises have been incredibly useful for adjusting to the altitude, and the surya namaskar and headstands as well have made me feel great throughout the days. I have some great scorpion pics that I look forward to sharing.

Pooping has been an adventure! I am averaging about 4 sizable movements per day. They are of a nice consistency just above the threshold of diarrhea. Sliding right out without explosions. I'm getting really good at the squatting and I've finally figured out how to do it without entirely removing my pants. It's heavenly, as it feels like everything I'm eating is either being converted into energy or passing right through me. I am eating like a King of vegetables and grains, so it's also rather healthy. I just need to cut down on crackers and tea. Still peeing in the middle of the night is annoying me. The other thing is, my farts are deathly. Must be the eggs or some seasoning Tempa is using. I really am not sure if I'll be able to continue to use this sleeping bag after the trip unless it gets fumigated.

I tore up cricket our first night at the lake. They couldn't get me out and I just kept smashing the ball over everyone's head. I eventually broke the ball in half and one half got caught, thus ending my innings. I'm definitely going to figure out a way to play legit cricket when I finish this trip.

Speaking of returning to reality. These past 3 days have given me ample opportunity to really do some soul-searching. The long gorgeous big-sky walks allowed our group to separate, and I had hours at a time where I put in my headphones, enjoyed some great mixes, and just took in the scenery, oblivious to my body. This meditative vibe was pure bliss.

I also just got through Gandhi's autobiography last night. While the book was a bit long, it was full of incredibly inspirational passages and stories that I found very meaningful.

So I'm going to save my "spiritual" thoughts for another blog, as I'd like to keep that separate from the physical recap.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a rest day, as the team needs to acclimate to sleeping at this altitude (same as Mt. Everest base camp). Wednesday morning the plan is to explore 3 6000 meter peaks just above us. However, I am feeling very strong and Luke and I might head out tonight and try to sneak in an additional 6350 meter summit if the weather is decent. If we succeed, that is higher than any point in all of North America. Will keep you posted.

Himalayan Days 1-3

Himalayan Days 1 - 3

Our trip out of leh was pretty easy. Took us about 2 hours to get to our camp for night one. We pulled off the Manali-Leh highway into a parking lot if a small Indian army compound where we met our team of Ladakhis, Tibetans, Nepalis, and some other local ethnicities who were waiting there with all the horses and all the gear (tents, food, etc). Immediately we started setting up camp alongside a small creek in the valley behind the military barracks while about 50 Indian officers watched us intently. A few cane down to check out what we were up to, adn made us relocate toilet tent across the creek, which meant whenever we wanted to take a dump it would require a leap over a creek before you could do so. Useful for loosening you up!

Immediately we had lunch and I realized how spoiled we are going to be on this trek. I've never camped beyond slices of bread, fruit, and trail mix. Here we are loaded with every kind of snack and tea or coffee or hot chocolate at any hour. Filtered water 24/7. Breakfast is oatmeal followed by eggs cooked to order (yes omelets), lunch is some really good sandwiches and pasta and rice, which we either have in camp or stop for a break while trekking , and dinner starts with soup, followed by a main course of like 5 veggie dishes, and then fruit for dessert.

Now while this seems like we are all pussies, I have to say that with our itinerary, this kind of full service is necessary. We've revamped our plan to try and mount 5 6000 meter peaks in 21 days. Our elevation changes are quite dramatic versus other treks which just follow trails or do short 5 day summits of one 6000 meter peak.

Today (Day 3) was a rest day (our second night camping at 4600meters) but we all decided to climb this random mountain near camp which ended up being an incredibly demanding 5600meter summit which was far more dangerous and took way longer than we had thought. This on our "off day". So yea, the nice meals make the 21 day adventure possible otherwise we'd be completely spent after 5-6 days max. I'm totally cool with that style of trekking obviously, but it's nice to experience the 5-star version as well.

I slept horribly the first night. Many issues a play. First of all, I had eaten and drank way too much so I was constantly up to pee in the freezing cold night, plus bloated and farting like crazy because I really didn't want to use the toilet across the creek in the middle of the night. Second, I'm getting used to my mummy style sleeping bag which severely limits my leg positions, so they were getting very cramped. Third, I was sleeping on a slight slant and needed to adjust all the time. Fourth, it was a very dewy creek and misty night and somehow some water was seeping into my tent and that made things uncomfortable. Fifth, there was some damn dog barking all night.

Night 2 I eliminated most of these issues (still needed to pee and fart) and got used to my sleeping bag and had a much better sleep. Tonight is night 3 and I'm optimistic it will be good.

I've got up vey early each moving with the sunrise and put in about 45-60 minutes of yoga. I think the breathing exercises are really helping me perform in this environment. Today I skipped the yoga in lieu of a solo hike to watch the sunrise over the valley. When we did our 5500meter peak later on, I came back with a pretty rough headache, so I did about an hour of yoga (breathing for 30 minutes, relaxing for 20, then headstand for 10) and it practically eradicated my headache without any pills. I was super happy this worked.

Every day at camp we've been setting up a cricket pitch with the staff and it's super fun. I'm a very accurate bowler but can't get the ball passed anyone. Batting, I usually swing for the fences and get out by tipping it to the wicket keeper. Its kind of ridiculous because the field is set up in the middle of camp so half the time the ball is going into a river or nearly taking someones head off as they do their laundry or cook.

I've been reading a lot during our spare time and before bed. I've gotten halfway through gandhis autobiography. It's a very interesting book, and it's perfect that I've spent time in Bombay, South Africa, and studied Hinduism at the ashram because the book is far more understandable to me due to having all those experiences. I'm looking forward to finishing it and starting shanturam.

Conversation around camp has been fun. As usual, I'm talking too much. But everyone else has good things to discuss and I don't think they mind me just yet. We'll see in a couple days.

I earlier mentioned being bloated and farting all night. Let me say that the craps I've taken the following mornings have been spectacular. Our crapper tent is basically a hole in the ground that we dig, surrounded by a tall skinny square tent. I swear I have nearly filled the entire hole up each time. It's really tough to hold the squat for such an extended period of time. My legs are falling asleep, so wiping and standing up are incredibly difficult.

Showering also is quite primitive and involves freezing yourself to death in the glacial streams. But hey why not. Laundry same, but it's not bad because we've got a really bright and hot sun during the days so far. Hoping this weather holds (but honestly the heat and lack of any form of shade outside of our tents is tough as well). When a cloud comes in front of the sun, the temperature immediately drops like 20 degrees. It's nuts. Sunscreen is essential, though I've picked up some minor burning on the back of my legs. I should be quite tan by the time it's over.

Tomorrow and the next day are major moving days, and we'll be camping at 5000 meters, which should be fun. I doubt I'll be able to upload this blog anytime soon but just wanted to journal the experience while it's fresh.

Recapping a great trek

I kept a blog throughout the 21 days that I was without Internet in the Ladakhi mountains. I will slowly post those updates day by day.