Nepal day 12 and 13: Trekked to 4600m!
Day 12
I got up very late today, well relatively anyway. I was up around 9:30am. It’s a nice and sunny day today and can see several mountain peaks like Gangapurna and Annapurna III, both greater than 7000m. It’s a relaxing day today.
I started off with a short trek to a viewpoint over looking the village of Manang. It took about 45 minutes to climb up, and I spent a good half an hour at the top, however the wind picked up and it became really cold even though it was sunny.
Once I came back down I stopped for lunch and spoke to an old couple who are from India and they are in Nepal since they work in restoration. They were in Gorkha earlier where the epicenter of the Nepal earthquake was. They are in Manang to relax and not trekking. After lunch I attended a talk by the Himalayan rescue association which was free and about trekking at altitude.
I headed back to my room and later for dinner I had veg noodles. I slept early today because it’s going to be a long day tomorrow, trekking to Ice Lake which is at 4600m in height. I was in bed by 7pm.
Day 13
I woke up at 5:30am and had breakfast at 6am. I had toast and omelette for breakfast and I set off towards Ice lake. First you have to walk back to the previous village Braka and the climb starts from there. It was a beautiful morning with clear skies and sunshine. However it was still pretty cold, I was wearing 4 layers.
The climb started off pretty steep already! I was walking a bit, then break, walking, break etc. Eventually I got to what seemed like the top of the cliff however it was just about a third of the way! Nonetheless the views were stunning. It was 9am already and I started to climb the next hill, and it was tough but I reached a small tea shop at 10am and from here Ice Lake is just 1 hour away. Well it’s supposed to be anyway.
I saw some more mountain eagles which was a pretty sight! When I stopped at the tea shop I ate a kit kat and some dried grapes. Which gave me some energy to start climbing again, I was over 4000m already and a lot of trekkers had past me by. I started thinking that maybe I wouldn’t make it to the lake because I was so tired, but after some encouragement from trekkers coming back down I carried on and after a while the trail finally levelled off much to my relief!
There was a small lake and then a stupa on the horizon, that was where the ice lake would be. After a short walk I came over the crest and a beautiful lake awaited me. Such was the difficulty of the climb I was so happy to reach the lake and trekkers that were already there cheered my arrival just after 12pm!
I stayed just half an hour because I was starting to get a headache which is the first warning sign of altitude sickness. The journey down was perilous because I kept slipping on the loose trail. After what seemed like forever I reached the bottom, I was surprised that I managed to climb this high!
I arrived back at my room around half past 3. Which meant my journey was around 9 hours, it was supposed to take just 6/7 hours but I was slower than the norm.
Tomorrow I head to a village called Shree Kharka which goes towards Tilicho lake which is an amazing viewpoint apparently. More on that later. I ate dinner at 6 and was in bed not long after.
