NEPAL--The Dhaulagiri Trek Continues
The
Dhaulagiri Ordeal -- Day Ten
We were advised to take a walk on our rest day, and Laura fought
it, it was our rest day after all. The second French group, the
one with the chairs, tea, and delicacies woke early and walked
about. We got up and rested, it was our rest day after all. I
did wander over and discovered more tombstones, one for an Austrian,
the other for a Belgian, and beyond the slope where we camped,
the land gave way to a vast bowl of glacial ice, where the river
that we had clung to was born with a roar. That morning, we heard
that a helicopter was coming to collect a pair of trekkers who
had succumbed to High Altitude Sickness at Glacier Camp, and
were being rescued as they were unable to breathe. We were breathless
ourselves as the helicopter, looking like a child's toy against
the mighty Dhaugaliri slopes, came down dramatically, and scooped
up the hapless people, and then it was gone, chopping away into
the distance. Only a little harder than Annapurna, only a little.
We did take the walk after all, but Laura's headache, down to
a 4, made us stop, and still we waited for it to go down. Wongdee
fixed things, our tent, the chicken killing sleeping bag, baskets,
all manner of things. The porters hung out at the chang house,
Dawa dreamed of recipes, and we all prepared for the next day.
We would not be going straight to Dhauligiri Base Camp, that
would have been a climb from 3700 meters to 5400 meters in one
day, but instead, we would go to Glacier Camp, at 4300 meters,
14,104 feet above sea level.
Later that afternoon, the clouds came in, the temperature dropped, and we were forced inside our tent. Laura's headache fell from four, to three, to two, and in the middle of the night, it was reduced to a mere .5 on the Great Laura Headache Meter. In the dark, I was counting down the days, now that Laura seemed to be on the mend (nevermind the cough). Wongdee was doing the same thing, as he had to be back to pick up his next group in Khatmandu on the 25th. Day Ten, Thursday, October 19, that was our rest day. October 20, our walk to Glacier Camp, October 21 we walk to Dhaulagiri Base Camp, October 22 rest day at Dhaulagiri, October 23 French Camp, October 24 down, October 25 rest day, October 26 down and on the evening of the 26th we'd be back in Marpha. Forr or five days after that, walking the easy Annapurna trail, we'd be back in Beni. At the French Camp, we might not have had the rest day, and Wongdee would have left us after French Camp to get to Marpha. Marpha was only a few days away, just a few days! If not, we'd have to repeat the Monkey Trails back home! I prayed that the next morning, Laura's headache would be at 0, or stay at the .5.
View from our tent when we woke up that morning.
Laura resting in the sun, looking out on Dhaulagiri
Our green tent (to the right) at Italy Base Camp. Note the clouds coming in.
More views from Italy Base Camp
Afternoon hotchocolate in our tent. The clouds have come in and its gets cold!!!
The
Dhaulagiri Ordeal -- Day Eleven
If Day Four was Laura's first hard day, Day Eleven was to be
mine. We woke up, feeling acclimated, and ready to go. And then
we hit the landslide trail, more landslide than trail, and it
was a sheer drop down to the river, which played hide and seek
with the glacial ice that was spawning it melting drop by melting
drop. A British contingent set up a rock climbing rope and we
used it to get down to the ice, and glaciers. Well, when I think
of glaciers, I think of raw white ice and snow, but the glaciers
we walked on were mostly frozen dirt and rock over the ice, and
it wasn't hard to see how huge valleys could be eaten out of
mountains using this layer of dirt and rock. At the end of the
landslide, I shouted, "That's not a trail, that's a landslide!
I was distraught. It was cold, and our camera wouldn't work,
and the trail sloped upwards. It was still early morning and
not even close to our lunch break. It was at the top of a grassy
hilltop that we met our two German friends, Thomas and David,
two brothers travelling in Nepal for six weeks. Thomas helped
us fix the camera, and we hoped David's health would return as
he was suffering from High Altitude Sickness. They were going
slowly hoping David would acclimatize. Their camping spot was
very nice, though water was far away. As we headed up the glacier
we thought that we were saying goodbyes for good, but that was
not the case.
So we made
our farewells to the Germans, walked down a grassy slope, and
then all vegetation stopped. For the next twenty-four hours,
there was only the sparest of moss growing on the glacier that
loomed far down the valley. The river, colder than ever, had
created a wide valley of nothing but rock, and above avalanches
poured down. Wongdee told us not dawdle, as landslides and falling
rocks could easily end our expedition right there. We pushed
on, ate a quick lunch in the shadow the great, black Dhaulagiri
glacier, and then with the ice groaning as it thawed, we stepped
onto the dirt and rock
covered ice, following the spine of ridges up and ever up. Now
it was my turn to feel the ill effects of going where man should
not go: I was exhausted, my headache started in decimals and
ended in whole integers, and still we walked, even as the clouds
came and covered any of the vistas that might have made our journey
brighter. In that pall, we marched like condemned men, and at
every corner, I would think, the camp would be there, the camp
must be there! But disappointment dogged my steps for not just
one hour, but two, until finally, close to 5pm (about 4 1/2 hours
later), a runner was sent from the camp (Wongdee had left us
as the trail was clear to make preparations for the evening)
bringing us hot juice, and then we knew we were close.
Laura was silent in her misery, but I'm afraid I did moan something
terrible. And then tents made themselves clear in the cloud,
and we stepped down from the ridge to tents raised from the wet
ice with rocks, and without much conversation, we entered our
tent and did not leave it. The cacophonous avalanches soon started,
and as we had not seen where the mountains were (everything had
been covered in clouds), we were not sure that ice and rock would
not come and smother us in our tent, so loud the noise was. And
in the chill of the night, the glacier refroze with a symphony
of groans, and at each turn, I was sure a crack would open up
and we would fall down into the guts of icy horror on which we
camped. Laura, unbelievably, felt fine, her headache down below
1, but my own headache was at a strong five. Would I be the one
to turn us around, I thought so. But after a quick dinner and
even quicker trip to the toilet tent, we fell asleep, quite early,
perhaps 7:30, hoping that our bodies would acclimatize.
At midnight Laura awoke, her headache soaring to seven, eight, nine, and then she wretched dryly out the door of the tent. During the previous 5 days her appetite was rapidly diminishing (a symptom of High Altitude Sickness), and the previous night she could only stomach chicken soup for dinner. At Glacier camp her eyes began to sink into her head, she didn't look good. For the rest of the night I lay awake as she slept fitfully, hearing her breath when avalanches did not drown it away. Hearing her breathe, and then, she would stop breathing, I would be filled with fright, waiting for her lungs to catch up again, to suck in the thin air. Finally, thankfully, she would breathe again, and then more avalanches, and then nothing. Laura was suffering from Periodic Respiration, our medical book discussed it in the trekking section and even though it was no cause for concern, it was awfully hard for another person to listen to all night. It was clear, that next morning, we would descend from the 4300 meters of Glacier Camp and slowly make our way back to Beni. Laura's cold, exacerbated by High Altitude Sickness, would surely turn to pneumonia if we did not turn back. Because the only cure for High Altitude Sickness is descent, our fate was sealed. We would not see Marpha, only days away, but would have to follow the monkey trail all the way back to Beni.
View from the plateau at Italy Base camp, which we need to climb down to start walking up to the glacier (we used rock climbing ropes!)
Aaron is standing on the glacier and the clouds are coming in fast.
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