We packed our gear quickly, being sure to have an extra dose of Diamox handy, just in case. Namgay wanted to be underway by 8:00am so that we would have plenty of time to cross the pass and get off the mountain -- we left at 7:50am, with Sonam and the rest of the crew staying behind to finish packing up camp.
We walked up toward the stone houses we'd seen the day before, crossed the Paro River -- now barely more than a stream -- and walked straight up into the bright blue sky.
The slope was steep and utterly exposed to both the wind and the sun. We found ourselves stripping off layers before we began to sweat. Heaving for breath, we understood now how the altitude and the lower air density affect one's physical condition. Namgay, of course, had no trouble and waited patiently for us as we clambered to the top of the slope.
What greeted us there was magnificent. Behind us stood Chomolhari and Jichu Drakye, gleaming in the sun.
Before us stretched a massive cirque carved by glaciers over hundreds of thousands of years. "It's like something from another planet," Jennifer said.
The walk up through the valley was gentle, except for the wind cascading off the mountains into our faces. Endless shades of brown, ochre, olive and umber surrounded us, punctuated by tiny, jewel-like wildflowers. Namgay explained that in the summer, the entire valley would be green and lush. We looked in vain for the Himalayan blue sheep, which is known to live in the area; all we saw were grazing yaks.
Two hours after leaving camp, we came upon two tarns at the end of the cirque. Ruddy shelducks and fat brown trout brought to Bhutan from Kashmir (where the British Raj had introduced them for sport) by King Jigme Wangchuck in the 1930s.
It was a hobbit's ideal fishing location at 14,370 feet (4,380 meters). Namgay explained that it is not only illegal to poach the king's fish, but it's also bad karma. One never knows who has been reincarnated as a fish! We rested for a while by the shore of the first lake, called Tshophu, and Patrick pocketed a small rock to send to his mother for her collection.
Leaving the lake shore, we began to climb up toward the pass.
As we walked up into the snow line, we found ourselves slipping frequently on the loose stone and scree under our feet. Patrick put away the camera and focused on walking in his slick-bottomed boots. After about 20 minutes of walking, the hill dropped off swiftly to our right in a talus slope, terminating about 250 feet (75 meters) below. The wind picked up as we walked into deeper snow. Patrick found himself slipping again and again, so he decided to try a technique he'd seen on TV. He faced the mountain, resting his weight upslope on his hiking pole, then kicked steps into the snow. The technique worked, but it was exhausting in the thin air.
At this point Sonam caught up with us, carrying his giant backpack. Sonam was an inveterate whistler -- we'd listened to him whistle the same tune for the last four days. When we heard Sonam's whistle, we knew all was well.
Sonam wasn't whistling.
The expression on Sonam's face was one we'd never seen before. He passed both of us to speak urgently -- and quietly -- with Namgay. The two of them debated for a few minutes. Namgay said, "I think we will try a little more -- maybe 20 minutes. The horseman does not want to come this way, but we will try."
For another 15 minutes, Namgay led the way and Sonam walked with Jennifer, Patrick bringing up the rear, wearily kicking steps in the snow. Then Patrick slipped. Both of his feet left the ground, and all of his weight fell onto the hiking pole. For a moment he was sure he was falling off the mountain. The pole held him long enough for him to fall on his hands and knees, and he only slid a couple of feet down the slope. No one saw him fall -- Jennifer, who is not fond of heights, was focusing with furious intensity on her own footing, while Namgay and Sonam were studying the sky above the pass. Patrick picked himself up slowly, trembling as the adrenaline hit him. His hiking pole had compressed and bent under the impact, but it held. Patrick looked down the slope and started to realize just how bad his situation could have been if he'd fallen all the way.
"Patrick, stay there!" Namgay called. Patrick looked up to see Namgay and Sonam walking back towards Jennifer. Patrick walked a few steps forward to join them. Namgay pointed up toward the pass, which lay another 90 minutes' hike above us. A dense, grey cloud was climbing over the mountain, directly atop the pass, and already we could feel the air growing colder.
"It is snowing there," Namgay said. "The horses cannot go -- they will have to go around, maybe 13 or 14 hours. I do not know how much snow there is."
We looked at each other, then at Namgay and Sonam. "Well," Patrick said, "then maybe we don't go."
"Is there another way around?" Jennifer asked.
Namgay shook his head.
"Then we have to go back the way we came?"
Namgay nodded.
The decision was easy to make. We weren't equipped for the snow, and while we were fit enough to climb the mountain in favorable conditions, our physical condition didn't give us enough strength to make up for our lack of climbing gear.
"OK," Patrick said. "Let's go back."
Gingerly shuffling our feet, we turned around on the narrow track and began to walk down the mountain. Sonam took Patrick's arm and steadied him on the slick snow. Namgay walked with Jennifer, who had finally let herself realize just how high and precarious our location was. We had almost reached the tarns when the wind hit us from behind. Then it began to snow.
At the lake shore we met the horseman and the cook, together with the mules. Perhaps it was just our imagination, but the mules seemed very happy not to be going any farther. In fact, everyone's mood was buoyant. Sonam found the skull of a blue sheep -- and then he started to whistle.
We ate lunch in the cirque, accompanied by yaks and the constant, ice-laden wind. The wind chased us all the way back out of the valley, and any doubts we might have had about our decision to turn back were quelled by the storm we could see filling the bowl of the cirque behind us. Oddly enough, despite our discomfort and disappointment, we were almost giddy with our escape. "We have to get off the mountain!" we laughed.
Around 1:00pm we reached the base camp at the foot of Chomolhari where we'd spent the last two nights. We couldn't believe we'd only been gone five hours. A flock of choughs circled overhead -- we couldn't decide if they were mocking us or welcoming us back. Namgay decided that we should press on a little farther. As we left the base camp, we passed a phallic shrine we'd somehow missed seeing on our way in.
We continued for another hour until we reached the village of Dangochang, where the school and clinic were. We wanted to press on, but Namgay insisted that we stop for the day. The wind and snow continued, but that didn't deter the schoolkids from playing soccer and shooting arrows around our campsite -- which, to be fair, was in the middle of their playground.
Sitting in the dining tent that evening, we discovered that our faces were badly chapped from windburn. Our lips and nostrils were cracked, swollen and sore. Jennifer's ankle had begun to ache again, and Patrick's back was sore from twisting it in his near-fall. Once the giddy feeling of having made it back off the mountain in one piece wore off, we began to think about the return journey. Jennifer found the thought of having to climb back over seven hours' worth of boulders deeply depressing. Patrick spoke with Namgay. "How can we break up the trip so that we don't have do all of the Day 2 trek in one day? Is there some other place we can camp?"
"Maybe there is a way," Namgay said. "We can try."
When we finally climbed into our tent that night to sleep, we couldn't stop thinking about the disaster we'd avoided walking into that morning. It was disappointing not to be able to complete the trek we'd planned, but when we realized how bad our situation could have become, we were proud of ourselves for having made smart decisions at the right moment.
That evening, Patrick recalled a passage from Michael Palin's Himalaya: "As Jomolhari fills the sky, I feel a bit like one of the characters in Close Encounters of the Third Kind when the spaceship has landed. The Himalayan peaks are seen by the people who live among them as awful places, abodes of jealous gods and places where the dead are gathered, and I have the feeling they've got it right. What do we know, we who romanticize them? We who fly in and use them to prove something to ourselves, to plant our flags, talk of 'conquest' and then go home. I can almost feel the shoulders of Jomolhari heaving with laughter. ... There are few places outside the Himalaya where the relation of man to nature can be experienced on such a gigantic scale, and something like that may not change your life, but it does stretch it a bit."
Our lives had been stretched. Thank you, Chomolhari.
Distance: 8.5? miles (13.7? km)
Altitude gain: 1,614? feet (492? meters)
Highest altitude: 15,000? feet (5,472? meters)
Final altitude: 12,959 feet (3,950 meters)
Estimated time: 6-7 hours
Actual time: 6 hours
