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On 14th
February 2007 it snowed in Katmandu for the first time in 62 years!
Where was I? I was in a place called Machermo in the Gokyo valley
(one over from Everest), not even a village, just a few houses four
of them occupied and probably more yaks than people. Machermo lies
at 4460meters above sea level (Katmandu 1300). Luckily I was not
completely alone, one German living in London with a guide and a
porter, and a Dutch Peruvian couple with guide/porter in one. After
two days of sitting around a Yak dung stove, eating fried potatoes
with Yak cheese (actually nyak cheese, the yaks are male), the Nepali’s
playing a kind of solitaire with pieces of corn and, you guessed
it, Yak dung, it was over one meter of fresh snow and time to fight
our way out of the valley.
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The snow
had been blown into drifts of around 1.5 meters deep and Gerhard
and I did most of the leading (the Nepali legs are too short for
these depths of snow), around 10 times we heard a dull “boom”
noise, the sound of layers of snow dropping a little, I was shitting
myself for fear of avalanches, the others seemed unaware of the
danger. In 1995 some Japanese died in an avalanche just up from
here. If it had gone then it would have been a big one, long open
slopes no trees. It took us around seven hours of hard, hard, work
to get just 3 kilometers to the next place to stay.
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Even the
tip of my tongue got sun burnt, gasping for air at these altitudes,
and sometimes crawling through the powder. The second day was more
of the same, but in forest so no avalanche danger, plus a group
of Spanish had caught us up and shared with the path breaking. Again
about 7-8 hours for a mere 3-4 km. The third day was different,
a traverse across an incredibly steep slope on a path about 30 cm
wide with a single slip meaning a fall of hundreds of meters, and
every small gully prone to small avalanches (even says so on the
map), luckily we had an early start and the snow was nice and firm,
the worst bit we had behind us by lunch time.
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And me,
after three months in south India, not prepared for the hills. Borrowed
boots half a size too small, ten days later I still have no feeling
in the tips of my toes. Cotton trousers, a sleeping bag good for
–5 when it got down to –25, even the solar powered lighting
systems in the lodges were not working it was that cold. All in
all an amazing adventure, a great time, an incredible place.
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I walked
in and out (most fly at least one way) and spent 22 days walking.
Just now feeling fit as an ox. After the Gokyo valley trip I got
back onto the main trail and went up to Kala Pattar 5600meters without
any problems. Great views of Everest and all the other (more beautiful)
mountains, Ama Dablam, Lhotse, Pumori, etc, etc.
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