Pics and vids from our trip to Vietnam. There’s no separate trip report; rather, I’ve tried incorporating the report into the captions for each pic and vid. It was a fantastic trip (here’s a PDF of our itinerary) and I was able to capture some pretty good pics and vids so take a peruse and enjoy!

I’ve been itching to go backpacking for some time now as it’s been nearly 3 years since my last trip. The last few years have just been really busy. While Judy had gone backpacking twice last year during her short hiatus from work, she nevertheless looked forward to this trip as well.

Brian helped suggest a route that started in Tuolumne Meadows, goes past Cathedral Lake, and through the Sunrise High Sierra Camp (HSC). There, we had the option of either camping at the HSC or continuing on and camping at or near one of the three Sunrise Lakes. We opted to find a more secluded campsite by the Sunrise Lakes, and were able to find a great one.

After a very cold night where the temps dropped down to 18F or so (thank you Feathered Friends!), we continued on up to Cloud’s Rest where we were greeted with a fantastic view that gave us our first glimpse of the famous Half Dome. Continuing on and descending the other side of Cloud’s Rest, we eventually ended up at the fork to Half Dome. We found a nice campsite near the fork. Leaving our gear at camp the next morning allowed us to climb Half Dome carrying a much lighter pack.

Going up Half Dome was a great experience, especially climbing the cables during the final section of the ascent. The view from the top was magnificent and we were able to capture some really great pics and vids – check out especially the ones of me sitting on the edge of the granite outcropping, feet dangling over nothing but air.

We returned to our camp after Half Dome, packed up the rest of our gear, and hopped back on the John Muir Trail. Making our descent back into the valley, we passed Nevada Falls and Vernal Falls on our way back to Yosemite Village. While the first day and night were pretty cold, the weather was fantastic the last two days – clear and sunny but not too hot. Perhaps most importantly, there was not a single mosquito in sight!

All in all, it was a really great and memorable trip. Our only regret is that we should have planned the shuttle better – we should have parked in Yosemite Village and taken the shuttle to Tuolumne Meadows to start our route instead of driving out and parking at Tuolumne and having to take the shuttle back to Tuolumne at the end of our trip. This would have saved us one trip down the 120. Oh well. If you’re thinking of doing this route, you can learn from our mistake.

Here’s a PDF showing our trail route (large – shows all of Yosemite, cropped – zoomed in on our route), and here are the pics and vids. Enjoy!

Our itinerary was to fly from San Francisco to Hong Kong, from Hong Kong to Bangkok, and then finally from Bangkok to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Judy was paranoid about the airlines losing our baggage and wanted to bring all our bags onto the plane as carry-ons. This didn’t quite work out because our ticket check-in person turned out to not be blind. Our North Face duffels were clearly too large to be carry-ons. He made us check the bags in and labeled the bags “Priority” to help reassure Judy that they wouldn’t get lost.

The flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong turned out to be much faster than expected. We took the red-eye flight that left Thursday evening (Oct. 20) and since it was nighttime anyway, I ended up sleeping a good 8-9 hours on the flight.

Our Hong Kong layover was 1.5 hours and our Bangkok layover was only 50 minutes. For domestic flights, that is typically fine, but for international flights, it’s probably a good idea to leave a bit more time between flights just in case. Fortunately for us we had no problems as our flights all arrived on time or only slightly late. However, we learned a good lesson for future travel.

Saturday, Oct. 29 – Kathmandu
We arrived at Kathmandu a day earlier than we needed to be there. Judy (who basically planned the entire trip during her hiatus from work), planned our early arrival intentionally to help account for any potential flight delays. Our plan was to obtain a Nepal visa at the Kathmandu airport (we had our photos taken at home that we brought with us).

Of course, a bunch of other people from our flight had the same idea so we ended up having to wait about 45-60 minutes to get our visa. Overall, the process went smoothly enough. We passed the time in line chatting with a nice man from Canada who had married a Nepalese woman and now lived in Nepal. He told us a bit about the country and the places we should try to see during our stay.

After obtaining our visa, we picked up our bags (which got to Nepal with no problems) and then changed some money. The next step was to find a taxi to get to our hotel. That turned out to be no problem at all as we were basically mobbed by people selling taxi services as we walked out of the airport.

We were soon in a taxi on our way to the Kathmandu Guest House. The taxi ride was relatively uneventful, though I did notice how bad the street pollution was. The air felt dirty and heavy and I actually found myself having a harder time breathing.

A special festival, the Festival of Lights, was occurring during this time and several streets were closed off due to it. As luck would have it, the street to our hotel was closed off so after being dropped off by the taxi, we had to walk a quarter of a mile or so to the hotel.

It was around 2:30 PM when we checked in. At first, they couldn’t find our reservation because we had registered with GAP adventures instead of Intrepid whom the hotel was more familiar with. It’s basically the same entity so we soon got that sorted out and headed to our room.

After unloading our stuff, we headed out to check out the surroundings. The street outside the Kathmandu Guest House is basically totally geared towards tourists. There’s shops galore where you can buy really cheap gear (Gore-Tex jackets, down jackets, sleeping bags, backpacks, etc.) from The North Face and other major brands. Although they were almost certainly imitations, the quality actually didn’t seem that bad.

Judy ended buying a cool Sherpa-style hat. After dinner, we retired early back to the hotel. Judy hadn’t gotten much sleep during the flight so she was pretty tired.

This turned out to be an extremely long trip report and I decided to create a single monster report rather than split each day into individual entries. To facilitate navigation, here’s some quick anchor links to each day of the trek:

Day 1, Kathmandu (Orientation Meeting)
Day 2, Besisahar (760m)
Day 3, Bahundanda (1310m)
Day 4, Chamje (1430 m)
Day 5, Bagarchhap (2160 m)
Day 6, Chame (2670 m)
Day 7, Lower Pisang (3200 m)
Day 8, Rest Day at Lower Pisang
Day 9, Manang (3540 m)
Day 10, Rest Day at Manang
Day 11, Yak Kharka (4018 m)
Day 12, Thorung Phedi (4450 m)
Day 13, Thorung Pass (5416 m), Muktinath (3800 m)
Day 14, Jomosom (2710 m)
Day 15, Kalapani (2530 m)
Day 16, Tatopani (1190 m)
Day 17, Ghorepani (2750 m)
Day 18, Birethanti (1025 m)
Day 19, Pokhara (820 m)
Day 20, Bandipur
Day 21, Kathmandu

Day 1 (Sunday, Oct. 30) – Kathmandu (Orientation Meeting)
That night’s sleep was marred by pigeons of all things. For some reason, there were a bunch of pigeons seemingly right outside of our window, and they fluttered and cooed throughout the night.

Our only engagement that day was a 5 PM group orientation at our hotel. We therefore had basically a full day to explore the city. We decided to head to the Kathmandu Durbar Square, a popular tourist destination. Being newbie travelers, it was a bit disconcerting walking down the street at first. We had a map and knew roughly where we were going, but we were still in a very unfamiliar place. There were lots of people and we were carrying a good deal of money and traveler’s checks (we thought it would be safer than leaving them in the hotel) so I found myself constantly checking my money belt to make sure it was there and/or not easily picked off. For the most part, our worries were completely unfounded and as the day went on, we gradually became more comfortable with our new surroundings.

We finally reached Durbar Square where a man asked if we wanted a guide. At first we said no, but he was persistent (in a nice way) and since we really didn’t know where to go or what anything was, we ended up agreeing to paying for his guide services.

It ended up being a great decision. Our guide’s name was Toya and he showed us around Durbar Square and explained a lot of the things we would have never known without his help. Obviously, it was helpful that he spoke English pretty well, and we were impressed to discover that in addition to English and Nepalese, he also spoke Japanese and French.

In addition to Durbar Square, we also wanted to check out the Monkey Temple. Our agreement with Toya was only for Durbar Square, but we agreed to pay a bit more to have him take us to the Monkey Temple. All in all, we paid Toya 1500 rps (~$21) for 3-4 hours of his time.

We still had some time to kill before our orientation meeting. Since it was so cheap at the beauty parlor in the hotel, Judy decided to get her eyebrows waxed before the trek. It turns out that they don’t actually wax your eyebrows but instead “thread” it. This basically involves a thread that they manually scrape across areas in which you want hair removed. Somehow, the thread removes the hair. They “threaded” Judy’s eyebrows. The end result was just like a waxing and it didn’t particularly hurt either. Interesting.

At 5 PM, we met our guide (Rajesh or Raj for short) and the rest of our group (in the order I met them): Renee, Beck, Troy, Guy, Rob, Hannah, Phil, Lisa, Leigh, and Barbara. With the exception of Phil who was from the U.K. and Hannah who was from Canada, everyone else was from Australia.

Judy decided after the orientation that she wanted to get some pants to trek in. She had read that it was advantageous and customary for women to wear skirts on treks like this, but a quick poll of the women in our group made her decide to get pants instead. Fortunately, we didn’t have much trouble finding stores that sold pants.

After the pant purchase, we had dinner at a Thai restaurant (Yin Yang) and then retired fairly early back to our hotel room. Although we had already been away from home for several days, all that time was really just a pre-cursor to the main event. Our adventure would not really begin until tomorrow.

Day 2 (Monday, Oct. 31) – Besisahar (760m)
Once again, the pigeons raised a considerable ruckus during the night. We had packed our stuff the night before. Not wanting to overload the porters who would be carrying all our gear during, we separated all the stuff that we didn’t really need for the trek, put them into stuff sacks, and checked them in with the hotel.

After eating breakfast at the hotel, we grabbed our trekking bags and had to walk a quarter mile or so to the bus stop. The bus was soon loaded and we were on our way! After a couple of hours, we stopped for a tea and toilet break. Here, we got our first taste of many suspension bridges to come. We then went on a short hike where we were shown a funky looking tree. I don’t recall exactly, but I think it was the oldest tree in Nepal (or something like that).

Knowing that it would be a fairly long bus ride on potentially curvy roads, Judy and I decided to take Bonine to avoid any motion sickness. The ride went smoothly until we encountered a major delay on the curvy mountain road. An oil tanker had somehow flipped over pinching off traffic on the two-lane road. The accident resulted in a 3-hour delay which threw our schedule into a tailspin.

We didn’t get to eat lunch until almost 3 PM. Everyone had dahl Bhaat, which is the staple dish of Nepal. It consists of a large plate of rice (bhaat) and lentil soup (dahl) as well as some side dishes. The side dishes can vary quite a bit from potato/vegetable curry to greens to pickled vegetables.

After lunch, the side effects of the Bonine really kicked in. I was incredibly drowsy and slept for much of the bus ride from that point. We arrived at the hotel at around 7 PM, and had dinner in the dim, candlelit room of the hotel. After eating, everyone pretty much just went to bed.

Day 3 (Tuesday, Nov. 01) – Bahundanda (1310m)
Very early in the morning, most everybody was awakened by roosters and the loud honking and passing by of trucks and buses. We were never quite sure what all the hustle and bustle was about, especially since all the noise oddly seemed to subside after we got up.

Those who ordered the scrambled eggs for breakfast were in for a treat. Not sure whether they got the condiments mixed up or if it’s their special recipe, but the scrambled eggs had sugar in them. I wasn’t too fond of them and neither was anyone else.

Our porters had packed up our bags and we were all impressed with the amount of weight they would be carrying. Shortly afterwards, we finally began our trek in earnest. Starting from the hotel, we continued along the dirt road out of Besisahar. We soon passed a large swingset constructed from tall stalks of bamboo with kids taking turns swinging on it. This type of swingset was erected specially for the festival and we’d see several more of these during the trek.

About an hour later, we reached a stream crossing. Although there wasn’t a bridge, it was possible to delicately walk across the stream on some rocks. The rocks seemed a bit precarious because of their shape and spacing so most people elected to take off their shoes and socks and walk through the water. I decided to try walking across on the rocks. I almost made it, but lost my balance a bit on one of the rocks and had to step into the water with my left foot. Oh well, now I had to hike with one soggy shoe for a while.

On the other side of the stream, Bec stopped to open her pack and was immediately swarmed with kids hoping that she had sweets to offer. One of the Nepalese words we learned came in very handy during situations like these: Chaina (“No”)!

Lunchtime found us at Ngadi where we were treated to a music and dance show by some of the locals. The music was supplied with a cassette taped played through a cheap boom-box, the sound quality of which, especially in an open outdoor environment, left a lot to be desired. Nevertheless, the show was entertaining and at the end, Lila and Phil jumped in to join the dance action.

Rob decided to see what it was like to haul around one of the porter’s packs, Nepalese style. The Nepalese prefer not to use Western backpacks the way they were designed, and instead prefer to haul stuff the traditional way with a head strap. Carrying loads in this manner transfers the vast majority of the load to your head and consequently your neck. It’s certainly not a method that would work for Westerners, but is a very natural thing for the Nepalese who have been raised hauling loads in this manner.

While it is true that most Nepalese are accustomed to carrying loads this way and have done so since childhood, it is nevertheless amazing how much weight they can carry. Raj, our guide, said that many porters can carry 100-150kg (220-330lb), and we were surprised to hear that there are also female porters that typically can carry 50-100kg (110-220lb). I still find that hard to believe and am not convinced that is totally true. Regardless, the fact remains that they can carry A LOT of weight, certainly much more than I or a typical Westerner can.

Later that day during one of our rest stops, Renee accidentally dropped her sunglasses in the toilet. Fortunately, Barbara had a spare pair. Otherwise, Renee would have been faced with the very unpleasant decision of either retrieving her sunglasses or continuing on without them.

We reached our hotel before the porters, and by nightfall, the porters were still nowhere to be seen. When they finally arrived, it wasn’t clear why they were late. Raj said that one of the porters (Raju apparently) had gotten a blister which slowed them down. It was clear that this was the real reason for their delay and some speculated that perhaps the porters took some time to enjoy the festival activities along they way. Either way, they appeared to be OK and all our bags were intact.

The dining hall in the restaurant was pretty dark, but the food was OK. The annoying thing was that a bunch of bugs started flying around, seemingly attracted to the light. While the bugs didn’t bite, they were annoying because they were pretty much all over the place, and since it was dark, you weren’t sure how many bugs you were actually eating with every bite. Everyone probably got a bit of extra protein for dinner that evening.

Most of us hit the hay soon after dinner. There was quite a bit of noise from the festival celebration in the nearby village – lots of singing and dancing and… also some fighting from what we heard from Barbara the next morning. Apparently, one of the locals got drunk and started insulting the porters, the result of which was a brawl. Although it wasn’t clear to me, it didn’t seem like any of our porters were directly involved in the conflict.

Day 4 (Wednesday, Nov 02) – Chamje (1430 m)
The day began as most of our days would: up at 6:30AM, breakfast at 7:30AM, ready to go at 8:00AM. The weather was again beautiful and we saw several waterfalls, various locals hauling heavy loads on their heads, and many nice and friendly Nepalese.

Renee seemed to have the most interesting day as she reportedly had a near death experience. Evidently, a donkey nearly pushed her off the side of a cliff, and she was saved by the donkey herdsman who was able to grab her in the nick of time and prevent her from falling to her death. Whew! Later that day, Renee saw some human feces just off the trail with some big worms in it. She thought they were just earthworms, but Raj matter-of-factly stated that they were actually internal worms and that it wasn’t uncommon for people to be afflicted with these. Yuck.

We passed a bunch of Maoist rebels. They were just kids. It was odd, and also sad, to see young boys and girls walking around carrying rifles. We heard later that Lila had to pay off the rebels at around $2/person/day.

Troy had run into some trekkers on the trail coming from the other direction. They reported that there was around 70 cm (~28 in) of snow along the Thorung Pass and that they had to turn around as a result. Bummer! Since they were there 8-9 days ago and we wouldn’t get there for another 8-9 days, hopefully the snow would not be an issue for us by the time we got there.

A quick round-up of the day’s events: Leigh developed a blister that Hannah the nurse helped tend to at lunch; Lisa fell into a bush and developed a somewhat painful rash on her left arm which continued to hurt at dinner time.

Our hotel that night had a shower. Hot water was available although not directly from the shower. Water would be boiled and put in a big bowl that you could take into the shower. I decided to help prevent further tourist-induced deforestation by taking a cold shower. I’m not sure it was worth it, however, as it was one of the coldest showers I had ever taken. Brrrr!!!

The dining room at this hotel wasn’t very bright. I was worried that there would be bugs here again because the elevation wasn’t that much different than the night before (only 120 m higher), but fortunately, there were no bugs here. We didn’t end up eating until 7:30 PM or so because the chef was out partying in celebration of the festival. Raj and the assistant guides ended up having to do much of the cooking. Despite being late and forgetting Phil’s tuna momos, the dinner was good.

Day 5 (Thursday, Nov 03) – Bagarchhap (2160 m)
We were lucky again with the weather – sunny and clear blue skies. Our hike took us past more waterfalls, suspension bridges, and lots of marijuana bushes. At one of our rest stops, all the girls (except Bec) and Phil (clearly, the Nepalese woman considered Phil to be “one of the girls”) were given a beautiful flower lei in celebration of the festival. It was a nice gesture, especially the recognition of Phil as one of the girls.

Our hotel rooms that evening were good-sized compared to previous nights. We arrived early enough that I had some time to do some laundry at the nearby outside spigot. The water was absolutely freezing! I could only quickly scrub my clothes in the basin for a few seconds before having to remove my hands from the water to warm back up. While I was washing, a nice lady came up to share the spigot with me – she was washing a bunch of vegetables for our dinner and seemed impervious to the cold water. I told her that I thought the water was really cold and she just laughed and said that the water was warm. I’m sure she thought I was a wuss.

Showers were once again available, this time with hot water from the shower itself. Well, actually it wasn’t hot, but lukewarm. Still, it was much better than the chilly shower I took the night before.

After my shower, I put on some warm clothes and headed to the dining room to begin “Into Thin Air”, a best-selling book by Jon Krakauer detailing the true story of the fatal May 1996 summit of Mount Everest. A book about perhaps the most horrific mountaineering tragedy in history may not have been the best choice for reading on such a trip, but it was a book that I’ve been eagerly wanting to read for some time but just never got around to. Such a trip would be the perfect opportunity to getting around to reading it. Interestingly enough, I was not the only one who had decided to bring this book along. Bec and Leigh were reading it as well. At any rate, it was quite nice to sip warm tea and curl up with a book and read by candlelight.

For dinner, I decided to try the vegetable padoga which consists of a bunch of vegetables mashed together and deep fried. I found it absolutely delicious as did several others who tried it.

Shortly after dinner, the real festivities began. Since tonight was the end of the festival, it was imperative that we all do a bit of celebrating. With the music pumping, Prim, Lila, Raju and the rest of the porters wasted no time in getting their grooves in motion and Raj soon jumped in to show off his unique flowing hand dance. It wasn’t long before everyone was on the dance floor having a good time.

Day 6 (Friday, Nov 04) – Chame (2670 m)
It was quite cold the night before, likely a sign of things to come as we continued ascending in elevation. What made the cold night worse is that I had to get up to pee at around 5:30 AM. I only had to hold it an hour or so longer until we had to get up but just couldn’t. It’s definitely not pleasant having to get out of your warm sleeping bag into the cold.

Unfortunately, Guy started feeling pretty bad last night and was still not well this morning. One of my worst fears was to get sick on a trek like this and I desperately hoped that both Judy and me, and everyone else for that matter, would stay healthy during the entire trek.

We passed by a bunch of Buddhist prayer wheels and walked through some major road construction. During one of our rest stops, two men were teamed up to pound a stake into a big rock. The intent was to create a cylindrical hole in the rock into which a stick of dynamite can be dropped to blow the rock up into smaller, more manageable chunks. One man would position the stake while the other would pound a sledgehammer into the stake. Troy decided to lend a hand and whacked the stake a few times with the sledgehammer.

Shortly afterwards, we were able to catch some nice views of the Manaslu Peaks. Lunch found us in the small town of Thanchok. Although the festival was over, the restaurant’s chef was still away so Raj had to help with the cooking again. Since the veggie padogas were so good the night before, both Leigh and I decided to each order a plate of them. Big mistake. Not sure whether the padogas at this place just didn’t taste as good or whether we just ate too much of them that we got really sick of them, but after a few padogas, I started to find them extremely unappetizing. I finished my plate, but Leigh couldn’t quite finish hers. There were quite a few of them left so we decided to give the leftovers to the guides and porters. Hopefully it added some spice and variety to their usual Dal Bhaat.

We trekked on after lunch and on the trail, Judy made a new Nepalese friend. One of the locals who happened to be going in the same direction was really friendly and just came up and started talking with Judy. He was probably just trying to practice his English (or maybe he was just trying to hit on her, who knows?), but they ended up walking and talking for a good half hour or so.

Our hotel rooms in Chame were big and spacious. It was clear that we were gaining elevation because it was noticeably colder once the sun went down. Judy decided it might be a good idea to have another thick fleece so she ended up buying a nice imitation North Face fleece jacket for around 900 rps (~$12.90).

I’m not sure if it was the padogas or something else, but I was feeling pretty nauseous when we got to the hotel. The mere thought of padogas made me want to hurl. Fortunately, nothing came out, but I still wasn’t feeling very good. I decided that it might be a good idea for me to get another fleece so I went to the little shop across from our hotel and bought a nice imitation Patagonia pullover fleece shirt. The owner charged me 400 rps (~$5.70), and altough I tried to haggle, he refused to budge. Since I wasn’t feeling all that well, I gave in and bought it at the initial asking price.

After getting some warm food in me from dinner, I felt better. Unfortunately, Guy was still feeling like crap and he pretty much slept from the time we got to the hotel until the next morning.

After dinner, most of us hung out in the dining room because the wood stove in the middle of the room made things moderately warm. Plus, there was a TV connected to a real satellite dish. We watched some soccer as well as the Nepalese version of MTV, complete with fashionistas and scantily clad women. The Westernization of Nepal was clearly in motion.

Day 7 (Saturday, Nov 05) – Lower Pisang (3200 m)
The night before, Barbara recounted how a bunch of army guys bandying guns had come into the hotel to perform a room check. They didn’t actually check every single room and instead just sat down to watch a bit of TV and then left. It was likely more a formality than anything.

I felt much better after a good night’s sleep and fortunately, so did Guy. He reported feeling 70% of normal and even led Phil and Rob through some stretching exercises that morning before we got underway.

From the balcony of the hotel, Annapurna II was visible in all her glory. Raj says that it was Annapurna IV while Ramesh says that it was Annapurna II. After looking at the map, I’m siding with Ramesh.

Shortly into the day’s trek, a group of us were nearly trampled by a galloping horse. We were just walking through the town along the main pathway when I heard a horse coming up behind me. I glanced back expecting a horse or donkely to be slowly approaching, but the horse was trotting with seemingly no intention of stopping for things or people in its way. The pathway was narrow enough that I had to jump out of the way. Hannah was behind me and had to do the same, and she just narrowly avoided getting hit by the horse. She took a stumble, fell, and bruised her arm a bit. Not sure what was going on, but the horse had a rider so perhaps the man had decided to have a bit of fun at the expense of us tourists.

Our surroundings were clearly changing as the environment slowly became more alpine and more remote. Towns and villages were more spread apart and while we still saw plenty of people along the trail, there seemed to be less than in prior days.

We passed by some apple orchards and during one of our rest stops, fresh, organic apples could be bought for only 5 rps ($0.07). Lunch was in the town of Pokhari (3060 m). I ordered the Tibetan Thuka, a new dish on the menu, which consisted of noodles in a thick soup with vegetables. It was delicious! I also tried the cinnamon roll which wasn’t that great – it had sesame seeds on it which was kind of strange, and more importantly, it didn’t have the white frosting on it so it wasn’t very sweet.

After lunch, we hit a section of trail that was covered with snow. It was certainly colder at this elevation, but the main reason the snow was still there was because this section of the mountain didn’t get much direct sunlight – it was shady for most of the day. There were some icy areas and although several people took some slips and falls, none of them were very serious.

Day 8 (Sunday, Nov 06) – Rest Day at Lower Pisang
I finally remembered to take my watch off so I could measure the temperature. Last night it got to 33F (0.7C) in our room (it was certainly even colder outside). Brrrr, that’s pretty cold! We were both really happy to have high-quality down sleeping bags.

When Judy awoke, she felt nauseous, had a bit of diarrhea, and no appetite. Oh no, hopefully she’s not getting sick. At least today was a rest day. The itinerary was to hike up to about 4000 m where there was a nice viewpoint of the valley below. Since she wasn’t feeling well, Judy decided to forego the hike. Hannah also decided to pass on the hike in order to rest her knee which had gotten pretty sore from all the hiking thus far.

The rest of us went on the day hike which went pretty much straight uphill. We went through a Buddhist village and then visited a Buddhist monastery. During the entire way up, we were treated to expansive views of Annapurna IV as well as cool views of the valley below where our hotel was. The climb up was a tough trudge, but it was made a bit lively by a few sporadic snowball fights that broke out on the way up. In addition, we had our first yak sighting – nothing really exciting though as it was just a single yak some distance away.

Everyone was able to get to the top and the view was very nice indeed. We could see all of Annapurna IV, the valley below, and also where we would be headed. In the distance, we could see an airstrip which we would pass by tomorrow.

Coming back down was much quicker than going up. As we neared the bottom, we passed a field where there were dozens of mountain goats. We got back to the hotel well in time for lunch.

Judy felt quite a bit better after lunch which was a really good thing. Since we still had half a day ahead, many of us decided to do some laundry. Even in the midday sun, the spigot water was icy cold. The hotel had strings laced around the building to hang wet clothes and before long, nearly every inch of the strings were being used for this purpose.

I had assumed that the mountain air was very dry and that the clothes wouldn’t take very long to dry. For whatever reason, certain clothes, particularly my socks, seemed to take a long time to dry. Bec decided to use the wood stove in the dining room to help speed up the process. By holding articles of clothing close to the stove, they would actually start steaming. Soon, there was a group of people huddled around the stove holding their wet clothes close to it. There were drying lines in the dining room as well, and as the sun went down, these lines were quickly filled with people’s clothes, including bras.

Prior to dinner, Judy wanted to play chess so I taught her. In her debut game, I promptly kicked her ass in the aspect of chess playing.

It was Rob’s 49th birthday that day and Raj was gracious enough to have a cake baked for Rob that night, complete with 4 candles. It was a nice gesture and we were all able to have a nice dessert before retiring to bed.

Day 9 (Monday, Nov 07) – Manang (3540 m)
That morning, Judy’s stomach felt better but now she had a pretty bad sore throat. I felt a slight lump in my throat as well and desperately hoped that we would both be able to fight off whatever bug we had.

Last night, several of the girls (Hannah, Barbara, Renee, and Lisa) stayed up late and the hotel owner wasn’t too happy when Raj asked her to get more wood to keep the fire going. C’mon lady, don’t you know that the most important thing is to keep the Westerners happy? The fact that firewood is hard to come by in the mountains and that tourist-induced deforestation is occurring at an alarming rate are all secondary considerations to the comfort and happiness of Westerners. Geez lady, get a clue.

The environment around us was definitely becoming more remote and as we continued to ascend, snow became more commonplace. Actually, snow itself wouldn’t have been that bad. It’s when the sun melts the snow and the trail becomes muddy that the trekking becomes more difficult. We trekked through many a long section of mud.

We decided not to stop for lunch but instead elected to push on to Manang and have lunch there. As a result, we didn’t eat lunch until around 3 PM. Along the way to Manang, we saw spectacular views of Annapurna III (7555 m), including an avalanche as it occurred, as well as Tilicho Peak (7134 m). The scenery was beautiful. We also passed a yak slaughter area, an open area where a yak or yaks had apparently just been slaughtered. There was blood all over the rocks, and slabs of yak meat all over the place. In fact, I walked right behind a couple of guys who were carrying baskets full of various parts from a freshly killed yak.

Our Manang hotel was the best yet. It had a courtyard layout, there were toilets in the rooms themselves, and a solar water heating system provided true hot showers. The menu was also quite extensive with several items containing, as expected, fresh yak meat.

Manang was a pretty good sized town compared to the other towns we had passed through. In fact, it even had a mini theater. A group of us (Bec, Troy, Guy, Rob, Hannah, and myself) decided to check out the movie “Into Thin Air” of which I was reading the book on which the movie was based. I had almost finished the book by this time so watching the movie didn’t spoil anything.

As expected, the movie theater was pretty small with a maximum capacity of perhaps 30 only or so people. Movies were shown in English with English subtitles as well. My guess is that they were just showing pirated DVDs. We were let in to the theater a few minutes before the designated start time. However, “start times” were apparently just very rough approximations. The movie “Ray” was playing when we entered and was not anywhere near its end. We sat through nearly an hour and a half of “Ray” (which I hadn’t seen before but looked like a really good movie) before “Into Thin Air” started.

Despite some pretty bad acting, the movie was still fairly entertaining because the underlying story is so good. After the movie was over, we headed back to the hotel for dinner. It was Renee’s 30th birthday today and Raj arranged to have a cake made for this occasion as well.

Day 10 (Tuesday, Nov 08) – Rest Day at Manang
Uggghhh… the previous night I had a horrible sore throat, the kind where you don’t want to swallow because it hurts so bad. Plus, it got pretty cold – my watch indicated 36F (2.2C) inside our room. My sore throat improved through the night. I still felt sick when I got up in the morning, but at least my throat was feeling a better. Judy was feeling a bit better as well, but still not 100%.

Today was an acclimatization day and involved a day hike up to around 4000 m. There was lots of snow and ice on the way up. At the top, we had a spectacular view of the mountains around us as well as Manang below. Raj, Prem, and the porters had some fun hurling snowballs at each other at the top.

While snow and ice didn’t really affect the uphill part of the hike, the downhill was certainly made more difficult for many people in the group. The guides and porters pretty much held the hands of the girls (Bec excluded) and helped them down the hill.

We returned in time for lunch and I decided to veer from the vegetarian diet I had adopted to try a yak burger. After all, where else was I going to be able to have a yak burger? I had to at least try one. The meat was likely very fresh (the yak slaughter area was very close), and the fact that Phil had eaten a yak burger the prior day and was still alive provided an added margin of safety. The yak burger did taste different, but overall I thought it was just average.

Since we probably wouldn’t be able to shower for the next several days, I decided to take a shower. The water was pretty warm, but after this shower, I started re-thinking whether a shower was actually worth it. The problem is that everything is nice and warm when you are taking the shower. However, when you’re done and you turn the water off, the cold very, very quickly sets in and you are left freezing! I was literally shivering while drying myself off and putting my clothes back on. Sure, I felt clean afterwards, but I’m not sure those moments of freezing cold were worth it.

Judy, Leigh, and I hung out at the courtyard table for a while, basking in the warm sun. Unfortunately, the sun’s warm rays were soon blocked by the hotel building and once the sun goes down, it gets cold in a hurry. I retreated to the dining room to finish “Into Thin Air”. Judy showed up shortly afterwards and engaged the porters in a game of cards. The porters were fond of a game that was called, for lack of knowing its real name, 3 pairs, the object of which is to get 3 pairs with suits being irrelevant. It was pretty much a game of luck, but the porters seemed to enjoy it quite immensely.

I still wasn’t feeling very well so I pretty much just ate dinner and went to bed.

Day 11 (Wednesday, Nov 09) – Yak Kharka (4018 m)
I awoke this morning feeling pretty much like shit. Judy felt better (light congestion), but was also feeling weak and tired. The timing for all this was poor because in two days we’d be crossing Thorung Pass which, at 4450 m, would be the highest point of our trek. Not only that, but the distance traveled and the terrain crossed would make the day quite challenging physically.

My condition made today’s trek a struggle, and the muddy trail conditions only made things worse. Fortunately, it wasn’t a very long day as we reached our destination, Yak Kharka, at around 12:30 or so. As soon as we got our rooms, I went to lay down to rest for a little while.

I got up for a dahl Bhaat lunch, stayed out in the warm sun until it retreated behind the mountain, then went back to our room to rest. Despite being in my 15 F down sleeping bag and wearing lots of clothes (T-shirt, light fleece, wind jacket, and my *down* jacket), I was still cold. My watch indicated that the room temp was only 37 F so clearly something was wrong with me.

After a few hours I got up and felt a little bit better. After dinner, Raj recommended that I try “steaming”. Steaming involves putting a few drops of menthol into a bowl of hot water and lowering your head near the bowl so that you breathe in the vapors. Your head is covered with a towel to make the vapors even more potent. The process is supposed to help clear congestion in your nose, throat, and chest. I went first, followed by Troy, Judy, Leigh, and finally, Raj. It did seem to help with the congestion, but it was only a temporary fix. I popped two Nyquils before bed to help ensure a good night’s sleep.

Day 12 (Thursday, Nov 10) – Thorung Phedi (4450 m)
It got pretty cold last night – my watch read 27 F (-2.8 C) – and the water bucket in our bathroom (used to flush the toilet) had frozen over. While my chest still felt congested, overall I felt much better.

The morning portion of the hike was nice because the muddy trail had frozen making the ground solid and thus easier to walk on. Although I felt OK at the outset, I soon started slowing down and feeling more and more tired. It felt somewhat difficult to breathe. My chest congestion was likely compounding the effects associated with the thinner air.

At our final rest stop before Thorung Phedi, there was a really steep climb up a series of switchbacks. That climb was murder for me. Not only was I going very slowly, but I couldn’t even talk because of the difficulty I had breathing. I was certainly hurting.

The original plan was to see how everyone felt when we reached Thorung Phedi. If everyone was OK, we’d push on to “High Camp” which would help make the following day (crossing the Thorung pass) a bit easier. When we arrived at Thorung Phedi, I was completely spent and in pretty bad shape. Raj decided that we would stay in Thorung Phedi for the night rather than continue to High Camp, and get a really early start the next morning. Although I was certainly in the worst shape of the bunch, there were several others who were suffering to varying degrees from the high altitude so it was a good decision.

The hotel had two dining rooms, one part of the main building and the other appended to the main building. We had lunch in the appended room which was kind of nice because the windows created a nice greenhouse effect from the sun making things warm and toasty. After lunch I curled up in my sleeping bag to read. I had finished “Into Thin Air” and was now starting “A Walk in the Woods” by Bill Bryson.

After dinner, Raj recommended I take one tablet of Diamox which is used to treat altitude sickness. Although I was pretty sure my ill effects were from a cold rather than the altitude, I figured it couldn’t hurt and might be a good precaution.

That evening, the moon cast a bright glow on the snowy mountains and huts surrounding our hotel. It was beautiful, but there just wasn’t enough light to capture the scene with my digital camera.

Day 13 (Friday, Nov 11) – Thorung Pass (5416 m), Muktinath (3800 m)
Today was the day nearly everyone looked forward to with a bit of uneasiness and apprehension. Not only would we reach our highest elevation of the entire trek (17,769 ft), but this day would likely be the most physically demanding one as well. I was feeling nowhere near 100%, and perhaps even more disconcerting was that Judy woke up feeling really nauseous. Things weren’t looking too good.

Wanting to get an early start to ensure plenty of time in getting to our destination, we awoke at 3:30 AM and started hiking at 4:30 AM. The sun hadn’t risen yet so it was still dark outside. Everyone had their headlamps on, and it was pretty cool to look ahead and see an orderly procession of lights moving up the mountain in the darkness.

Not only was it dark, but it was also pretty cold. I was fairly comfortable, temperature-wise, hiking with a T-shirt, light fleece, windbreaker, and down jacket.

Ramesh had initially taken Judy’s day pack since she was feeling so bad. Strangely enough, as we continued our ascent, Judy began to feel better and no longer felt nauseous. She soon was feeling fine and took her pack back. Unfortunately, I wasn’t getting any better as I slogged up the hill, and had to give my pack to Ramesh temporarily.

As we neared the pass, the wind really picked up. Ramesh commented later that in all his treks along this circuit, he had never seen the winds so ferocious. So not only did I have the bad luck of being sick during the day of the pass, but we also had to have abnormally fierce winds. Fantastic! I soon had to add my Gore-Tex shell to all the layers I was already wearing in order to stay warm.

The wind was really whipping when we finally reached the pass. I was relieved to find that there was a small shelter there. It was still pretty cold inside, but it was out of the wind and I was able to get some hot tea. This marked our highest elevation point and the rest of the day would be spent descending. I’m typically much faster on the descents so I thought that the hardest part of the day was over. Little did I know that the descent would prove to be far more challenging than I expected and that the day was far from over.

The descent was hell. Quite a bit of snow remained (knee deep in many places) and the recent sunny days added icy patches to many parts of the trail. Actually, there really wasn’t even a trail – we just followed the footprints of those ahead of us. Whereas on the uphill I could hike at a relatively steady, albeit slow, pace, the downhill turned out to be very different. The snowy/icy conditions required much more strength and mental concentration, and I found myself only being able to take a few steps before having to rest and catch my breath. It was a really slow process. Poor Ramesh was assigned to stay with me and while he might understandably be annoyed or frustrated with my pace, he never showed it.

Ramesh and I did manage to have some fun, however. On several hills, we found it easier to simply slide down on our butts as opposed to walking down slowly and cautiously. It must have been amusing to watch. It worked OK, but what I really wanted was a snowboard. It was all downhill and I could have easily been all the way down the mountain in a fraction of the time.

By mid-afternoon, Ramesh and I had caught up with Judy, Leigh, and Prem, not because I had gotten any faster, but because they had taken a long rest break. We continued on, but I soon fell behind again. Ramesh diligently stayed with me.

There was only one teahouse during the entire descent, and when Judy, Leigh, and Prem arrived, the rest of the group was there and about to leave. Leigh decided to go on ahead with them while Judy and Prem waited for Ramesh and me. When I got to the teahouse, I stopped for some water and a veggie noodle soup. The soup was delicious and hit the spot, especially since I hadn’t had any real food since breakfast.

From the teahouse, the four of us marched on. The snow on the ground soon began to fade which made hiking much easier. We didn’t reach Muktinath until around 4:30 PM or so – a really long day considering that we had been up since 3:30 that morning! I was exhausted and extremely happy to have the day behind us.

That evening, Judy tried to learn how to play the Nepalese drum and found that it’s harder than it looks. Nevertheless, with Gurung’s patient instruction, she soon was able to play a simple beat.

Day 14 (Saturday, Nov 12) – Jomosom (2710 m)
I was feeling better today, not only physically, but also because the toughest day was over. Today was supposed to be relatively flat so it shouldn’t be too difficult.

Before we left that morning, I ran into a Canadian unicylist who was planning on doing the Annapurna Circuit in the reverse direction (we were going counter-clockwise and he planned to go clockwise which is supposed to be more difficult). He had started in Jomosom (our destination city for today) and had unicycled without a porter (which means he carried all his stuff in his pack). He planned to hire a porter today in Muktinath before continuing on. Pretty cool! Hopefully he made it!

Raj warned everyone that we might be encountering some pretty windy and dusty conditions during today’s trek. As a result, I decided to purchase a bandana to wear over my nose and mouth. I ended up getting a bandana with “The Daily Leaf” printed on it. It had a big marijuana leaf printed on it along with a bunch of gibberish. Despite the comical contents of the bandana’s printing, it served its purpose quite well.

Our hotel that evening was quite luxurious. Our room had a full bathroom in it, complete with sink, western style toilet, and shower. Although the flush didn’t work on the toilet (you had to pour water down it), it was still nice to not have to squat. The shower was warm, but as with all showers on the trek, once the water was turned off, you froze your ass off.

Day 15 (Sunday, Nov 13) – Kalapani (2530 m)
Both Judy and I awoke feeling tired, surprisingly more so than the previous day (the day after crossing the pass). As we walked through Kalapani, we passed bunches of French adventure racers who were running the Annapurna Circuit clockwise. From their faces, it looked like they were in pain and anguish. One had a bloody nose and was continuing to run. Boy, that looks like a lot of fun – I just don’t see the appeal in doing something like that.

Jomosom has an airport and we saw several planes take off. I doubt I was the only one feeling this way, but a part of me wouldn’t have minded hopping on one of those planes and going home. I could have been done with the trip today and been perfectly happy, but with nearly a week still to go, that was not to be.

We encountered some really windy and dusty conditions while walking across the dry river bed. Once again, my hemp bandana proved its usefulness. There was some heavy road construction along a stretch of the trail, and we did a bit of somewhat precarious hiking along the mountainside to avoid the construction. We also had some great views of Tukuche Peak. While the day’s trek was for the most part flat, it was still pretty tough because of the long distance covered.

After passing a bunch of really nice looking hotels in Kalopani, we finally reached ours. Leigh had a monster blister on her heel which Dr. Phil was called in to pop. Troy had also reported a large blister and needed it popped as well. While he indeed had a blister, when compared to Leigh’s gargantuan blister, Troy’s looked more like a dry pimple.

This was the first hotel in which the entire group could sit around a single table. Judy had the dahl Bhaat and reported that the dahl was the best she’s had so far. Afterwards, the porters put in a cheesy Nepalese action flick DVD. Many of us watched along with them.

Day 16 (Monday, Nov 14) – Tatopani (1190 m)
Last night was fairly warm with a low inside our room of only 43 F (6.1 C) or so. During the night, I heard a mouse scurrying around upstairs. This continued for a few minutes. Then there seemed to be a bunch of scurrying interspersed with squeaks. Then finally, there was a loud squeak and then silence. My guess is that a cat took care of the mouse problem.

I felt much better today and just felt like hiking fast for some reason. I went out ahead of the group and eventually caught up with the porters as well as Lila who had been sent ahead to get a hotel room. When I got to Ghasa, I kicked back in the sun, ate an apple, and waited for the others. We ate lunch at a nice restaurant in front of a cool waterfall. I ordered the dahl Bhaat which was excellent. Judy was jealous because the dish contained lots of greens.

The environment was noticeably different as we continued to descend and became much more humid and tropical. Our hotel rooms in Tatopani required climbing several sets of stairs. After the long day of trekking we had gone through, this was not very pleasant – you could really feel it in your legs as you climbed the stairs.

The highlight of the day was undoubtedly the hot springs which were a quick jaunt from the hotel. Man-made pools were constructed in which hot water from a natural hot spring was flowed in with a pipe. Because direct water from the spring was too hot, another pipe carried cold water into the pool. The hot water was very refreshing and for me and helped loosen the muscles in my legs that had gotten somewhat tight from the over two weeks of continuous trekking.

Day 17 (Tuesday, Nov 15) – Ghorepani (2750 m)
Early during our trek that morning, I saw a pretty cool sight in the distance. A large herd of mountain goats was crossing a suspension bridge. The bridge was filled end to end with mountain goats, definitely a unique sight. I wanted to get a better shot of it so I rushed on ahead hoping to get close enough before all the goats had crossed. Unfortunately, I ran into a huge traffic jam – another large herd of mountain goats was completely blocking the trail, preventing my passage. By the time this herd had cleared, too much time had passed and the first herd had completely crossed the bridge. Oh well.

When I finally got to the bridge, there was another large procession of animals, this time donkeys, crossing the bridge in the opposite direction (towards us). We had to wait a good 15-20 minutes for all the donkeys to pass. During a short lull, the bridge was momentarily open and Barbara and I decided to cross. Unfortunately, we just made it to the other side. Another group of donkeys was preparing to enter the bridge, preventing the rest of the group from crossing.

Barbara decided to continue on ahead. I waited a while and then decided to go on ahead as well. By that time, Barbara had gotten far enough ahead that I couldn’t see her. I continued on for a while along the main trail, but soon stopped because I didn’t want to get too far ahead of the main group. So I pulled to the side, chomped on an apple, and waited. And waited. And waited. Hmmm… something’s not quite right. They weren’t that far behind me.

Then I saw Prem coming along the trail towards me and discovered that I had gone the wrong way! I missed a turnoff and was headed towards the town of Beni which was in a completely different direction from Ghorepani, our intended destination. Prem asked if I had seen Barbara and I told him that I knew Barbara was ahead of me but that I hadn’t been able to see her in some time. Not knowing whether or not Barbara had made the correct turnoff or not, Prem raced ahead to try to find her.

As I waited for Prem to return, I met a mother and daughter from Holland. They initially said “Kenichiwa” to me thinking I was Japanese. When I informed them that I was not Japanese and was in fact Chinese-American, the daughter started speaking to me in Mandarin! I always find it very odd when a Caucasian person can speak an Asian language – it’s very cool, but also very strange for some reason. It turned out that her Mandarin was at least as good as mine, maybe even better! It turned out that she had spent a lot of her life in China. Anyhow, they were headed to Beni and were going the right way.

Prem returned without finding Barbara. We hoped that she had gone the right way, but we soon ran into a Nepalese couple who suggested otherwise. Prem asked if they had seen Barbara and we both gave them a pretty detailed description. They indicated that they had indeed passed someone who fit Barbara’s description, and that that person was headed towards Beni. Oh no! Prem decided that we should just head back and then decide with Raj what to do.

Since we had lost a lot of time, Prem and I ran back – it was a nicely invigorating morning run. When we reported what happened to Raj, he decided to continue on towards Ghorepani. I wasn’t sure that that was the right decision given the information we had. Maybe he figured that if Barbara had gone the wrong way, she would eventually figure things out and get where she needed to be.

The three of us continued on, climbing a long section of really steep stairs. We were still trying to make up for lost time so we climbed up the stairs at a pretty good clip. By the time we reached the top of the stairs, we were all pretty hot and sweaty.

It turned out that Barbara had gone the right way. So much for the Nepalese couple’s assertion that they had seen Barbara headed towards Beni. I guess to the Nepalese, all those white people look the same anyway.

The rest of the day was pretty hard. It was a long day with endless steep uphills. Judy actually felt that this day was tougher than the day of the pass. I’m not sure I agreed with that assessment, but it was a hard day regardless.

The hotel we had was really nice and big and had a volleyball court in front of it. We actually had a very good view of the court from our hotel room. Despite that, I decided to head down to get some courtside action of the game in progress. The court was on pavement which seemed like it would be murder on the knees. The people playing were actually pretty good so it was fun to watch.

When Judy arrived a bit later, she asked if we could play. Unfortunately, it was some sort of organized team play so they politely declined. It would have been fun to play, although with my legs tired from the day’s trek, I probably would have only had a credit-card vertical.

There were hot showers at the hotel and they were the best showers of the trek. The water was truly hot and it was not nearly as cold after the shower. We found out later that the water was heated by a “donkey” which, despite its strange name, was a great way of heating water. Basically, water is heated by the wood furnace in the dining hall and then piped to the showers. Unlike the typical solar powered water heaters, the hot water would not run out. Hot water would be present until the furnace was extinguished.

There were quite a few people staying there and most everyone hung out in the very large dining room. This was where the furnace was so it was very warm. Assorted laundry was strung around the furnace to dry.

Tomorrow’s plan was to get to Birethanti and stay the night. The following morning, we’d have a very short hike to catch a bus that would take us to Pokhara. Someone floated the idea that we should go straight through Birethanti and catch the bus to Pokhara the next evening. That way, we could be at Pokhara first thing the following morning (instead of arriving at around noon). This was supposedly a very desirable thing since Pokhara was apparently a really cool city that we would want to spend lots of time in.

Now that I was more or less healthy again, I didn’t really care either way, although I had a slight preference to stick with the original plan. I didn’t really see the benefit in pushing a really long day just to get to Pokhara a few hours earlier. I also wasn’t convinced that Pokhara had anything really that great to warrant such an action. Additionally, there were some others in the group who were not feeling that well and who did not feel comfortable making such a push the next day.

Ultimately, we decided to play it by ear. At mid-day or so, we’d see how everyone felt and then decide whether or not to push on further.

Day 18 (Wednesday, Nov 16) – Birethanti (1025 m)
Today’s itinerary was to wake up early and catch the sunrise at the top of Poon Hill. Troy decided to sleep in instead, and everyone else left at around 5:30 AM. Renee turned back after a few minutes because she thought it was raining.

It wasn’t raining. In fact, the weather turned out to be great. We slogged up the hill and after the long uphill day yesterday, our legs were definitely feeling it. When we got to the top of Poon Hill, there was a rickety looking lookout tower and a whole lot of people. It was kind of disappointing to see so many people, but the panoramic view made it worth it. We were above the clouds and were treated to a beautiful sunrise.

After spending some time atop Poon Hill and taking lots of pics, we headed back down to the hotel for breakfast. Soon, we were trekking along the main route again.

During one of our rest stops, Guy decided to take a pee in one of the bushes. Bad move. A lady rushed out of the nearby shop, grabbed Guy’s walking stick, starting yelling at him in Nepalese, and took a few good whacks on Guy’s backpack. She was clearly unhappy with Guy’s choice of urinal. After yelling a bit more, she walked back to her shop and threw Guy’s stick on the ground.

Judy apparently ate something bad during lunch as she had to make two emergency toilet stops that afternoon. Ramesh might have gotten the same thing as he was forced to make several stops as well. We found out the next day that he had to perform an emergency pit-stop 7 times that afternoon! Poor guy!

It turned out to be another long day. Instead of the relentless uphill of the day before, today was relentless downhill, most of it over rocky trail that made it pretty tough on the knees. The lead group arrived at the hotel at around 4 PM, with Barbara and Hannah arriving 10-15 minutes later, and Judy and Leigh 15-20 minutes after that. Based on the reactions of most of the people, I’d say that most were glad we were staying the night in Birethanti as opposed to pushing on to Pokhara.

The hotel was somewhat strangely layed out and dark inside but it had a descent bathroom and a warm shower. I for one was happy that tomorrow would be our last day of trekking because quite frankly, I was sick of trekking and ready to go home.

Day 19 (Thursday, Nov 17) – Pokhara (820 m)
After breakfast, it was a short (1 – 1.5 hour) hike to catch the bus. It took about 2.5 hours to get to Pokhara which gave us plenty of time to check out the town.

After a very nice shower and a clean change of clothes (I went down the street to buy a new shirt and socks so I could have a fresh set to wear), we sent our clothes to the hotel’s laundry service. Leigh, Judy, and I then ventured into town.

We spent some time shopping and then had an outdoor lunch at a restaurant on the lakefront. Since this would be one of our last opportunities to have dahl Bhaat, both Judy and I ordered it. We were not disappointed as the dahl Bhaat dishes contained far more side dishes than what we had become accustomed to, and much to Judy’s joy, there were plenty of greens.

Lunch lasted a good long time – the setting was very tranquil so we took our time to eat and converse. After lunch, Judy and Leigh decided to continue shopping. I had had enough shopping so I decided to spend some time in an internet cafe. Being accustomed to a fast computer with broadband, I found the super slow internet speeds annoyingly frustrating (even though I was at the cafe with “the fastest internet connection”), but it was still nice to get online and regain a bit of touch with the rest of the world.

Dinner was delicious, but they didn’t make enough food. We set the table up so that the guides and porters could all eat with us. Once dinner was done, the porters were each handed envelopes with their tips – each person in the group contributed approximately 1500 rps or about $21 (since there were 12 of us and 5 porters, each porter got around 3600 rps or $51 – about $2.50/porter/day). At that point, the real fun commenced. The table was moved out of the way, the music started, and some serious dancing began.

Day 20 (Friday, Nov 18) – Bandipur
All the porters had departed with the exception of Raju and Dhon. They rode with us a short ways on the bus and then we dropped them off. They were a great group of people and we’ll miss them.

It was a 2-3 hour bus ride to Bandipur, and when we arrived, we had a Western lunch at our hotel consisting of tuna fish sandwiches with cheese. We were told that on a clear day, the view from the hotel was really nice. Unfortunately, it was cloudy today so we couldn’t see much. After lunch, I took a stroll with Guy and Phil. We did a short loop of the surrounding area, but there really wasn’t a whole lot to see.

Later that afternoon, the group went on a hike and I decided not to go. Judy ended up going and said that it was pretty boring. I spent the afternoon reading and napping. Perhaps I should have gone hiking because as the afternoon passed, I began feeling a bit unwell. I thought I may have eaten something bad for lunch.

By the time dinner rolled around, I was feeling nauseous. At the dinner table, we met a few people who were also staying in that hotel for the night. There was a really nice couple from Australia who had done part of the Annapurna Circuit. The girl had found out she was pregnant and broke the news to her husband just a couple days prior while at the top of Poon Hill. Pretty cool. We also a met a mountain biker who was biking his way through Nepal. It seemed like a really interesting adventure but I wasn’t feeling well enough to ask him more about it.

I went to bed early and had an extremely fitful night of sleep. I’d alternate between having hot flashes in which I’d wake up completely drenched in sweat and then cold flashes where I couldn’t get warm enough. It was really bizarre. I had never experienced anything like that before and didn’t know if I had simply eaten something bad or if I had caught another bug.

Day 21 (Saturday, Nov 19) – Kathmandu
Well, I woke up feeling like shit again. What the hell was going on? This was extremely annoying! I usually get sick only on rare occasions, but on this trip, I couldn’t seem to keep from getting sick. I figured I had eaten something bad for lunch, but nobody else seemed to be sick and I didn’t have the runs. I had no idea what was going on.

We had a long 5-7 hour bus ride to Kathmandu so both Judy and I took some Bonine to help prevent motion sickness. Before getting on the bus, however, we had to take a 1 hour jeep ride to get to the bus. I sat shotgun with Barbara instead of in the back of the jeep. The ride wasn’t that bad.

It turned out that we didn’t have the bus all to ourselves as we had had previously. Instead, we shared the bus with other locals. I basically tried to sleep as much as possible during the ride.

When we finally arrived in Kathmandu, the bus dropped us off at the same point where we had been picked up 20 days ago. From there, we had to carry our stuff back to the Kathmandu Guest House. Judy, inspired by the Nepalese, decided to carry her bag on her head, a technique that seemed to work pretty well.

Leigh and Judy decided to pass the afternoon by going shopping in Kathmandu. Since I was still feeling like shit, I just rested in our room.

Dinner was at Rum Doodle. It was a very Westernized restaurant – they didn’t even have dahl Bhaat for crying out loud! Rum Doodle is not really known for its food (it was just OK), but more for their tradition of large foot-shaped papers in which groups can write and draw on. These paper feet are then stuck onto the walls and ceilings of the restaurants as a more or less permanent memento of the group’s adventure.

After everyone had eaten, it was time to present the guides with their tips. Troy gave a little speech expressing the group’s gratitude and appreciation of all that the guides had done for us, and then presented each with their tip envelopes (similar amounts to the porters).

As the night was wrapping up, a problem arose because we were coming up very short on the bill. We were supposed to put in extra money for the assistant guides’ dinners, but apparently, they spent quite a bit more than what was expected. However, that alone wasn’t enough to explain the large shortfall.

It wasn’t clear exactly what had occurred, but I wasn’t feeling very well and wanted to get back to the hotel. I bid adieu and started heading back to the hotel. I got lost and ended up hiring a rickshaw to take me back to the hotel. It only cost 30 rps, but I gave the guy 50 rps because that was all I had and wasn’t in the mood to bother with change.

Sunday, Nov 20 – Bangkok
In the morning, I felt only slightly better. I was, however, very happy to be finally going home. Judy and I had breakfast with Leigh outside on the second floor terrace of the restaurant in front of our hotel. Leigh was staying until Tuesday. Guy, Rob, and Lisa were headed back today and were in fact on the same flight to Bangkok as Judy and myself.

We soon said our farewells and were on a taxi to the airport. We left the hotel at around 10 AM which left plenty of time to spare for our 1:50 PM flight.

During the transfer in Bangkok, we lost Guy, Rob, and Lisa in the mad shuffle of people so didn’t get to say our goodbyes. We had an overnight layover in Bangkok and Judy had booked a hotel near the airport. The thing we hadn’t thought about was whether or not we needed a visa in order to leave the airport. We tried asking the information desk, but the lady’s English wasn’t very good and based on our conversation, we weren’t quite sure that she knew the answer anyway.

We decided that it might make more sense to just stay at one of the day rooms in the airport, but the day rooms turned out to be outrageously expensive. So we decided to just get our bags and spend the night in the airport. While retrieving our bags, we found out that Americans don’t need a visa in Thailand if the stay is less than 30 days. In that case, we might as well stay at the hotel that Judy had already booked and paid for.

There was a taxi service by the airport exit so we used it to get a taxi to the hotel. It cost around 600 bhat (~$15). Judy wanted to get a Thai massage which they offered at the hotel, and since I don’t really enjoy massages, I decided to just to hit the hotel’s buffet. The hotel was really nice, especially compared to what we had been used to for the last several weeks.

Monday, Nov 21 – Hong Kong
We had to wake up at 4:45 AM to catch our 8:25 AM flight. The taxi from the hotel to the airport was only 150 bhat, a big difference from the 600 bhat we had paid just the night before. Clearly, we had been ripped off by the prior night’s taxi service. Oh well.

Our final layover was in Hong Kong where we had some time to shop around and have lunch. Shortly after lunch, I began feeling nauseous again. Goddamnit! What the hell’s going on? The nausea continued onto the plane. Great, the flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco was around 14 hours and now I’m sick again?!

The flight was really long and although I felt like throwing up a few times, it never quite came out. I did have the runs however and had to make several jaunts to the cramped airplane bathroom.

A few hours before we were to land in SF, Judy started feeling nauseous and was soon throwing up. Good thing for those throw up bags they place behind every seat! By the time we had finally arrived in SF, we were both in pretty sorry shape – completely and utterly weak. We struggled just to walk through the airport with our daypacks by the time we retrieved our bags, we felt like debilitated senior citizens.

The most likely explanation is that we both got food poisoning from our lunch at the Hong Kong airport. Since Judy got it much worse than me, it was probably one of her dishes that was bad. She ate most of her order while I just had a few bites from it. At any rate, it felt sooooo very good to finally be back home and to be able to take a nice hot shower in a clean bathroom and then to be able to put on clean, warm clothes. It was definitely good to be home.

All in all, it was a fun trip and a very unique experience. Obviously, we both had a bit of bad luck (me more than Judy in getting sick on the toughest day of the trek), but even had I remained healthy during the entire trip, I still think I would have found the trip a bit too long . Honestly, if the trip ended after the Thorung Pass (Day 13 of the trek), I would have been perfectly happy. I would have seen all that I wanted to see and experienced all that I wanted to experience.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that I regret going on the trip. Certainly, we have many great memories (and pics!) from the trip and now have some good stories to tell. We had the opportunity to learn from and interact with the Nepalese people and see firsthand how they live their lives. The people were very friendly and humble, and even though they may not have much from a material standpoint, they seemed to be genuinely happy.

If I had to do it all over again, I probably would have elected to to the Everest Base Camp trek instead of the Annapurna Circuit trek. The trek to the Everest Base Camp is quite a bit shorter (15 total days as opposed to 22) and the sights and experiences are pretty similar. I’m happy to have the many great memories from the trip but am also very happy to be home. Of course, memories tend to fade which is why I took all these digital pictures.

Here’s the official trip dossier from GAP Adventures. Actually, the original dossier available to us prior to the trip was in PDF format. During our trip, GAP Adventures revamped their website and did away with the PDF version. Since I didn’t save a copy, I just pulled the new dossier, in HTML format, from their website. Both versions seemed to have mostly the same content anyway.

[Holy cow, this trip report turned out to be extremely long. It's definitely the longest I have ever written, but I guess that's to be expected since this is the longest trip we have ever taken. About halfway through writing the trip report, I started regretting the decision to do a detailed write-up. However, at that point I had already written so much that I couldn't stop there. So I finished it up and it's a monster. If you've actually read the whole thing, I'd be impressed!]

Brian and I backpacked part of the High Sierra Route on September 27-30, 2005. This was one of the remaining portions that he had not done. We hiked approximately 30-36 miles, which included some cross-country sections. To see pics, click here.

Brian and I met in Mammoth in the evening of September 26, 2005. Since it had been raining all day, we decided to stay at a Motel 6 that night so our gear wouldn’t be wet upon starting the next day. This was the first time I had driven over Tioga Pass – which is pretty eerie when the weather is rainy, dark, and cloudy. It just so happened that both of our stomachs were not doing so well that evening-mine more than his. I’ll spare you the details, but it was not pretty, and was pretty painful. Luckily, my body flushed everything out that evening so I was ok to leave the next AM. Brian was OK to go too.

Day 1: We headed to the upper Rock Creek area where we would start our trip. It had snowed the night before, so our trail up to Mono Pass was covered with snow. Luckily, somebody had started before us, and broke the trail. There was a section around Mono Pass towards the Trail Lakes that was essentially cross-country since the trail was hidden by the snow and we had lost our trail-breaker’s tracks. At times, we were knee deep in snow (or at least I was – Brian was maybe calf deep since he is taller), but we were able to catch the trail again and descend towards the valley. We ended up covering about 11-12 miles that day. We camped that evening along Mono Creek. We had to use a bear canister, but couldn’t fit everything in there the first night. Brian worked on perfecting the ursack-hang for about an hour that evening.

Day 2: We headed to the Laurel Lake Trail towards Laurel Lake. Then it was time for the cross-country portion of the trip. We ascended to Bighorn Pass and traversed rocky outcrops and short stretches of talus to the Shout of Relief Pass. Parts of this portion was covered in snow, so I was a bit slower than usual. Then we started to descend to Tully Hole, but it was taking forever. We ended up staying close to Isaak Walton Lake that evening. I think we only covered about 6 miles that day.

Day 3: We continued our cross-country portion during our quest to find the John Muir Trail that would bring us down to Fish Creek and Tully Hole. After about 1-2 hrs of hiking up and down, we finally found the JMT and reached Tully Hole. We stayed on the JMT until we hit Duck Pass. Then we went cross-country again to Deer Lakes, where we camped that night. We covered about 10-12 miles that day

Day 4: We followed a faint trail until shortly after Mammoth Crest where we met up with Deer Creek Trail. The descent down to Lake George seemed to take forever, but it was really pretty.

It was a great trip! We had great weather each day. We managed to avoid the storm in the afternoon of Day 1, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky for the other days. I irritated my achilles tendon a bit, and my feet were in pain, but no major mishaps or injuries occurred. Neither Brian and I slept well each night but no crankiness resulted from it. Thank goodness Brian navigated the cross-country portions. We would have been even slower if I had to think and lead. Thanks Brian!!

There are 6 camps:

Tuolumne to Vogelsang (7.5 miles) – net elevation gain of 1500 ft
Vogelsang to Lake Merced (7.5 miles) – net elevation loss of 3000 ft
Lake Merced to Sunrise (10 miles) – net elevation gain of 2000 ft
Sunrise to May Lake (8 miles) – net elevation gain of 1500 ft
May Lake to Glen Aulin (8 miles) – net elevation gain of 1500 ft
Glen Aulin to Tuolumne (6.5 miles) – net elevation gain of 300 ft

So our plan was to do:

Day 1: Tuolumne to Vogelsang (7.5 miles)
Day 2: Vogelsang to Sunrise (18 miles)
Day 3: Sunrise to Glen Aulin (16 miles)
Day 4: Glen Aulin to Tuolumne (6.5 miles)

I arrived at Tuolumne around 8pm on Mon. I checked in and then ate the dinner I had brought in my car since there was no electricity in the tent cabin. After storing all scented items in the bear boxes, I went to the tent cabin (basically metal poles with canvas). There are 4 beds per cabin with blankets. Candles were provided for lighting, and a furnace/firewood/newspaper were provided for warmth. I burned a fire for over 4 hrs. Patty radioed me on the talk-about around 12:30 AM and I went out to meet her and show her where our cabin was.

Day 1 started with us sorting out gear. Then Patty’s back started spasming out, so she needed to be bedridden for about 1/2 hr. After I went and picked up our permit and some advil, Patty felt her back was ok enough to go. We figured since we were doing a short day, we could see how she feels during and after the hike and go from there. We arrived at camp around 3 PM. Had lots of time to kill before sunset. Set up our tent, and then hung out at Townsley Lake until about 5PM. Had an early unsatisfying dinner – we both put too much water into our food. Waited until about 7PM before our last bathroom outing and then went to bed.

Day 2 started with my alarm going off at 5:30 AM. We wanted to get an early start, but the sun wasn’t even up yet, so we slept abit more. We got up around 7AM and left camp by 8AM. We hauled ass to Lake Merced. I just wanted to get there because I knew we had 10 miles of uphill after that. We made it there in less than 3 hrs (estimated time was 4.5 hrs). We took our time the rest of the day. We thought we were making pretty good time for a couple of reasons (1) Patty had been counting steps and consistently walked 1800 steps per mile and (2) The couple we came across confirmed Patty’s theory. We ended up taking longer and more frequent breaks because there was no rush to get to camp to just sit there. Sometime during the day, our calculations were way off, because at the end of the day, we thought we had 1/2 hr left when we really had 2 hrs. We ended up making it to camp by 5:30PM which was just enough time to set up our tent, filter water, cook/eat, and pop my blister.

Day 3 ended up being our last day. We ended up hiking 10 miles back to Tuolumne instead of going to Glen Aulin. Patty was not interested in another long day, and I didn’t care either way. It was probably better that we finished early since my body just didn’t want to move very fast that day. The previous long day was starting to take a toll on my body, and downhill sections became painful. Thank god I popped that blister the day before tho! It was during this day when we realized that all people overestimate how quickly they hike. When they say “you have 4.1 miles left (dunno how they could be so exact), we really had about 6 miles left. When they say “it should only be 20 more minutes,” it ends up being another hour. When we hit Tioga Road, we realized we had 3 more miles to go until we got back to our car. But Patty saw the shuttle bus sign as we started our hike, and there was no hestitation in our decision to sit and wait for it. We were seriously going to hitch a ride at that point anyways.

It was a great trip. Great weather – clear skies with no clouds. More importantly, there were no mosquitos! There were no injuries, and the scenery was beautiful. I would like to go back and do the entire loop one day. Next time we’ll do Tuolumne to Lake Merced in day 1. Day 2 will be Lake Merced to Sunrise. Day 3 will be Sunrise to Glen Aulin. That way we can alternate hard and easier days.

Here’s the pics.

I left for Yosemite at 5 AM and made it there in 3.5 hours! Pretty quick drive as long as you don’t get stuck behind slow cars.

First thing I did upon arriving was check into Camp 4 (walk-in only). All other campgrounds that take reservations were completely full, so I was hoping that Camp 4 would have room. I would have been fine sleeping in my car, but I guess you’re not allowed to sleep in your car at Yosemite. It turns out that Camp 4 fills up by the end of the day, but if you check-in early enough, its no problem getting in.

So I got a spot, and proceeded to set up my tent. All the sites are shared, so its pretty easy to meet people there. This guy insisted on helping me set up my tent, even though I insisted that I was perfectly capable.

After setting up my tent, I started hiking the Upper Yosemite Falls trail around 10 AM. This trail is labeled “Very Strenuous”, and estimates 6 hrs total hiking time. Its only about 3-3.5 miles one way, but it took me about 2 hrs to get to the top. It was the slowest I’ve ever covered that short of a distance – I hadn’t expected it to be so steep. It was a beautiful hike with great views. But when I got to the top, I had run out of water and was completely dehydrated. The hike was really exposed for the last mile or so to the top. I was dreading coming back down, since it was steep, sandy, and rocky. I developed a headache from my dehydration and sun exposure. I was so dehydrated, that I actually drank some water from a small runoff on my way down (sans filtering). I made it back down in 1.5 hrs and made a beeline to my car when I chugged about 1/2 gallon of water. Then I proceeded to the shuttle stop and just rode the shutte around since it was air-conditioned. I stopped off at the village to buy some cold fruit, cold water, and a pickle (need the salt?!)

Anyways, I felt better after a while, and called Roger from the pay phone. I wasn’t able to get cell reception in the valley, so I wanted to let Roger know that I was ok.

I went back to the campground and hung out at the campsite for the rest of the evening. I was sharing a campsite with 3 guys from Denmark. We chatted for a few hours, and then I turned in. It was the first time I’d camped by myself. A fun experience!

I took some pics, but not much. You really need to be there in person to experience the magnificance of it all.

I talked it over with my boss and he was OK with it. When the time comes, we’ll figure out what best to do (such as me going negative on my vacation balance). So the trip is a go! We’ve already reserved our spots for the trip and are currently planning on being gone from Th Oct 27 to Sun Nov 21. Weather-wise, this is probably the optimal time to go, so it was no surprise that when we made our booking, most of the spots had already been filled. Although it’s still a good ways away, we’re both pretty excited about it already!

Off trail backpacking through Tuolumne. No trip report, but lots of pics with captions.

Day 9 (Sun, Oct 06) Klondike Bluffs, Islands in the Sky
Upon getting up, we got our free continental breakfast, the highlight of which were the Belgian waffles that you make yourself by pouring cups of pre-made batter into a griddle. Although we had a fairly good idea of the rides in the area through our Mountain Biking Utah book, we decided to stop by the Poison Spider bike shop to get some local advice.

We chose to do the Klondike Bluffs trail which was supposed to be a good introduction to slickrock. We parked in a small lot on the side of the 191 and rode 2-3 miles in on a dirt road. After riding in, we realized that we could have drove in this distance and avoided the somewhat boring dirt road. The actual trail was a whole lot of fun and gave us a good taste of slickrock. We even got to see some real dinosaur footprints fossilized in the slickrock. And at the top of the trail, we were treated to a cool view of Moab and its surroundings.

Our bikes were functioning remarkably well considering all the crap they had been through. Judy was having a small front derailleur shifting issue and I felt that I could use a little lube in my pedal cranks so we brought the bikes in to the Moab Cyclery for a quick adjustment. The guy we talked to there was really nice and gave us a bunch of tips, including some suggestions on some good singletrack rides in the local La Sal Mountains. It sounded fun, but we’d probably have to save the La Sal’s for another trip. One of the cool things about the Moab Cyclery was that they had a mini North Shore course set up in front with narrow planks and a teeter-totter. I didn’t trust my skills enough to give it a shot; I probably would have killed myself.

For lunch, we hit Zack’s Woodfried Pizza. I was famished and got the all-you-can-eat pizza, salad, and soup special while Judy got just the salad buffet. Afterwards, we perused the shops along Main St. and Judy bought a bunch of souvenirs.

The plan that night was to car camp at the Islands in the Sky district of Canyonlands. There was still plenty of light left so we drove to Canyonlands, found the Big Mesa campground where we planned to camp, and then drove through the scenic loop. After doing the loop, we returned to the Big Mesa campground to look for a campsite. Big Mesa is, as its name implies, a big mesa that has quite a view all the way around. We found a campsite that had a pretty nice view and retired for the night.

Day 10 (Mon, Oct 07) Amasa Back, Gemini Bridges
We woke up early and watched the sun rise over the nearby La Sal Mountains. Klondike Bluffs was fun, but we wanted something a little bit more challenging so we decided to try the Amasa Back trail. We parked at a lot just before Kane Creek Rd. turns to dirt and rode up to the Amasa Back trail head. Once again, we realized that we could have driven in a bit to bypass some of the dirt road. The very first part of Amasa back involves a fairly technical slickrock staircase. When we got there, two guys with really nice bikes were taking turns trying to descend the staircase. After a few tries, they were both able to make it cleanly. I decided to go down an easier route just to get a feel for it, but after watching the two guys do it, I had to give it a try down the harder section. I made it down cleanly, and it was quite exhilarating! Judy ended up walking down, but was kind of frazzled about what might lie ahead.

Right after the staircase was a thigh-high drop-off. And right after that was a technical rocky section. A short stretch of fairly smooth riding quickly met up with another technical uphill. It was a bit too much for Judy, so we decided to head back and find another trail.

The Gemini Bridges trail is what we decided on. It consisted of a somewhat long climb on a dirt road, a descent, and then a long flat section which was kind of boring, although the scenery was pretty cool. Then we hit a bunch of slickrock mixed with dirt which was a lot of fun. We finally arrived at the Gemini Bridges, a pair of large natural bridges, and took some cool photos there.

Dinner found us at Pasta Jay’s which is a very good Italian restaurant with good portions. We decided to spend the night at the CastleRock Inn, which was right across the street from the Comfort Suites that we had stayed at two nights before. The CastleRock Inn was nice and new (only a year old) so we wanted to check it out, especially since we weren’t that impressed with the Comfort Suites.

Day 11 (Tues, Oct 08) Arches National Park, Hole in the Rock
We decided that today would be a good day for rest since we’d be doing the famous Slickrock Trail the next day. During the Gemini Bridges ride, we had talked to two guys who said that they found the Slickrock Trail to be an extremely physically demanding trail. We spent the day in Arches National Park checking out the cool rock formations throughout the park. Judy’s achilles tendon was kind of hurting so she stayed in the truck while I did an hour and a half, 4.2 mile hike to check out the Landscape Arch and the Double-O Arch.

We spent some time looking for a campsite. Steph Davis, a famous climber who Ryan climbed with last year, had given some directions on some campsites near the Amasa Back trailhead. Judy and I went to check it out, but decided that they were kind of far (we actually never even found it). We discovered that there are campsites right next to the Slickrock Trail that would be much better so we decided to go there to secure a campsite.

Ryan and Cynthia were due to arrive that evening so we decided to wait for them for dinner. To kill some time, we decided to check out the Hole ‘N the Rock, a house that was built years ago into the rock. We went on the 10 minute tour through the house. It was pretty interesting. After the tour, we checked out the ostriches next door (not sure what they were doing there). Ostriches are weird-looking creatures!

Ryan’s monstrous Land Rover finally chugged into town around 8:30. Ryan wanted to eat at Pasta Jay’s so we ended up going there for the second night in a row, which was fine because it was a good restaurant. After dinner, we headed up to our campsite. Judy and I did the typical sleep-in-the-truck thing, Cynthia slept in a tent, and Ryan shacked up outside in his bivy.

Day 12 (Wed, Oct 09) Slickrock Trail!
The famous Slickrock Trail of Moab awaited us. Ryan had ridden it once before, but for the rest of us, it was our first time. We prudently decided to try out the Practice Loop first. The Practice Loop is about 2.5 miles and is no easier than the main trail, but gives you a good idea of what the trail will be like. If you decide it’s not for you, you can turn back. We did the Practice Loop and continued on.

The Slickrock Trail is unique in its characteristics, with endless seemingly impossible uphills and downhills. Contrary to its name, the slickrock is not slick at all, but grips your tires very well. The steep uphills are relatively short (5-15 seconds), but physically demanding. You are required to be in granny gear and be up out of the saddle, peddling as fast and as hard as you can – you’re basically doing quick sprints up the hills. On any other surface, your back wheel will skid out, but on the slickrock, your back tires grips pretty well. It does skid out occasionally, which requires you to balance a bit between keeping your front tire grounded and keeping your rear tire from skidding.

Nowadays, the trail is very well marked with dotted white lines. You’ll find occasional “fried eggs”, yellow splotches within the white lines, which indicate a more technical section. For most guys, however, the fried eggs are not really that big of a deal. Some sections are kind of scary because of the terrain – you sometimes can’t see what’s over a hump and don’t know if you’re going to be riding straight off of a steep cliff. Fortunately, that won’t happen (as long as you follow the trail) and once you get closer to the hump, you realize that its totally ridable. All in all, it’s a really cool trail! In fact, it’s Judy’s favorite trail of all time!

People have been known to do the trail in under an hour and a half. We took nearly 5 hours! This was primarily because we stopped several times to take pictures. Also, Judy and Cynthia were encouraged to do a lot of stuff that they might not have done without some encouragement. Several steep downhills gave them some hesitation, but for the most part, they rode them down and realized that they really weren’t that bad. And of course, Ryan and I had to try to do the more technical sections, sometimes several times.. All in all, I think both Ryan and I rode the entire trail cleanly with the notable exception of one long, steep climb in which both of our lungs and legs just simply gave out.

As we were packing up the trucks after the ride, a bunch of Ryan’s buddies from the Land Rover Club of San Diego spotted his beast of a truck and stopped by. They had hired a guide to take them on a 4X4 trail and asked if Ryan wanted to tag along. It was time to test the mettle of the Defender! Judy and Cynthia headed back to the CastleRock Inn and Ryan and I got ready to do some off-roading.

The guide led the group of Land Rovers on a trail called Fins and Things. We did some pretty amazing stuff that I just couldn’t believe. We went up and down some impossibly steep hills. I wouldn’t have believed it was possible without seeing it. Ryan’s Defender definitely proved its off-road worthiness!

For dinner, we hit Buck’s Grill (again for Judy and me). This time, I ordered the steak and wasn’t disappointed. In fact, Cynthia, Ryan, and myself all got the T-Bone steak while Judy got her Trout Salad again. That night, we stayed again at the CastleRock Inn.

Day 13 (Th, Oct 10) Wall Street
After getting our continental breakfast, we headed towards the local climbing store, Pagan Mountaineering, to get the beta on the local climbs. Ryan spent some dough on a bunch of cams and we headed for the Ice Cream Parlor which is along Kane Creek Road, several miles past the Amasa Back trail. The road was very dusty, especially when following another vehicle, and I had my rear window open for ventilation. That was a mistake as the entire inside of my truck got coated with a layer of dust. Yuck! We finally got to the climbing area. We had hoped that the climbing wall would be in the shade, but that was not the case. It was directly in the sun and it would only be getting worse as the sun continued to rise. We decided to go check out Wall Street instead.

On our way back, we decided to stop by the Amasa Back trailhead to show Ryan the beginning of the trail. We didn’t ride it, but just walked down. For some reason, the slickrock staircase did not look nearly as technical as when I had first ridden it. Ryan was not impressed. It probably seemed more difficult previously because it was the first technical section that we had encountered while at Moab. Now, it just looked like a lot of fun. We knew that Wall Street would be in the shade during the afternoon, so after checking out Amasa Back, we decided to get some lunch in town.

Wall Street is somewhat of a strange area because the climbs are right on the side of a road. For some reason, there were a lot of big semis cruising along this road. Where they were going, we weren’t sure. The sun was on these walls as well, but it would be getting better as the day went on. Ryan set up a 5.9+ climb and a 5.10a climb. Cynthia led a 5.9 that I followed and cleaned. By the time I started the climb, it was pretty much dark so I had to do the climb with my headlamp, a new experience for me!

When we were done, it was pretty late but we still needed to eat. As we were driving around, we saw Fat City and decided to go there. Ryan and I ordered the sampler’s platter, a carnivore’s delight of tri-roast, ribs, and a half-chicken. A smoked sweet potato, which Fat City is supposedly known for, was thrown in as the lone vegetable. The food was pretty good. After dinner, we headed back to the Slickrock campground.

Day 14 (Fri, Oct 11) Porcupine Rim
We awoke to a very windy morning and somewhat cloudy skies. It felt like a storm was approaching. We were planning on doing the Porcupine Rim trail that day, but were having some doubts because of the weather. Judy and I were actually thinking about just heading home. We were both kind of homesick and by leaving then, we could get home a day early.

We drove into town and had breakfast at Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The food was pretty good. Judy and I were still on the fence, but Ryan and Cynthia both wanted to do the ride. A part of me wanted to do it because were were already in Moab, but a part of me was tired and wanted to head home. Ryan’s potent powers of persuasion, however, convinced us to do the trail.

Porcupine can be done either as a 14+ mile shuttle ride or a 30+ mile loop. Much of the loop part is on pavement however. We decided to run a shuttle which was quite a pain in the ass because the distances from the start and finish points were pretty far. We dropped the women off at the trailhead and then took both vehicles to the end point where we left my 4-Runner and drove Ryan’s truck back to the start. It took about an hour just to do that.

We started on the trail and found it to bereally fun with lots of slickrock bumps interspersed between dirt – my favorite kind of terrain! About 2-3 miles into the ride, Judy all of a sudden started hyperventilating uncontrollably for some strange reason. It was kind of scary. After a few minutes, she calmed down and recovered to a normal breathing rate. She claimed that she wasn’t even working that hard. None of us knew what caused it (Judy and I thought that Judy might have breathed in too much dust the day before as we were driving to the Ice Cream Parlor). Judy felt fine, but we didn’t want to take any chances. I would ride back with Judy. Ryan and Cynthia could continue on since the shuttle had already been set up.

Judy and I got back to Ryan’s car, loaded up the bikes, and then drove back to the CastleRock Inn. Unfortunately, we did not have our wallets (they were in the 4-Runner at the trail end) so we couldn’t buy any food and couldn’t check into the hotel. So we spent the next several hours just tooling around the hotel parking lot. It was actually kind of fun since there was a long, straight curb in the parking lot. We practiced our balance by trying to ride along the curb and by doing figure eights between the parking lines. Passerbys probably thought we were weird for spending hours mountain biking a parking lot while in Moab.

After Ryan and Cynthia returned, they told us about the trail. They both like it alot. Ryan said that the last half mile or so was really technical. He had several crashes in that section and simply had to walk others.

We washed up in the hotel and went to the Sunset Grill for dinner. The Sunset Grill is on a high hill and offers a nice view of Moab. Ryan highly recommended the smoked salmon appetizer so we ordered two, one for Ryan and one for Judy and myself. Cynthia tried some of Ryan’s but didn’t really like it. The rest of us thought it was delicious.

Day 15 (Sat, Oct 12) Homeward Bound!
Our trip was rapidly coming to a conclusion. Ryan and Cynthia, on the other hand, had a few more days of climbing left. Judy and I planned to make the trip home in one day. The drive actually wasn’t all that bad. We left Moab at 7:30 AM PST and got back home around 8:00 PM PST, which included about an hour and a half stop at the Primm Outlets.

It was sad that our vacation was over, but at the same time, it was nice to be home. And we were both looking forward to picking up the Latte Dog the next day. Although the weather did not quite cooperate initially, the trip still turned out to lots of fun and we ended up doing a bunch of stuff that we might not have done otherwise. All in all, it was one of the most memorable trips either of us have taken.

Once again, here’s the link to the pics.

Many of you aren’t interested in the trip report and just want to see the pictures so here’s the direct links to the pics.: Moab Pics (Zion, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Needles, Natural Bridges, Moab, Islands in the Sky, Arches)

Day 1 (Sat, Sept. 28) Zion
Our journey began at a little past 8 AM as we departed San Diego. The route was fairly simple – straight up the 15 to Zion National Park where we planned to car camp for the night. Lunch found us at the El Pollo Loco (mmmm . . . yummy cilantro!) in Barstow and by late afternoon, we had arrived at Zion. We checked into the Watchman campsite and had dinner at the Bumbleberry Inn, home of the famous Bumbleberry pie. Unfortunately, it began raining. I wanted to do something to protect the bikes but soon discovered that the tarp I had bought previously (5′ X 7′) was too small to provide adequate coverage. So we stopped at Zion Outdoor to buy a larger tarp (8′ X 10′) and Judy took the opportunity to buy a pair of convertible pants. The tarp turned out to be a really good purchase because it rained pretty hard that night. The storm that evening was actually a really cool experience as the rain pitter-pattered on the truck and frequent flashes of lightning illuminated the skies throughout the night.

Day 2 (Sun, Sept. 29) Angel’s Landing
When we awoke, it was still raining. We were kind of bummed because we wanted to spend the day exploring Zion. Due to the weather, we decided to just cruise around in the Zion Canyon Scenic Shuttle loop. Because of past problems with severe overcrowding, you cannot actually drive through Zion anymore. Instead, you must take the shuttle to get to various places. Our shuttle driver, who could have passed as a brother of Dave Thomas (of Wendy’s), was one of the crankiest we’ve ever seen. He was curt and seemed annoyed with even reasonable questions from inquiring tourists. The weather soon cleared up during our ride and it turned out to be a pretty nice day. The shuttle driver probably thought it odd that the two youngest and fittest people on the shuttle were the only ones who actually stayed aboard for the entire loop.

Since the weather had cleared up, we decided to grab some food and water and do Angel’s Landing, a 5-mile day hike that climbs 1,488 feet. The hike consists of a gradual uphill then some fairly steep switchbacks. Then near the end of the trail, you have to scramble over some rocky terrain as you go up a steep and narrow ridge. Chains have been installed to assist in the climbing. It was a bit scary in places and we were surprised at how many people were actually doing it. We reached the top and were treated to a beautiful view of the valley below.

There weren’t many opportunities for mountain biking in Zion. They have only one bike trail in the park and that is the Pa’rus trail, a 3.5 mile paved trail. Uhhh, no thanks. After the hike, we continued driving towards Midvale/Sandy (just south of Salt Lake City) where we planned to check into the Homewood Suites there. Along the way, we saw a bunch of signs for JC Mickelson’s, a restaurant chain. Nothing else really seemed appetizing so we decided to try it out. I ordered a steak and Judy ordered the blackened chicken. Neither were very good so we won’t be eating there again.

Day 3 (Mon, Sept. 30) Jackson, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone
The weather looked kind of cloudy when we awoke which kind of worried us. We had tuned in to the Weather Channel the previous night and they had mentioned the possibility of a cold storm moving through Salt Lake City later in the week. If this was the case, that would mean the storm would be passing through Yellowstone in the next day or so since the jet stream hits the Yellowstone area on its way to Salt Lake City. We hoped for the best and continued on our way.

Somewhere on the 89 enroute to Jackson, Wyoming, we got pulled over for going 75 in a 65 mph zone. Weak! And to add insult to injury, payment for the ticket was due on October 09 which was before we would even be home, and it had to be a money order – no checks or credit cards accepted. Hey Lincoln County, WY, what kind of shit town ticket policy is this?

There was quite a bit of construction on the 89 with many sections where we’d have to follow a lead car after waiting for the line of traffic heading the other direction to pass. This slowed down travel a bit, but the beautiful scenery and patches of brilliant autumn foliage made things better. We got to Jackson later that afternoon and had lunch at the City Sub Shop in town.

We continued through Jackson and entered the Grand Tetons National Park where the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. Somewhere along the way between the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone we came upon a small group of people pulled over on the road. We slowed down to see what the attraction was and discovered that they were observing a black bear cub near the side of the road frolicking in the bushes. I looked at the surroundings and decided that an attack threat from momma bear would be minimal so I jumped out and snapped some shots.

We ended up car camping at Louis Lake in Yellowstone that evening. It got really cold that night. I woke up sometime in the middle of the night and checked the thermometer on my watch. It read 27F! Brrrrr!

Day 4 (Tues, Oct 01) Geyser Basin, Snow, Back to Salt Lake
That morning, we awoke to chilly temperatures and snow was just beginning to fall. If a snowstorm was on its way, we certainly did not want to be backpacking in it so we headed to the ranger station to get a weather update. The closest ranger station was a few miles north in Grant Village, but we unfortunately didn’t know that it was closed until we got there. So we had to backtrack and go to the ranger station back at the south entrance to the park. After a short wait, a ranger showed up and I inquired about the weather. She informed me that the weather was very unpredictable and that they were expecting anywhere from 2″ to 12″ of snow that day and night. Judy and I decided that we’d put off our trip for one day and obtained permits to start our trip the next day.

Since we had a day to kill, we decided to check out Old Faithful and reserved ourselves a room at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge. I wanted to head there immediately to get our bikes indoors. The snow was turning into slush on the roads and driving caused the slush to splash up onto the bikes resulting in a thick layer of slush that collected on the front wheels of each bike. On the way to Old Faithful, we passed by Geyser Basin so we swung through to check it out. The winds were whipping and it was really cold so we just quickly got out, took a few pics, and got back in the truck.

As we were pulling out of Geyser Basin to head towards Old Faithful, we came upon a roadblock and were informed that the road to Old Faithful was indefinitely closed due to the snow. This wasn’t looking good. We decided to head to Jackson and as we drove, it seemed the snow kept getting harder and harder. It looked like we weren’t going to be able to backpack Yellowstone as planned. So what were we going to do now? It was only Tuesday and we weren’t supposed to meet Ryan and Cynthia in Moab for another week. We needed to plan another trip on the fly.

When we got to Jackson, the first thing we did was to look for a store to buy a car charger for Judy’s cell phone. Re-planning a trip on the fly would require many calls so a charger was imperative. After purchasing one at a local cell phone store, we headed for Teton Mountaineering to see what kind of books they had. We talked a bit with one of the store employees who highly suggested we try backpacking the Canyonlands in Utah, particularly the Needles district of Canyonlands. By now, we had a pretty good idea of how the jet stream flowed so we wanted to make sure that the storm in Yellowstone didn’t follow us into Utah. Unfortunately, the jet stream actually does flow from Yellowstone to Salt Lake and into Utah, but it was possible that Canyonlands was southeast enough that we’d be safe. We tentatively planned to backpack through Needles, but bought two Falcon Guide books, Hiking Utah and Mountain Biking Utah, just in case Needles didn’t pan out.

So we were back on the 89, heading south to Salt Lake City again. On the way, Judy put her new car charger to work and called the ranger’s station in Canyonlands to check on permit availability and things to do. They indicated that we should have no problems getting permits.

We had to go through all the construction along the 89 again and the wet weather made it even harder on the bikes. The construction areas seemed to be covered with something that I could only describe as unmixed concrete. I don’t know exactly what it was, but driving through it just covered the bikes and the bike rack with a bunch of gritty stuff. We had dinner at an Arby’s just north of Salt Lake. After 5 roast beef sandwiches, I had had my fill of Arby’s for some time. When we finally got to the Hampton Inn in Salt Lake, it was still raining, and the bikes just looked trashed. We brought them inside the hotel room and I went through half a roll of toilet paper (that’s all I had – I didn’t want to trash all the hotel towels) cleaning the crud off.

That night, all we watched was the Weather Channel, trying to get an idea if we’d have decent weather in Needles. It looked like we might, but it was hard to say.

Day 5 (Wed, Oct 02) Needles District of Canyonlands, Natural Bridges National Monument
We woke up, had our free continental breakfast and headed south on the 15, south on the 191, east on the 70, and then south again on the 191. Scattered showers were experienced the entire way down. We passed Moab, where we’d be meeting Ryan in about a week, and then hit the 211 west towards the Needles district of Canyonlands. We drove the 20+ miles in to the visitor center and took in all the scenery along the way. Although Canyonlands is very scenic and pretty, it wasn’t exactly the kind of terrain that we wanted to backpack – it was too dry and “deserty”. A new plan was in order. In the Hiking Utah book, we found an interesting backpack trip called the Fish Creek and Owl Creek loop which was near the Natural Bridges National Monument, nearly 100 miles south of Needles. We decided to give that a shot and headed there. Along the way, we hit the Subway in Blanding for dinner.

The weather still wasn’t cooperating and we were hit with showers all along the way. When we got to Natural Bridges, we found that the main campsite was already full but that there was space available at the overflow campsite. We headed there to car camp. It was still raining and we hoped the morning would bring better weather.

Day 6 (Th, Oct 03) Natural Bridges
It had rained all night and when we woke, it started snowing. Arggghhhh!!! We didn’t really feel like backpacking through the snow and with the weather, there really wasn’t a whole lot we could do. We stopped by the Kane Gulch ranger station for some backpacking trip ideas. For first timers to the area, they highly recommended the Kane Gulch trail. This trip was also in our guide book so we were somewhat familiar with it. Based primarily on their recommendation, we decided that we would do this trail if the weather cooperated. Hopefully tomorrow’s weather would be better and we could start then.

That day, we visited Natural Bridges National Monument where natural bridges of rock and stone have been formed by years of water erosion. We headed to Blanding for dinner at the Old Timer’s Restaurant based on a recommendation from an employee at the Natural Bridges visitor center. The food was pretty good. As we left the restaurant, the weather was definitely showing signs of clearing up – we actually saw some sunshine! Hopefully, this was a good sign of things to come. We stopped by the local market to get some fruit and some magazines to read that evening.

We drove back and got a campsite at the main Natural Bridges campsite where we slept in the truck, eagerly anticipating that tomorrow would bring sunny skies.

Day 7 (Fri, Oct 04) Kane Gulch
Finally! Good weather at last! Not just good weather, but great weather! The skies were clear and the sun was beaming! We stopped again at the Kane Gulch ranger station and the forecast for the next few days was clear and sunny. We decided that we were going to do the Kane Gulch trail and obtained the required permits. We were feeling ambitious and decided to hike nearly 30 miles in which we would start at the Kane Gulch entrance, emerge from the Bullet Canyon trailhead, and then hike back along the road to the ranger station. The ranger informed us that water may be somewhat difficult to find and showed us on the map where some springs might be found.

We began our trek, our spirits high from the good weather. The trail was fairly easy to follow, but we didn’t really have a good idea of how far we had gone. The first attraction was Junction Ruin which was at the intersection of the Kane Gulch and the Grand Gulch. Somehow, we missed it entirely! However, we soon came upon Turkey Pen Ruin, Stimper Arch, and Split Level Ruin, other key attractions of the trail.

Unfortunately, we could not find any water sources. We searched the area where the ranger had indicated that there was a high potential for water and just couldn’t find the spring. We were becoming a little concerned because we had each brought only 2 Nalgene bottles full of water with the expectation that we could find water to pump. We finally found a spring with lots of water, but the water was all muddy and silty which almost instantly clogged the water filter. The water could be boiled, but it tasted pretty bad and I wasn’t sure I brought enough fuel to both cook and boil water. Because of that, and because we had already seen much of what there was to see, we decided that we would just make the trip an out-and-back overnighter. Plus, this way, we could check outJunction Ruin on the way back.

So we found a really nice campsite (near the water source and just north of Split Level Ruin) and proceeded to set up the tent. As we unpacked the tent, I realized that we were missing something. The ground cloth for the tent was in a separate bag that I had neglected to bring. Not having the ground cloth is not that big of a deal, but the ground cloth bag also contained the stakes! Doh! Major blunder! We quickly ran through our options. One option would be to hike the 10 miles back. However, that was quickly ruled out because it was already pretty late and we were both pretty tired. The best option was to try to set the tent up by tying it to a tree and using big rocks in lieu of the stakes to hold everything down. Amazingly, this ended up working quite well and the tent remained solid and sturdy throughout the night.

Day 8 (Sat, Oct 05) Moab!
The morning was once again beautiful. We packed up and headed back towards the ranger station. This time, we paid closer attention to the map and its features and about 8 miles later came upon Junction Ruin and the Grand Gulch intersection. They were somewhat hidden behind tall cottonwood trees so we didn’t feel as bad about missing them on the way down. The ruins were really cool and we were glad that we were able to see and explore them. There were also some great campsite locations in this area.

After getting back to the truck, we headed towards Moab and got a room at the Comfort Suites and did a few loads of laundry. Dinner was at Buck’s Grill House. The Elk Stew looked really interesting so I got that. It was good, but nothing really special. I enviously eyed other people’s steaks which looked really good and wished I had gotten a steak instead. Judy got the Trout Salad which she enjoyed.

Moab is a really cool town. On the weekends, especially in the fall months, it gets pretty crowded and it is really cool to see all the off-road vehicles and cars/trucks loaded with mountain bikes. It’s quite unlike any other town that I’ve been to.

Next, Moab 2002 Part II (mountain biking Moab, the mecca of mountain biking! Also Islands in the Sky and Arches)