Annapurna - The Throng La Pass

Day eleven: Throng La Pass, 5416m

After a -25C night with no heating and doors that barely close we rose at 4am, huddled around the one tiny space heater in the communal eating area and tried to shove eggs and bread down. Not easy when you know what a daunting task lays ahead of you for the next 8 hours. All they layers we brought with us were on, it was dark and with the light of our headlamps we headed straight up. Up, Up, Up. After an hour and a half of switchback climbing we stopped to rest at High Camp, 4850m. With each step it seems the oxygen in the cold air disappears more and more. We were at the point where boogers freeze as soon as they hit the air, and lets be honest, no on likes frozen boogers suck to their face and clothes...but at this point, there's just nothing you can do about it. All the tang water we brought, frozen, my hands, frozen, my eyeballs, frozen. Everything was just so cold and the air was just so thin. As the sun rose the mountains appeared as they should - just. so. big.

Climbing, climbing, climbing. Never have I demanded so much from my body. But considering everything and all the potential symptoms of acute mountain sickness the old bod performed with flying colours and just plugged along. Three hours and twenty minutes later I was at the top, looking at the sign, writing in the snow, almost delirious with happiness that I only had to go down from there on in. Lifa and I celebrated with outrageously expensive lemon tea in a little hut and as we sat there sheltered from the freezing wind I looked at her. It was bad.

"Lifa?"
(stunned look)
"We need to descend. Now"

"yeah...yeah... we should do that"

"ok, lets go. Follow me"

Down, down, down. As Laura's Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) set in more and more I hated going down the stupid mountain more and more. Snow covered everything, it was very steep and we slipped, slid, felt, tumbled, sidestepped, back stepped and cursed our was down the steep rock faces. It seemed eternally mountainous and with every turn my tired legs shuddered at the sight of the the rock/snow switchbacks that always happened to caress ridge or gully edges. I felt like Frodo in Lord of the Rings and I think it took the time of the whole trilogy to get down the pass. Laura's altitude symptoms of headache, dizziness, nausea, and chest pain got progressively worse and when we finally arrived out of the snow and to the nearest town she remained bedridden and barfing until the next morning. Not even a potato momo would tempt her to eat.

"Ride it out Lifa, ride it out"

"Kill me now Justice! Just kill me know... bllllleeeeeaaaaaah!"

Oh, it was just so bad. I ate dinner alone and missed her.

The next morning the sun was warm, the altitude was low(er), although still way higher than any mountain in B.C. and Lifa was still alive. A sugary pancake later we were on our way down down down some more to Kagbeni, two hours away and the next stop on the map. Thank Jebus it wasn't far, my poor little legs were so tired and sore and Lifa's whole body pretty much imploded so a day lounging in the common room was calling us like nothing ever before.

For a similar story about what the pass is like read "Into Thin Air".

Throng La was my Everest.