Manang 3540m to Lower Pisang 3200m (26km)

It was a glorious morning, the snow had stopped and the sun's rays reflected on the white snow. All the buildings and stupas were covered with snow and slowly the power of the sun started melting the snow, water dropping from the roofs everywhere. Soon the locals started shovelling the snow off the roofs, of course without looking if anyone walked below, so it was a bit of an adventure when we walked through Manang before breakfast to get some gossip and plan our next actions.

The snow stopped at some point in the night. By that time it must have snowed between 28 and 34 hours straight. The snow in Manang was not that high maybe half a meter but we could not imagine how it looked in Yak Kharka or above in Thorung Pedi It must be more than a meter and a half up there.

All the little shops opened up and started selling their goods. Still no power, wifi or GSM but we could definitely see that life had come back to this town. There were no information though about what the blizzard did to the area, if people had died, if anyone got stuck in guest houses up the hill, to which altitude the snow came down, if the Thorung La pass was open (or how long it was going to take to open up again). There were no officials giving information. Many trekkers, mainly guided groups started going up the mountain again. At least 100 people left Manang going up.

Again we were at a point where we had to make decision (remember how the three of us love decisions?).

After some thinking and talking to other people Mattias and I decided to go back down to Besi Sahar (about 4 or 5 day walk) and try to get back to Pokhara.

Mikael (together with Yuri) decided to stay put for a day and wait if there was more information the next day.

Around 10 we left the guest house and walked through thick snow that was slowly turned into slush by the sun. We took the easiest route along the "road" and tried to get as far as we could. Lunchtime was in Humde after 3 hours.

Walking was made more difficult by the deep snow or puddles of melting slush along the way. Also the melting snow from the ridges left and right of us created little streams coming down into the valley which had to be crossed which forced us to do little detours every so often into the forest in order to cross the streams. Needless to say that my socks didn't stay dry very long.

It was the first time that I really didn't feel like walking any more and frustration spread and the only thing to think about was to get down the mountain as far as we could today.

Along the way we saw a good few people coming up the mountain but also passed a few going down. Interestingly the majority of people going up were Westerners whereas the majority of people going down were Nepali.

If we could reach a place where the snow is nearly gone we would not get wet feet the next day, so we pushed on until Lower Pisang. We took the first guest house we could find that had a fire, to dry our stuff again. It wasn't very full but rumours exchanged pretty quick between the 6 or 8 guests. A guide said it was certainly the right decision to go back.

Rumours of 20 people being dead spread around the room (well, there were numbers from 2 to 100 but 20 seemed to be the most common number amount the rumours).

Still no official information, no power, no internet, not mobile phones, no radio or TV.

While it was getting dark outisde, we could still see people coming down from the mountain just reaching Lower Pisang. One of them was an elder couple that went all the way back from Yak Kharka to Lower Pisang today.

Between the people in the guest house who came up from lower towns and the people coming down the general consensus was to head further down in the morning.

We heard about avalanches between Lower Pisang and Dhikur Pokhari that had to be crossed but also good news that the snow was only up until just before (when coming up the trek) Dhikur Pokhari.

It was certainly a strange atmosphere (worryingly but also exciting) in the guest house.