Manang 3540m to Tilicho Lake Basecamp 4150m (15km)

I was really happy to see the reply emails in the morning and as it looks all is good back home.
Our next stop along the way to the Tilicho lake base camp was Khangsar where we met another group of people we met before along the way. It was too early for lunch so we pushed on. We heard there were three paths to get to the Base Camp, the highest was the safest but it went up to nearly 5000 m and would have taken ages. The lower one was not really safe due to landslides that could be caused by animals kicking down stones, and there was the middle way which was a compromise. We took that one and as it turned out it was actually the only possibility as the lower one did not really exist any more and the upper one was not passable for whatever reason. Basically we followed the other people.

Mattias and I did anyway, while Mikeal developed a unique technique to walk. He sprinted ahead up hills and then took breaks every couple of meters. However he was quicker than us and we lost sight of him pretty soon. Somehow he went down along the lower path and got lost (which we realized along the way) but magically he appeared again ahead of us at the next rest house. He told us he went somehow diagonal along some old unused path and made it back to the main path.

The path to the base camp was quite difficult with steep and very narrow paths through landslide areas. Also the landscape became more and more barren. Trees turned to bushes and gave way to moss and finally to just rocks.

When we finally reached the Base camp we filled up with a double portion of Dal Bhat and also rewarded ourselves with a bottle of Beer (between the 3 of us). Interestingly the beer had no bubble and tasted pretty shit. This may be related to the Altitude sickness pills we started taking a day earlier, apparently strange taste sensations and tingling finger tips are common side effects.

Another interesting symptom of being at this altitude is that water boils already at 70 degrees, so that it is impossible to cook most foods. Which is the reason that every guest house uses pressure cooking pots up here.

It was a game of cards and off to bed at 8:30 again.