So maybe 30 minutes later I gathered enough energy to go outside and check. The entire landscape around the Yak Hotel was covered in at least 40 cm of snow after about 10 or 11 hours of snowing. And it kept coming down in big flakes.
There was no way we could proceed up the mountain in this weather so we mentally prepared for a rest day in the lodge, with Yak cheese and playing cards.
We were not too upset at all as we liked the place and it would be good story to be told. At 9am the snow level had increased to probably 60 or 70 cm.
One of the guys also staying at the Guest house was with a guide and he said he was going to on to Yak Kharka (just about 10 minutes when there is no snow) to check the situation there. He was gone a good hour and came back just before a large group of Israelis arrived who wanted to head down to Manang.
Then a bit of a hectic broke out and we also decided to go down asap as beds in Manang would be scarce if more people retreat.
We were sure the pass (the reason why we took this route) was not going to be passable for at least a couple of days after this snow anyway, so it was a decision of either staying here for a day or two and then retreat to an overfilled Manang or retreat now and get some better information about the situation in Manang.
It was still snowing and it was probably not a good idea to go down but we did it to get some better idea of what was going on and how long this was going to take. The three of us teamed up with an Estonian guy (Yuri) in order to trek back. It still coming down hard and it was not easy to follow the path that was trampled in the snow by some locals with horses. It all was white in white, with only slightly darker grey clouds as contrast. By the way, these clouds were above us, below us in the valley and around us on the path. Visibility not more than 30m in any direction.
On our way we encounters a herd of probably 20 or 30 yaks that had the urge to go up whereas we wanted to go down. It was a bit like an encounter of the third kind, where we stopped in and looked at yaks, the yaks stopped and tried to figure out what we were going to do and then slowly we passed each other (about 2m from each other) and continued our way. There were maybe two or three more of the yak herds but they were not as exciting any more as the novelty wore off quick. We just wanted to get down from this mountain into a warm and dry lodge in Manang.
Further down the snow got more slushy and wetter. After about 3 hours (just about an hour before Manang) of walking through the snow my waterproof shoes proofed to not be waterproof any more but we made it in the end to also snowy Manang.
We took the first Guest house we could find and immediately started drying our shoes and cloths at the fireplace. So did many other people.
There was no power or Network connectivity in Manang and so it was down to rumours to find out what the story was. Word of one person dead between Yak Kharka mad the round and that it would snow for 3 days. But nothing certain, no one could confirm anything. As it go dark it was still snowing. Our shoes and cloths slowly became dry(ish).
The Spaghetti in Tomato sauce and cheese however was amazing and warmed me up good. The only other thing we could do was to sleep and hope for the snow to stop in the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment