One of the many mountain dogs
Our Chomrong Lodge had another beautiful view up the valley toward Machapuchare. Chomrong was one of the larger hamlets along our route. It had many houses and lodges clinging to the hillsides, with the trail winding right on through the middle. This early section of trail was entirely paved with steps. Our spot was set below the top of the village. Just across and above was Annapurna South, but clouds were obscuring a really good photo.
Down below, we’d be descending over 2,000 steps to cross the river on a suspension bridge, to climb back up some 900′ and then from there, the trail would roughly follow a forested river and thick bamboo forest toward Doban, at 8,628′.
They say at altitude you can get weird dreams. I have had such dreams in the Andes and I had one at Chomrong last night. Last year on the Cordillera Huayhuash trek, in Peru, at over 13,000ft near a mountain called “Diablo Mudo,” or Mute Devil, I had a dream that I walked into my kitchen and there was a half man/half bull in there making breakfast! I remember getting angry at it and yelling at it. But it was mute, and didn’t respond to anything I said. I remember stacking furniture to try to trap it in there but it just kept knocking the furniture over. And then I woke up and realized I had been yelling in my sleep and woke up half the camp!
Love her NY Yankees vest!
It happened again at Chomrong. This time, I was with a date walking toward a house where there was a party. Lots of festive noises coming from the house. All was good. And then without warning my date shrunk to 6″ high and began walking like a zombie toward this basement window and disappeared! And right after that, people started walking out of the party, shrinking to 6″ high and doing exactly the same thing. And it was their souls that were being drowned in that hole. They were voluntarily giving up their souls. Some demon was eating their souls. I remember standing in front of them and commanding them to stop! I was trying to save them! And then I woke up and knew I had done it again. Yelling in my sleep.
In neither of these dreams I felt any fear, I was just trying to stop something. But in the recent dream, it was so disturbing I didn’t want to go back to sleep because I didn’t want it to continue. Well, enough of that.
Our trail to Doban included some of the longest series of steps we’d see along the trek. One of them is called “Stairway to Heaven,” in fact. Hmmm. On this day, we’d be climbing down these. But I kept in my memory bank the fact that we’d be retracing these same steps UP on our return!
We ate our breakfast outside again which was very nice. While we ate, I couldn’t help but notice the porters slinging so much stuff on their backs. Amazing.
I think I finally found my trekking rhythm today. On the steeps, I was purposely taking “rest steps,” and not worrying about keeping up. And I even got complimented by those behind me for my pace. As usual, I needed to de layer all the time. Today it was more challenging, as a breath of fog climbed up the valley during lunch, so whilst I was sweating, the fog was cooling and a little damp. Several of us even donned our rain shells for a bit. It was hard to decide what to wear. It began to drizzle, and most of us put pack covers over our day packs.
Then, sometime in the last 30 minutes of our hike it began to rain in earnest. It was too late now to put on a rain coat. We just slogged through it, and reached Doban just in time. The lodge had the dining area reserved for us, and we hunkered down in the dining area for a while, had our “happy hour” tea, coffee, Pringles and popcorn, whilst our crew set up camp. And then the heavens truly opened up. Very chilly and torrential. But we were inside then, and LUCKY! We talked and talked and reminisced about the day, and then finally the rain abated and the tents were ready for us. My tent had a bit of condensation coming up through the floor, but I figured out how to deal with it. My duffel was a rafting bag and immune from moisture. And I used the crew’s waterproof duffel as a floor mat for my backpack. That, plus my upper tent laundry line kept everything dry. No problems for the sleeping bag as it was on top of the generously sized insulated sleeping pad. This night, aside from occasional drizzle, the rain was just a 90-minute local downpour.
In the morning, no rain. Good for hiking.
