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| The gompa of Upper Pisang |
For days now my trekking companion Sylvain and I have been traversing the lower slopes of the Annapurnas in anticipation of arriving here: the opening of the Manang Valley, where for the first time on this adventure the towering massif of the Annapurna Himalaya--one of the most impressive collections of mountains in the world, a geologic juggernaut that from space appears to anchor the whole of the range--will present itself. I scan the grey horizon for any sign of the giants surrounding me. Yet, all is hidden in the clouds and rain. You can feel them though. I am reminded of the stories my friend tells of living for a year among the lions of Zambia. He claims to have always felt the great cats, even when he couldn't see them. Great mountains, like great predators, have an intangible power and presence.
The following morning I awake with a start as the first soft rays of dawn enter the trekking lodge on the outskirts of the village. Sitting up to peer out of the window, I can feel my heart begin to race. The clouds have cleared, and soaring above me the glaciers and fluted ridges of Annapurna II. Without hesitation I unzip my sleeping bag, grab my clothes and camera, and open the lodge's door onto the village.
Last night was occupied with getting warm and dry, and I took only a short walk to acquaint myself with the village. I knew there to be a Buddhist gompa or temple, a monastery, and the trappings of a thriving market. But on this morning what strikes me is the scale of the surrounding geography. The human element within the environment is dwarfed by a scale that you find very few places on Earth. I walk through narrow corridors outside the gompa composing images in my head that express not only the geologic scale, but the aspirations of the culture that has grown within and adapted to this environment.
From an open field terraced into the hillside overlooking the village, I find the image I hold in my mind: prayer flags fluttering in the morning breeze, the bright and optimistic colors and design of the gompa, and the towered, sculpted magnificence of the mountain range that has brought me here.
This adventure and I are a cliche. In our modern culture a trek though the Himalaya, even hypothetically, is a popular tonic to the onset of middle age. Here is an advised place to take stock of your life, dabble in meditation, read Herman Hesse, then return to your life with fresh stories and a renewed appreciation for what you have. And it is true: few places I have been grant the same clarity and self-perception as the great mountains of the East. It was just three hundred kilometers east of here, in the Khumbu Valley below Mt. Everest, that as a young man in his early twenties I "found" the path that my life and work was destined to take. It may be an inevitable causality of years, of stress and family and career, that many--perhaps most of us--lose that driving sense of passion and purpose that felt so pure and immutable entering the gates of adulthood.
The fact for me is that entering my forties I do feel less idealistic about my place within the cosmos as I did when I first encountered these mountains in my youth. I think that is why I have returned: the hope of stoking some of the old embers, of relocating that compass that felt such a overpowering bearing those years ago.
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| Mani Wall outside of Manang |
Twenty kilometers west of Pisang is the busting redoubt village of Manang. Manang serves as the commercial and civic capitol of the region. Here, at nearly 12,000 feet, thousands of trekkers rest and acclimatize each year prior to attempting the 17,769 foot Thorung La--the climatic crux and highest point of the trek around the Annapurna. On the outskirts of the village I am struck by the elegance of a Buddhist prayer wall that stretches for over a hundred meters paralleling the tree covered ridges above. These "Mani Walls" are a cultural hallmark of the Himalaya. For over two thousand years the devout have focused their energies, gracefully carving Buddhist mantras into stone tablets and building these enduring monuments as signs of devotion and sources of karmic merit. They are found on high mountain passes, at sites of religious pilgrimage, and on the outskirts of monastic villages.
From its size and the erosion and decay of some of the oldest, primary stones anchoring this prayer wall, I venture to guess monks and pilgrims have been assembling their works here since before Magellan set out on his journey into the world. Indeed, on the terraced hilltop just east of here a temple is being renovated with a new stone roof. Locals inform me the walls of the temple date back to the 14th century. Even more auspicious, it is a mere half day's walk from here to the cave in which, almost a thousand years ago, the fabled poet and sage Milarepa wrote some of the most memorable passages in Buddhism: "do not confuse deep intuition with what merely seems to be," and "may all who are sincerely seeking truth, untroubled be by obstacles," so says Milarepa.
Manang is bustling. Over a dozen multistory lodges offer respite for altitude weary travelers from all over the globe. Proprietors compete by catering to the cravings and creature comforts of the cosmopolitain clientele. There are offerings of German chocolate cake, cappuccinos, American whisky, croissants, billiards, and access to the outside world of the internet.
Part of the joy of the trekking life is the people you meet along the way. Around the breakfast table in Manang are people from Denmark, Germany, Cananda, Russia, and the ubiquitous Israelis. While I started out from Kathmandu alone, I have never been lonely. Indeed, I made a fast friend and inspired trekking companion on the initial bus ride out of Pokara to the trailhead of the Annapurnas. On a lunch stop at a greasy momo stand a young Frenchman with crazy hair and a large collection of string braclets approaches me to say, "Are you fit?" Sylvain and I have walked for over a hundred kilometers and taken every meal together since. One of the inspirations of the trekking life is the ability to expand one's awareness of a larger world; to meet people from different cultures and backgrounds on neutral terms, where each of us are "the other" within a foreign land.
The news around the dinner table tonight is of a Korean man lying dead on the trail up the Thorung La: a victim of pulmonary edema, a lethal form of altitude sickness that causes a person's lungs to fill with fluid and leads to almost certain death unless one descends from altitude quickly. The man is described as being in his mid-forties, traveling alone, and having set out for the pass two days prior. A fatality along the trail, especially one as public and visible as this, has given more that a few of my trekking companions pause. Already one group of Danish women have elected to take a charter flight off the mountain rather that face the challenges of climbing the high pass.
I have been to high altitudes on numerous adventures, and am confident in my ability to recognize and respond to the signs of acute mountains sickness, but I cannot deny the cumulative effects that the Himalaya are having on me. Even here in Manang, at 11,548 feet, I feel a shortness of breath climbing in the hills over-looking the village. The altitude effects one's sleep rhythms, appetite, and energy levels. It is one thing to climb to this elevation, then descend for a cold beer and a warm shower. It is quite another to live for days or weeks at high elevation. I am feeling a renewed appreciation for the toughness and drive it would take to climb the technical peaks of this region: frozen fingers grasping for holds, a heart pounding oxygen-deprived blood through a system no longer able to sleep or eat. As for me, I am content following the well-worn path of the trekker, and enjoying the last chocolate cake I will see until I am back in Pokara.
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| Jonathan looking out from the frozen Tilicho Lake |
The past days Sylvain and I have busied ourselves with side trips up the ridge lines and canyons surrounding Manang. We made a two-day trudge up to the frigid plateau of Tilicho Lake, which offered stunning views across the range. I also made an early morning trip to the hilltop stuppa that towers like a sentinel over the village. One of my favorite memories of this place was an afternoon I spent alone among the ruins of a Buddhist temple a few miles away. In the courtyard of this centuries-old structure, I found the patience to just sit; to be fully present. I allowed myself to listen to the wind, the fluttering of prayer flags, the chime of bells. I watched clouds as they danced over the horizon, opening and closing views of white mountains and sky.
But now it is time to go. We are better acclimatized thanks to our efforts, and despite the new snow, the weather looks good for a trek up and over the pass. There is one more stop along the way. At 15,744 feet, the Thorung High Camp Lodge must be one of the highest elevation hostels in the world. But beyond that distinction, there is not much else to recommend a visit here. The lodge consists of little more than a series of corrugated sheds with cots for trekkers to bunk in, and a central structure offering a kitchen and mess hall. The huddle of humanity seeking warmth around the stove in the lodge brings with it an unfortunate odor, and after a cup of tea, Sylvain and I are both more keen on the fresh, albeit freezing, air outside.
Everyone seems to be under the effects of the altitude up here. It took me a half hour to climb the last several hundred meters to the lodge. Step, step... breath. Step, step... breath. Everyone, that is, except Sylvain. Back in his home in the Alps, Sylvain is a mountain triathlete. His training has become more obvious the higher the elevation we ascend. Hiking the flats lower down the range I had no problem keeping pace with him. Now I trace a small figure receding up a distant slope. I have come to respect the meaning behind his initial inquiry, "Are you fit?"
The next morning we head out at dawn. It is three miles and over two thousand feet of elevation to reach the pass. The trail is well marked and in good condition. Small processions embark in waves from the high, stinky hostel, and together we plod along into an ever-expanding vista of rock, snow, and sky.
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| Sylvain walking above Thorung High Camp |
There was a time, not too long ago, that a journey into the East involved cutting the chord to the outside world. Herzog and his team relied on letters sent over hundreds of miles of mountain trails to communicate with their families back home. They received their first reply months later. I was jarred by the "Internet cafes" in Manang and other villages along the trail, but I admit to succumbing on one occasion. Checking my email was a culture shock: banner ads, Hollywood gossip, bills to be paid. There was nothing like this on my first foray into the Himalayas.
The other signs of development have also made me nostalgic: power lines, roads, airports, consumer culture. But for what am I nostalgic? My escape from modernity? The tension and debate that has been raging in my head for the last week is about whether it is right for me to want this one little area of the world to remain as it was: a preserve of a simpler time. Change has come so quickly to this high culture, it is jarring, and incongruent with the history that has brought such mystique to the region. The first foreign expeditions were allowed into Nepal only after the Second World War. One human lifetime has witnessed the transition from an isolated world of medieval trade and agriculture to the age of the internet, globalization, and international tourism.
But once the flood gates were opened over the last decades, what force could hold back the tides of change, of "progress"? People universally want an easier, more comfortable and convenient life. The power lines that scar the views also bring the tangible value of electricity, allowing for the longer days of the light bulb, motorized water pumps, refrigeration. But it is hard not to feel a certain loss--a loss to our collective imagination that likes to hold onto the idea that the world still holds pockets of resistance, places undisturbed over the centuries of tumult that have brought us to the crisis of meaning that pervades the lives of so many at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
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| The fluted ridges of the Annapurna Range |
Sylvain is already at the pass. I can see his silhouette against the glaring sky as I round the final switch back along the trail. After we get over the Thorung La we shall part ways. His journey into the mountains is just beginning, while mine is nearing its end. Across the horizon shimmering peaks dance like waves in an ocean of sky. I move slowly: step, step... breath. A stinging wind whips across the snowbound pass as I reach my friend--I arrive.
Herzog ends his epic book on Annapurna by attempting to put into words what an individual's struggle with a mountain can mean; why adventure matters. "The mountains had bestowed on us their beauties, and we adored them with a child's simplicity and revered them with a monk's veneration of the divine. Annapurna, to which we came empty handed, was a treasure on which we should live the rest of our days. With this realization we turn the page: a new life begins." In that age of exploration it was still possible to leave the map, to find a world as it was, on its terms.
My adventure into the Annapurnas has been different. The physical map has been printed; the trails well-known. A journey here today is less about confronting the limits of geography, climate, or culture, and more about finding oneself. I came here not to explore the unknowns of the physical world as Herzog and his men, but to encounter myself. Perhaps in this post-modern era, it is not so much what we do in the physical sense, but what we realize through the encounter that gives our adventures meaning. With this thought, I turn the page.
