Mountain Fatigue

Nepal is an outdoor adventure enthusiast's paradise, what with all the trekking, rafting, mountain climbing, abseiling, bungy jumping, paragliding, canyoning (whatever the hell that is, but it sounds both stupid and dangerous), kayaking, and mountain biking around the joint.

Anyone who knows me will be thinking at this point "so, what on *earth* are you doing there??"

Well, I thought I wanted to trek. I like walking. This was going to be my one big chance to see the Himalayas and the mother of all mountains, Everest. It was a bit of a challenge to myself. Getting outside my comfort zone.

...[insert other desperate justification here]...

Thanks to Tibet I had already worked out that, maybe, full-on 'trekking' isn't my bag. It's not the physical effort, that doesn't bother me...I just hadn't counted on the whole blisters and weather thing. Luckily in Tibet you can just drive up to Everest so that crossed off one of my "top 3 things I need to see before I finish my trip" without needing 14-16 days of walking to do so.

So in Nepal I was working out my next steps and dealing with guilt issues over maybe not trekking at all - it's just what you DO in Nepal, you walk. It'd be like going to Italy and starting a low-carb diet.

The trek

I found an alternative to a megatrek in flying to Jomsom, which is a place on the Annapurna Circuit (after the high pass) and a 5ish day walk back to a place where you can can some form of transport to the steakhouses and ayurvedic massages of Pokhara. Heather was doing the AC, as the kids call it, so we timed it to meet up at Jomsom and finish the trek together. The idea thus being that I could get a feel for the circuit and the villages, lose the weight I'd gained in Kathmandu (!!), and, yeah, all right, say I'd 'been trekking in Nepal'.

I took a propjet plane 20 minutes to Jomsom (the first 15 of which were much less adventurous than I thought it'd be and the last 5 minutes making up for that premature assessment). My first reaction to Jomsom was "this looks like Tibet" - and here I settled waiting for Heather. In the meantime I had the idea to venture to Muktinath, which is an important Hindu pilgrimage spot and about a 3-4 hour walk from Jomsom in the opposite direction from Pokhara.

This is a well-travelled track so I was never alone, but I was by myself the whole time and it wasn't particularly pleasant. I ended up turning back and stayed again in Jomsom that night to nurse my aching feet and, ooh! This is new!, my sandstorm-blasted face. At this point I was beginning to face the facts that, perhaps I don't really want to do this.

Decision Time

I was expecting to hear from Heather before she attempted the pass so I had an idea of timing, but by the 2nd night in Jomsom still hadn't heard from her. I was beginning to think that she was still 3 or 4 days away, and let's just say Jomsom isn't the most happenin' joint. I was faced with the following 3 options:

A) Head off on the trek by myself

B) Continue to wait for Heather and kill more time in Jomsom

C) Accept that, actually, I don't really like trekking, cut my losses, fly back to Pokhara and check myself into a yoga retreat

The appeal of C) was growing and I was nearly committed to abandoning plans when Heather e-mails through that she was 3 hours away. So...I guess I'm walking.

Fast forward...

By day 4 of the trek from Jomsom to NayaPul via Poon Hill I was beginning to notice a difference in, shall we say, attitude between me and the others in the group with whom I was trekking. They were all just a *little* too enthusiastic about the whole process whereas my enthusiasm was drained by, oh, about the point at which we were hanging off the side of a slippery ledge a ½ hour out of Jomsom ("interesting short cut" my ass).

Maybe it was the fact that I had already spent quite a bit of time in the mountains of Tibet, or I was just in a bad mood that day, but the scenery just didn't make up for the fact that my body, and my feet in particular, really was not enjoying the rocky riverbed terrain and subsequent blisters. Thanks to the "interesting short cut" we didn't make our intended destination on the second day and were faced with a longer trek or the option of taking a jeep to make up 6 or so hours of walking.

No prizes for guessing which option I was pushing (and silently praying) for....

Heather, bless her, was in her element, along with the others with whom we were walking. So, it is with the utmost respect to her that I offer this, a comparative analysis of our respective attitudes towards trekking.

Trekking W*ankers say... 'Oooooh let's get off the path and see what's up there for something different!'

Whereas I say.... 'How the f**k do I get down this mountain and into a hot shower / bottle of red as quickly as possible.'

Trekking W*ankers say...'That was a GREAT walk today!!'

Whereas I say... 'I am one day closer to getting to a place where I can catch the bus or better yet a taxi back to a hot shower / bottle of red.'

Trekking W*ankers say....'It's not a REAL circuit if you don't start and finish in Pokhara.'

Whereas I say...'Who the F**K cares so long as I am off this mountain and into a hot shower / bottle of red as quickly as possible!'

Trekking W*ankers....are actually conflicted about taking a jeep part of the way down the mountain despite the scenery being average and the path uncomfortable on the feet.

Whereas I say...'How much, how far can it go and when are we leaving?'

In short...Trekking W*ankers actually enjoy this.

Don't get me wrong, I actually did enjoy Tiger Leaping Gorge (til I slipped down the mud hill at the end) and the rice fields of Guangxi Province (til we got lost and the scenery got repetitive) and even Kailash (save my feet being numb, the snow/wind storm, marshy bog boulder jumping and the presence in general of a certain Finnish bloke).

But the prospect of walking for 7 hours, climbing 1700 meters, tomorrow morning/ afternoon/ evening to see some stupid sunrise over Yet Another Mountain Range holds little appeal for me and my feet's 5 blisters.*

*Imagine my delight when I realised, after returning to Pokhara, that you get an equally nice view of the Annapurnas by taking a taxi and walking 20 minutes to the World Peace Pagoda...

I think trekking would be just fine...given NO: Wind, direct sun, rain, snow, humidity, chapped lips, running nose, boulders to jump on, streams to ford, high climbs, steep descents, 'shortcuts', sand or dust storms, biting insects, cold showers, ambiguous or nonexistent maps, gravel roads, uncertain surfaces, altitude sickness, pre-dawn starts, respiratory infection, risk of muggings, livestock to avoid, insurgents to bribe, negotiation for accommodation, backtrackking.*

*Note that this is not yet an exclusive list.

Thus, I have determined that my kind of trekking is really more of a long pleasant walk through gently undulating terrain to a max of about 3 ½ to 4 hours, no more than a few days at a time.

So........I guess that's golf...