Hello again, Internet spots have eluded us for over a week now. This tends to happen when you head into the more remote areas of the Himalaya. Well remote as in far from civilisation but P1 (Pony Highway 1 was actually a very busy track).
The trek was to climb 3 days to the base camp (4080m) of Jumolhari (7350m) and then on the 4th day cross the “Bonte La” pass (4900m) over to another valley and cover the distance back to the road end in only 2 days going down. This route is normally an 8 day event with the 4th day as a rest day. We had of course scoffed at a rest day and decided the down could be done faster … so we had 6 days.
Our team was myself, Keren, Richard (Keren’s dad) 62, Nigel (friend of Richard, ex amazing mountaineer) 68, myself, Namgay (Porter), Damcho (Guide), Tashi (cook), Pony driver’s son, Camp helping hand, Pony driver and 10 ponys. Richard and Nigel didn’t make the attached photo.
We knew we were heading UP and there was a good chance that we would get some altitude issues. We knew that it would be cold, we knew we had to cover about 70km each way and gain/lose about 2500m both ways. We obviously thought this was all too easy so … I decided to get food poisoning the morning we started, didn’t sleep and vomited several times by the 8:30am start. Nigel caught the flu and gave himself a chest infection, and Keren caught a cold so that she couldn’t breathe through her nose just so she didn’t feel left out.
So with perfect skies and the team in tip top condition we made for camp 1 at 2800m. Camp 1 was an easy 18 km mostly on dirt tracks. It was all gradually up (funny that) and some others we passed on the track were taking it far more casually than we were, suit and umbrella anyone? I felt CRAP and the call was made that if I didn’t eat a good breakfast the next morning, I would have to return to town and miss the trek.
Day 2 to camp 2 (3400m) was 22km of nasty walking on river rocks, luckily I was able to hold breakfast down and given the OK to carry on. The day was meant to be 9 hours, we knocked it off in 7 hours but the thinner air was starting to make itself felt. 7 hours of up hill and dodgy footing was not fun, but we got our first sight of Jumolhari at camp 2. Oh and we saw our first yak at the camp site.
Day 3 to base camp Jumolhari (4080m) was a much easier track as we left the dense forest behind and climbed above the tree line into the more barren valleys surrounded by snowy peaks. Nigel described us as ‘well oiled slugs’ which i thought was a very telling description of our progress. Luckily we were all acclimatising well and I was eating properly again. We met 2 other small tourist groups each with 10 ponys and 5 helpers at base camp. To try and help our altitude preparation myself and Nigel climbed another 500m that evening into a side valley towards the glaciers and the base of Jumolhari. The ruined monasteries on the large rocks and the peaks around us made for stunning views.
Day 4 we headed to the Bonte La pass. All our fingers and toes were crossed as the snows had not yet receeded much and the groups that had tried to make the trip a few days previously turned back. The frozen lakes, yaks and metre deep snow on the pass made it a beautiful days tramping but also meant we failed to cross the pass 
. So back to base camp we headed puffing like steam trains and camped down to another cold night. At least we made it to 4660m … a reasonable effort. Ironically the mountain we came to see refused to clear from behind the clouds the entire time we were there, so we only have partial photos. Still very worth it.
Day 5 and 6, it had snowed over night, giving some great photos
but we only had 2 days to make it back to the road end … so we aimed for 40 km back to camp 1 on our first day down. It was a long day but the breathing got easier and we made it with 3 hours of daylight left.
Soon we were out and got a good nights sleep in Paro town before we started a 4 day drive east across the endless valleys and passes of Bhutan … see next installment (might be later today).
