Day 10 The beautiful Hushe valley
Khuispang to Saicho, 13 miles (total 80 miles), 10.5k elevation
We were up early again because we went to bed at seven and we’ve been waking up early every day to get an early start on our hikes. Last night it rained, it was barely warm enough for it to not snow. We were both very nervous about getting out of our sleeping bags and standing up, but to our surprise our legs felt pretty good. I was finally hungry again now that we were down at lower elevation. I was excited for breakfast and to eat more food that I missed out on the last several days. It was a beautiful morning after the rain. Today, we also found out what is in the Balti Chai. It’s a mixture of black tea, tobacco, salt, baking soda, and butter. Andy decided to go for a cup of it this morning as we were over the pass and time to enjoy ourselves a bit. I only had a sip to taste it because I wasn’t trying to find out what nicotine would do to my body at this altitude.
We had a big day of going down about 4000 feet. I was very excited to continue descending as I knew I would feel better and better and I had quit taking my altitude sickness pills. The beginning of the hike was more small and medium boulders. I was pretty tired of rocks at this point. It was a cool morning with some darker clouds on the horizon. I started with my raincoat on for some wind protection, but quickly took it off as we had some ups and downs over the glacier. Andy, on the other hand, opted to not bring any rain gear since he thought the weather had passed.
We passed by Laila Peak which apparently people ascend and then ski down. The face looks like nothing but a slope and then a cliff, so it’s hard to imagine what that decent would be. We’ll have to YouTube that one later. We also walked by one of the widest glaciers I’ve seen. This thing converged from 5 slopes, the massiveness of it can’t be understated.
The team was excited to wrap up the trek and get home. Azam decided to take us down the glacier itself with very little rock foot holds. It was warm enough that there was not a lot of grip for our boots. This made for an incredibly slippery and somewhat dangerous descent. After about two hours of challenging terrain, we got to the side of the mountain where we had our first proper dirt path with minimal rocks to walk on. Although this was exciting, we still had some ups and downs for our hike. I was quite slow on the ups as my hamstrings were very tired from the night before. Andy seemed to be going up as fast as he was going down.
Not long after we reached the dirt path, it started to lightly rain. I put on my rain jacket, but of course I left my rain pants back in my large backpack that the porter was taking down the mountain. Since Andy had forgotten both his rain jacket & pants and only had his sun shirt on, he was starting to get wet. There was no sunlight in sight and it was quite cold with a biting wind, so Andy moved swiftly to create some body heat to stay warm. I was very cold so I had to put my mid layer back on in the rain which was not easy as my raincoat was only a semi raincoat and had already started to get my shirt wet. We continued on, knowing we would get to the camp, which was a total of 13 miles for the day.
Every day, this trek brought new and exciting challenges. Not only was hiking on the glacier a challenge, but since it was raining, the rivers flowing off of the mountain were rushing and none of them had functional bridges. One of the first obstacles crossing a river was where the previous wooden bridge had broken and was laying sideways in the river bed. The way across this river was to gently step on the bridge laying in the river with water rushing all around it, hoping it wouldn’t shift as we walked at a slanted angle and jumped to the other side. The next crossing was even more exciting. There was no bridge to be seen, and our crossing was made up of two logs, one lower than the other for foot traffic, and the higher one to hold onto as you slid across. I was not worried about the logs breaking, I was worried at the maybe 4 inches of the log sitting on the rock with the rushing water below me. It seemed like one of my body movements may jar the log loose with me falling into the water below. Andy stood below the crossing, ready to attempt to grab me in case I fell into the water and he would have to somehow partially jump in to pull me out. There were multiple river crossings that could have led to our demise, but those two were definitely the highlights. The rush of the glacial melt combined with the mountain runoff made for incredibly intense water flows.
We were on a mission to get to camp. A lot of the porters had found a dry spot under large rock, but we kept moving on as we were already wet and there was no point in stopping now. Since Andy was so far ahead, he came across our porters that were resting as they often do. As soon as they saw Andy coming up quickly, they jumped up and practically ran as having a client get to camp before a porter does is a big no no.
