Upper Pisang to Manang

Sunrise in Upper Pisang, and it's time to get packed up and hit the trail again. On our way out of town we passed a group of older villagers lugging large bundles of sticks and hay up from the Lower Pisang region where the Annapurna mountain in the distance dominiates the landscape.

A short walk across a suspension bridge took us out of the village and to a series of switchbacks going up a very tall hill. Given that we're up near an altitude of about 9,000 feet, this was no easy feat. It took nearly an hour to seemingly not go far far horizontally, but a lot of distance vertically. Pisang looked so tiny now from up here.

The trail from here hugged the side of a sandy-colored mountain, dotted with old temples and homes built out of large flat stones, and covered with banners that had tiny little flags attached to them in all sorts of colors. We're told they're prayer flags.

At the next small sparsely populated village we took a break. The whole world around us is colored like sand, with white snowcapped mountain peaks surrounding it. It's hard to tell how many of these buildings in this small villages are still lived in, and how many are just ruins. We also pass by a bunch of small temples dedicated to Buddha.

The trail is long today, but at long last we came back to the river that has been our constant companion since the beginning, and follow it along a dusty road past herds of yaks grazing along its sides. Lots of jeeps coming through here today, which meant hurrying off of the road and covering our faces to avoid the dust storms they kick up. I wish I had my neck buff for this.

We finally reached Manang at 11,500 feet just a few hours before nightfall. It took a bit of searching, but we finally found a place to stay that "felt right" to everyone in our group, and booked rooms for two nights here since we would be doing a day-hike tomorrow up to a lake at 15,000 feet as part of a conditioning routine that would get us ready for the highest point of the trek in a few days.

In the morning we grabbed our jackets, and water bottles, and set out going back the way we had come the previous day in order to make it to the beginning of the lake trail. The way up was hard, and took nearly 5 hours to get up there. But once we got up there the views were jaw-dropping. It was the highest I had ever been in my life. It was soo cold up there that we weren't able to stay long before our fingers inside of our gloves started to freeze. The way down wasn't as bad, but half of our group got separated and we ended up getting lost on the way down. Luckily we found our way back to the road, and to our home for the night.

Later that evening we went a movie theatre that was really just a small room behind a local bar and watched the movie "Everest". We had hoped it would be "Seven Years in Tibet" but this was just as good. What an eerie thing to watch though as we're about to go much higher in elevation over the next few days.