Annapurna Basecamp to Chomrong

We awoke in the dark pre-dawn hours, stiff from sleeping on hard mattresses and in this cold world. After bundling up in all my layers I headed outside and started following the others as they headed towards the Annapurna mountain and to a large flat area above the refuges for optimal viewing.

I love seeing the sunrise in the mountains, and this one did not dissapoint. Not a cloud in the sky as it turned from dark blues to bright pinks. The mountains around us started to glow golden before we could see the sun rise. Their tips looked like they were on fire as the sun struck them and stirred up the snow at their peaks.

After being out there for over an hour we all headed back to the dining hall for a nice hot egg breakfast with hot cocoa. I had decided to go all the way back down to Chomrong today given that I had nearly gone all the way up to Basecamp in almost a single day. Folks that I had dinner with two days prior in Chomrong had said it only took them a day as well to come down from Basecamp.

The first part of the trail was slow going due to the snow that had fallen yesterday, and all of the compacted snow underneath that was now as slick as ice. Probably an hour later and I was out of the snow regions and heading through bushes and scraggly grasses, passing all of the things I had gone by yesterday.

I didn't take many pictures today as I raced down the trail. I was motivated partly by thinking of getting a nice room to myself again at the place I had stayed at previously in Chomrong, and their awesome pizza, but I was also partly motivated by the fact that there weren't many people coming down or up the trail today, and I had a slight semi-unrational fear of tigers that lived in the area.

Towards the end of the trail, before the big descent and ascent back up to Chromong, more people started to appear. I must have gotten a really early start, or was just way ahead of the others.

The descent wasn't so bad, a bit slow going given that I was starting to get low on energy, and my knees could use the break. I took a brief rest at the bottom before having to walk up the hundreds/thousands of stairs going up to the upper area of Chomrong.

As I went up there were some horses blocking the path that I went around, and then later on some scary looking bulls with big horns that didn't seem to give a second thought to me being on the trail, and kept marching down at full speed. I had a flashback to my scary cow encounter in Switzerland, and quickly jumped up on top of some large boulders as the bulls came walking through where I had been standing a moment ago.

Freshly full of andrenaline I continued up the stairs towards the places to stay. The place I had in mind didn't have any rooms available as it was now early afternoon, and so I continued on seeing what places looked welcoming. I found one a little higher up the stairs which wasn't fun to keep going up, but nevertheless I made it and got a room to myself on the second floor with a view of the valley below.

Turns out some of the people I had met at the dining hall in Basecamp yesterday were staying here as well, and I also befriended a father-daughter pair from England. We all ate dinner together (this place had pizza, but it sadly wasn't as good as the other place.), and talked about life in our different countries. The people from England had a non-London accent and it was really hard to understand them.

Tonight would be my last night on trail, and I was sad to be leaving the mountains behind and having to go back to Pokhara and the bustle of a crowded city.