Page 20 - 2009 AMA Winter

IN THE COMPANY OF GIANTS –
£100 ARTICLE
A CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF MANASLU
As the Christmas decorations began
glimpse in the distance of the snow
– the most refreshing wash of the trek. to appear in Chatham it was
capped peak of Manaslu. In the evening
deemed a suitable time to escape
the tone was set for the rest of the trek
From day six of the trek we saw a faster the confines of the Royal School of
with excellent food provided by the chef.
rate of ascent climbing firstly up to Military Engineering in search of adven-
2540m at Namyru and then up to Lho at
ture and a suntan. Consequently a team
Everyone left England knowing our goal
3020 m. As the height increased the tem- of 14 Royal Engineers, both instructors
was to reach 5200m and cross the Larkya
perature dropped and the issued warm and students, found themselves on a
Pass. Consequently people tended to
kit proved its worth. It did make us feel plane en route to Kathmandu in mid Nov
measure each days success by altitude
guilty when compared to that of the 08. They were to undertake the Manasalu
gained. This resulted in a general feeling
porters which consisted of an eclectic Trek, a 20 day circumnavigation of the
of slow progress as initially the team
mix of woolly jumpers and fake down worlds 8th highest mountain. As if this
gained and then lost height daily. This all
jackets. Cpl Kirkpatrick tried to make were not prize enough, it has not been
changed at Arughat Bazar where we
himself feel better by extolling the virtues possible to undertake this venture for the
joined the mighty Buri Ghandaki and
of the ‘treat system’ whereby he incre- last 12 years due to the Maoist insurgen-
turned North towards Tibet.
mentally increased his layering system cy. This was to be a special trip indeed.
but only after he’d endured the cold for a Sgt Bhimbahadur Saru convinced the
couple of hours – claiming it made the After a couple of days in Kathmandu,
team to buy the porters a small drum in
warmth that much better!
soaking up the mix of Buddhist and
Arughat Bazaar so that they could enter-
Hindu culture, we were ready for the off.
tain us in the evenings with singing and
The day before the pass, 14 days into the It was slightly surreal handing over our
dance. The first night this encouraged
trek, consisted of a slightly laboured bags to be carried by the porters and
excess (that is any) drinking of the local
climb up to 4460m as most people were accepting that this military exercise
brew Raxi, which is often served from old
suffering from some of the effects of alti- would involve no ration packs and no less
petrol cans! The result was the first cou-
tude although in most cases this was than ten hours sleep a night. This was,
ple of cases of diarrhoea which would
simply a mild headache and shortness of admittedly, not an unpleasant experi-
constantly be plaguing two or more
breath. The morning of the actual cross- ence!
members of the team. One of the hardest
ing of the pass started painfully early days on the trek was going from Liding to
requiring us to walk the first few hours in Although the first day was a fairly gentle
Tatopani on the fifth day of walking.
darkness; all that showed was a stream introduction to the Himalayas it still
Initially planned as 1 1⁄2 days walk the
of head torches marking our progress up involve a ridiculous number of steps up to
decision was made to build extra contin-
towards the crossing. As the sun rose the the ancient Gorkha Durbar (fort), which
gency into the plan to mitigate against
valley behind was lit to highlight the dis- provided stunning views out to the
problems later. Although a hard day’s
tance we’d climbed from our last camp majestic mountain range and a tantalising
walk we were rewarded with hot springs
and the height we still had to gain to
Mt Manasalu from the North
18 ARMY MOUNTAINEER
reach the pass. The scenery was stun- ning as we passed a number of glaciers coming down from the heights of Manaslu still towering next to us. Everyone kept trudging onwards towards, just keeping focused on the next route marker ahead. As we reached the pass decorated with prayer flags, it afforded an opportunity to look back and appreciate the scale of the area. Snow covered the peaks towering round us and the Himalayas stretched out as far as the eye could see. As we crossed the ridge