To Goose the Thorung-La Pass: To Goose The Thorung-La Pass Nepal Episode 10

Episode 10

Day 8. To the Staging Area

Our goal. To Shotgun a beercan in Nepal at the highest possible altitude reachable by walking, with no camping and to film and upload it to Goosing the Globe whilst blazing hard the whole way there. This place in Nepal is the Thorung-La Pass the peak point of the famous and wildly popular Annapurna Sanctuary Trek. The Master Shotgunners that undertook this adventure as part of a two month stay in the suburbs of Kathmandu were Captain (my best friend and brother), Sheeva (my girlfriend and love) and your author Jacky-Buddo (Jack Old Man in Nepali). This guide is transcribed from my hand written notes taken every half an hour or so and is only meant to assert strategies for exceptional methods of thinking and action to experience the trail and greater Nepal in a powerful and unique way. Why live in your Lonely Planet, when you can Goose the Globe.

Out of Ledar after completing all the necessary requirements by 08:20. These mornings are the hardest because it is just so cold especially on ones feet seeing as though they are put directly into the freezers that are your shoes. The only remedy to this is to get moving as quickly as possible.

We arrived at Thorung Phedi following the trail along the Kone Khola at 10:20 and stopped to take chai. How could we concluding our days walk at 10:20? It was so easy? However we were wrong, we were feeling amazing and it was so early in the day why not go for the base camp? Hell it’s what everyone else was doing and we were bossing the trail as well as any of them. So we set out to make the climb to the Thorung-La high camp. The closer one gets to the Thorung-La the more congested the track becomes with other trekkers and their guide/porter brothers.

The walk to the base camp is rocky and steep twisting and turning path which was still a bit snowy from a snow storm approximately ten days prior. In fact as we were leaving to take on the Thorung-La back in Kathmandu Captain met a boy who had been up at high camp ready to make the crossing who had been snowed in three feet and had to wait at Thorung Base Camp for three days before he could head back through the valley in devastation having been rejected for crossing by the Thorung-La gods.

Despite this we were chillen in the base camp in night clothes awaiting Dal Bhat at 13:24. We spent the rest of the afternoon and night trying desperately to stay warm so much so that we had our sleeping bags in the tea-house with us. We had a very close call when Captain took the initiative to get the fire roaring and caused a small kerosene explosion that singed every hair on his face. Imagining the horror of a face burn in this place was a hectic wake up call. And not even a minute after this Captain nearly sculled a mouthful of kerosene instead of his water bottle. It wasn’t his night. I wasn’t feeling terribly amazing either. The presence had returned to my head and I didn’t take a second unit of Dal instead picking at some fried potatoes with zero appetite. More important than this however was that I felt strong and clear headed so I went off to bed feeling excited to complete our quest in the next 24 hours.