To Goose The Thorung-La Pass Nepal Episode 11

Episode 11

Day 9. The Thorung-La Goose

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.

I woke up warm in my micro fleece and sleeping bag. Today would be the day of our Thorung-La crossing. It had snowed a bit through the night but nowhere near the amount it would have to for us to stay in. I honestly wonder what that level of snow would be? I said to myself at the time the only way I wouldn’t be going over was if some Nepali person that I really felt I trusted purely based on my intuition at the time implored me to not go over. That is unless I could obviously see for myself that attempting a cross would be folly.

I did know that morning though that my feet were not going to stay dry. I didn’t know how long they would stay that way. I was in my warmest walking rig. My absolute clothing Alamo. Long underwear that’s stretchy and cool to sweat in, top and bottom. Micro fleece inner, top. Tailored woolen shirt. Black Jeans. Thick micro fleece jacket. Heavy cotton polyester jacket. Shawl. Om Na VaShiva Nepali scarf given to me my jiggery (heartly friend) Santosh. One pair wool socks from the Nepal Cap house Kathmandu and my black Palladiums. Not waterproof but I did get a lot of compliments from Nepali people on them. Ordinarily I would just set out with only everything except for the extra micro fleece layers on top and have to strip off my heavy cotton polyester jacket about half an hour into walking. This day I did not get out of my extra layers at all.

We settled out bill and set out at 06:20 clutching a couple of very dear extra mars bars. I spent about 1200NPR at the Thorung Base Camp. We got to the head of the track but weren’t entirely sure which way to go. The whole way to get to this point had been so easy but it had snowed the night before so the path was buried! We trudged back inside heads held high about to make a great decision. Unless it’s your thing, let the brothers go out there before you and stamp down the track. We stood around freezing for a few minutes while a fittish 30 something English guy and his two porters took off and then we were out of the gates.

It’s phenomenally beautiful. It’s fucking hard walking. But you will finish. You must.

One foot in front of the other nice and slow. You’ve left early enough. You’ve got time. Take rest when ever you need it. Return is not an option. Keep your feet.

The path becomes a lot more apparent as you get further away from base camp. There is a bridge to cross. A “half way hut”, which is a small un insulated stone cabin with out a door and with one other locked room. Sheeva and one porter used this shelter to change out wet socks. Then there is the actual pass with a similar structure on it that was locked but did provide amazing refuge from wind.

We were at the pass by no later than 10:00. We goosed the fuck outta two can each, took our photos and drank in amazing scenery in every direction. Mars the legend that he was just hung around us like he had been want to all through the trek. It was an amazing human animal relationship experience for he having him come all the way up. I love that dog. I had Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon Any Colour you Like playing on top of the pass and as I listen to it as I write now, I realize that this pass crossing was one of the most amazing and rewarding things I’ve ever done. It was the hardest physical challenge I have ever had to face still having said that it was not the hardest physical challenge I could ever face. It inspired me to do more. To push more boundaries. To do it while others are just talking about it. I passed through feeling empowered and refreshed.



So the Thorung-La was bossed. A porter brother brought up the rear after we had finished all our necessities on the pass. I had helped this brother out before when I’d seen him struggling. He hadn’t taken Chai in the morning so was feeling very weak but I hit him up with a mars bar even after he chided me in the half way hut for bugging him while he was switching out his socks. He smiled at me and said “five more minutes, big winds come” and carried on down the other side. How many summits had he done? He passed through with his people and carried on down the other side. It’s not that the natural beauty of these places is lost on the Nepali people it’s just that they have such a different connection to the land that we have, it’s home for them, they’ve grown up around it. We heard the brother out and began down in the next few minutes.



The down hill was really quite awful. It’s far steeper, extremely snowy, rocky and icy. It’s not super fun but all one has to do is get to the bottom in one piece which is easy enough if one is extremely careful and takes their time. I did a lot of snow walking on the way down in say 25cm to 30cm of snow. It acts like a shock absorber and you can get down quickly but this was where my feet really started to get wet.

Captain had sprinted ahead on the way down using the snow walking technique; I could see the huge gouges he’d made in the fresh snow on his way down. Some sort of machine this brother of m.i.n.e was. He had seriously physically destroyed the trail over the whole course of the journey barely breaking a sweat, true to his Nepali Seal Hawk legend. As I got towards Muktinath at about 14:45 I came into phone reception and gave him a ring. We had to haul ass because a jeep was leaving at 15:00 and for all we knew it could have been the last jeep for the day. I told Sheeva the situation and we both took off as quickly as we could to meet him at the jeep.

As we passed through Muktinath Mars bounded up to us. He’d been ahead with Captain. What were we to do with him? We could have easily managed to take him back to the Valley but what then? We had contemplated taking him up into the hills around Kathmandu where we’d being scoring ounces on ounces of extremely cheap, ultra organic cow and goat stomach medicine aka The Chronic. We thought he might feel homely there and could live out his time in the comfort of the valley but we decided against this. No matter what his fate he was a mountain dog. This was his area of operation. In a few days time he’d make the crossing back into Manang and be back in his happy hunting ground. We barely had a minute with him once we got to the jeep, which might have been a good thing, and we were back to the world and off the legs at 15:30.

We rolled into Jonsom, fairly tired but nothing out of the ordinary. We needed to find a great guest house with a gas geyser shower so we could wash but after walking around for a while we completely lost interest in this and our only concern became getting our wet shoes off our feet and we took the first guesthouse that promised us a fire, which didn’t even happen. It didn’t matter. We had made it. Fed and watered in the Jonsom by 18:00 watching Star Movies.

via WordPress http://goosingtheglobe.com/2013/05/20/to-goose-the-thorung-la-pass-nepal-episode-11/