Doban

We walked into Doban at 1:00 just as it started to rain, 2,505 meters elevation. Lunch was at Bamboo, garlic soup and boiled egg, with potato chips, which we call fries. Along the way we walked through bamboo forests and rhododendron trees, and what the map calls stone staircase, which was a stone staircase, most of what we did today was walk up or down stone staircases, interrupted  by sections of mostly muddy trail. This part of the Himalaya is very wet, with much more snow on the high peaks. We did not gain much elevation, maybe 400 meters, but that was mostly because we climbed the stone staircase going down for so long. Tomorrow we go to Machhapruche base camp at 3700 meters and then to Annapurna base camp at 4130 meters, or about the altitude of Namche Bazaar, just below 13,000 feet. This is a new challenge for me because our progress is so slow in gaining elevation, we are mostly walking around mountains and up and down valleys. All that time sleeping at Brighton to acclimatize is wasted, since I have been languishing in the jungle. But not really, half the fun of climbing a mountain is having a reason to train, test equipment and learn about new places and ways to experience extreme conditions. So I should be glad it is pouring rain. 

We have added a third porter because we have so much climbing and camping equipment, including tents, crampons, snow bars (snow pickets for the belay), and 250 meters of rope, not nice dynamic colorful climbing rope, but the alarmingly thin white nylon cord that we will be fixing on the route, or using to climb with, depending on the conditions we find on the mountain. One porter carries my wheely beast, which I could barely lift into the car, his name is Dawa, and he has not many teeth left. I euphemistically told the agents at Air India that my bags weighed 15 kilo, but Nima says it is more like 35 or 40. 

I had a long talk with Dr. Williams before I left, he reminded me that I would have guardian angels, which fortunately have been actively employed while I have enjoyed the vicissitudes of vehicular transportation.  I told Rick that I scare myself just thinking about the dangerous situations I have been in during my last two expeditions to Nepal. He asked me how that felt, but I realized it was not that dramatic while it was happening, getting off the side of a mountain in a Himalayan snow and thunder storm was mostly a matter of paying attention to what was directly in front of me, making sure the rappel was set up properly and that I was anchored in when setting up the next rappel. It would have done no good at all at that point to worry about the anchors themselves, which were probably put in the previous fall, and had survived the Himalayan winter. I was carrying an expedition down coat and gloves.  And getting into that situation was an exhirating climb on a completely unknown (to me) mountain. But I told Rick I was not going to be soloing any more mountains. 

Machhapruche 

Annapurna south

We are slowing walking up the stone staircase watching school children skipping down, this girl was followed by her little brother in flip flops who was racing down the steps in quite a mad cap manner.

The stone staircase part one, descent to the river

Forest path

We are trying to get to the mountains at the end of the  green valley

Beautiful stonework that goes on for Miles's

Typical mountain lodge tea house