Second Day (a tough one!) and Third on Trek – Alan

The second day of the trek was really a tough one. What was supposed to be a 7-8 hour day on the trail I turned into 9 hours. My guide, Sonam stayed with me the entire time and ultimately, the horseman came looking for us when we were about 1/4 mile from camp and gave me a ride the rest of the way. I snoozed for a while in the kitchen tent while being encouraged to eat and drink.

In the pictures above, back row (left to right), are Sonam, our guide; Gimmoy,  the cook’s assistant; Thinly, the horse man, and in the front row with the trekkers is Kamal, the cook.

We had left camp at 7:00 am and up until noon I was in good shape, taking in the scenery and keeping a good pace. We stopped for lunch (we carried a box lunch that Kamal made) and about an hour into our the afternoon hike I started getting intense abdominal pains. They kept getting worse and I kept getting slower for the rest of the day! Another bout with altitude sickness. Who knew that altitude could be such an adversary. Leh is about 11,500 ft above sea level and today we are probably another 1,000 ft higher in altitude.

We camp near the village of Markha and Sonam tells me they have a public satellite phone. If I don’t feel better in the morning they will arrange to have a horse take me quickly down in altitude. I went to my tent to sleep and Kamal brings me some plain rice. “You must eat” he says!

I wake up the next morning about 6:00 am and the cramps are gone! I actually felt pretty good, a little sore from the 9 hour hike, but OK. Disaster averted, no need to call in the cavalry. I had a simple breakfast of rice and soup, plus a little green tea. We left camp about 7:15.

We are climbing again today (Friday) and we will be camping at an altitude of about 14,100 ft. We actually start out pretty flat, like yesterday we had a river crossing where  we take off our boots and socks and put on sandals. I have pants that turn into shorts by unzipping part of the leg so I make the conversion and wade across the river. The water, coming from the melting icecaps nearby is pretty cold and quite the eyeopener!

About 3 1/2 hours into our hike the rest of the crew comes up behind us with the ponies and all of the gear. I did not know, but the Sonam and the Thinly (the horseman) had made a plan that I would ride for about an hour and then they would drop me off by the tea tent where we are going to have lunch. After lunch the climb gets pretty steep so they wanted me to conserve my energy for the climb. Given the events of yesterday, I couldn’t really turn them down so I got up on the horse and took the ride. Wait a minute, you might be thinking, Alan you are allergic to horses, aren’t you? Don’t they cause your eyes to water and an asthma type reaction? Well, I trusted it was the right thing to do and aside from a couple of sneezes (probably from all the dust!) I didn’t have the usual reaction and it was actually quite fun!

We clomped through streams as well as up and down some pretty narrow trails.  I am actually quite impressed with how sure-footed these horses are. They dropped me off at the tea tent and my guide and Wong are soon there. We had lunch and then started the climb up to the camp site. Two hours later we are at camp. We actually made the hike in the suggested time frame! Although warm now, they tell us we should probably sleep in our coats as it will get cold tonight. Sundown is about 7:30 so I have about 4 hours to relax, clean up a bit, and have dinner. Then it is off to sleep and getting rest for the next day. I feel like today I turned the corner and finally got used to hiking and climbing at altitude. I can’t wait for tomorrow!