Saturday, July 14, 2007

Those Who Trek ...

... not always like it. I found this well written account of Jamie about his trekking experience of the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal. He says-

When most trekkers get to Jomsom, our nominee’s starting point, they’ve already been trekking for two weeks and they’ve just crossed the 17,000 feet+ Thorung La. They normally complete the Jomsom stage in about 4 days. Our bloke took a week.

His legs simply don’t work any more.

Bits of him ache that he previously didn’t even know existed.

Even I have wondered on so many treks that why do all my vacations involve walking from morning to evening and then trying to relax so that I can walk some more the next day. But then I think trekking defies logic! After every trek, I look ahead for trekking some more.

PS. I saw the reference to Jamie's post first at Indiamike on a thread discussing how to get your significant other let you trek!

PPS. Cross posted at Blogharti too.

Labels: ,

3 Comments:

Anonymous vistet said...

Thanks for the link to Jamie´s blog . Reading it stirred up a lot of emotions , emphatic groans from my knees , old memories from Nepal , laughter..
Yeti Dhai .. oh , my .

And guilt : you see I was the one suggested the whole thing to him , initially glossing over all obstacles : "should be a nice walk " I think my wording was at the time , in a thread I´m not yet ready to look up at the moment .

I hope has forgiven me by now.

Bringing up the other theme you mentioned , those who trek not always end up liking each other , reminds me of an incident in my teens. I was on a winter trek and sought shelter in a kåta , a sami hut , near Kebnekaise. Two pairs of skis outside, inside a young woman and and a man both literally and mentally mostly in uniform ; officers model anorak from the Kiruna Rangers (think Swedish jawans) . Also found inside an amply filled pulka , a pulling sled used in the winter. Provisions were being re-packed , tomorrows food planned ... a little bit too organised for my taste , but each to his liking . In the end everything was planned and ready , and he pulls on his boots , unfolds a shovel and goes outside with a roll of toilet paper.
As soon as he´s out of the hut she utters her first words .

"Here , have some cheese with your bread. "
"Thanks"
"No , you can keep the rest , we´ve got lot´s .."
"That´s nice of you , but I´m good , I´ll reach the road tomorrow"
"..,.some smoked meat ? "

In the end even I got it : she really wanted me make me to make a dent in the huge load she was not looking forward to pull tomorrow. Crammed a huge plastic bag of (obviously frozen) cinnamon rolls in my pack just before the return of military order.
Sometimes I wonder how he eventually caught on to the fate of the cinnamon rolls , and where they went from there .

9:42 PM  
Anonymous vistet said...

A picture of the hut found on the web : http://www.travelnotes.de/scandi/winter97/p802.jpg

(not sure how links works from comment page)

9:47 PM  
Blogger Mridula said...

Vistet, I never knew it was you who suggested the trek to Jamie :)

Thanks a lot for sharing the story of the hut. I guess the lady was too polite not to protest at carrying all that weight. I mean if I am put in a similar situation I would speak my mind very clearly.

And there is so much snow! I am quite afraid of it, as I am not used to it and I slip and slip and slip on it.

4:15 PM  

Post a Comment

Links to this post:

Create a Link

<< Home

© Mridula 2005-2008 | Design By

  • The Glass Palace