The Traveling Freeses: Day 8 - Annapurna Base Camp to Bamboo

“Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.” Henry David Thoreau

I managed to wake up at 2AM, go outside and capture a few pictures of Machhapuchhare bathed in the full moon light. It was cold, around 10F (-12C). Setting up my tripod/camera is always a challenge when it’s cold. I only stayed outside for about 30 minutes. It was such a humbling sensation standing quietly in this vast landscape with nothing but the moon shinning down. Once back inside my warm sleeping bag I would only manage a few more hours of sleep before waking to catch the sunrise on the Annapurna range.

Moon Light on The Mountains

First Light on Annapurna I

Sun Rise on Annapurna South and I

Today I felt really awake. It was so magical being in this place. Govinda asked if we wanted to stay another day. I agreed but, Donna was cold and wanted to start back down. So we had breakfast and started the trek out at around 7:15AM.

Heading back down from ABC

Sun Rise from behind Machhapuchhare

Going down is much easier than going up. We hit a few places that were very icy and we had to be very careful navigating across. The scene down was nice and we got some better perspective views of the narrow gorge leading into this area. It is another beautiful sunny day and it’s getting warmer as we hike down.

View of the gorge leading in and out of ABC

Another view of the gorge

We reached Deurali by 10AM and stop for some tea.

Tea in Deurali

Deurali

Continuing on we stop at Himalaya at 11:15AM for lunch. We get together with some of the people we met at ABC. After eating and resting we set off for our final leg of today, Bamboo, which we reach by 2:15PM.

Dal Bhat in Himalaya

Fellow trekker Sim Singh from San Francisco

Michel Brisset from France

The lodge has a TV which is something that is rare on the trek. We also get our first news of the destructive hurricane, Sandy, that hit the eastern part of the USA. We live in that part so we had some concern about our family and home. What a sense of isolation you have when trekking with limited access to the outside world. We also saw some children playing video games, just like back home.