Day 6 was Christmas Eve, and saw our group getting in the holiday spirit. Dante broke out his Santa hat, and we all seemed to find sweets to share with each other at dinner that night. The hike itself was one of the best of the whole trek. There are two routes from Pisang to Manang, one which stays by the river and takes 3 or 4 hours, and one which climbs up the valley and countours the mountains -- this takes about 8 hours. We opted for the higher, not only because it's more scenic, but because it would allow us to ascend to about 12,000 feet before descending to 11,800 feet for the night. A general guideline for acclimatization is hike high and sleep low.
The morning started with a steep climb to Ghyaru, a nice way to get the blood flowing since it was well below freezing at night. By the time we reached the village, the sun was warming the day and we could afford to lose a few layers. Ghyaru is another tiny hillside village, much like Upper Pisang, where we took the chance to rest at the monastery and snap some photos, including my favorite one of the whole trip. We then meandered along at roughly the same altitude until arriving at Ngawal, the next village and our stop for lunch. After that, the trail descended a bit to the valley, and joined the lower trail, before one final climb into Manang. This was a welcome sight, as we knew we'd be taking an acclimatization day there, perfectly coinciding with Christmas.
Before the big climb, we passed by a relatively tranquil lake.
A slice of this photo, taken at the monastery in Ghyaru, also serves as the banner for the blog.
The crew in front of Gangapurna.
Bir, the guide for the group I joined, and Pasang, my ever cheerful guide.
This musk deer crossed the trail right before I got there; otherwise, I never would have seen it.
These cairns may be memorials; they were positioned on an outcropping between Ghyaru and Ngawal.
Rachael makes her way along the high route. The trail splays out before her on the distant hillside.
If you enlarge this photo (by clicking on it), you can see a person standing on the outcropping in the lower middle part of the picture. That should give you some sense for the scale of the Himalayas. Many of these pictures simply aren't large enough to take in their immensity.
Yaks, above and below, seem just as curious about me as I am about them.
This sort of backyard view would command top dollar in the U.S. I'm not sure this man, in the village of Ngawal, cares about the price of real estate.
Ngawal, as seen looking back from the trail, and the valley below.
Another old stupa, this time looking over the village of Ongre, where the high route joins the low route.
Manang, our destination for the day, provided the first sunset clouds of the trip.
The three pictures above are combined in this panorama (click to expand).
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