Ghunsa > Thudam

After 3 very restful days with the Dzonga family, in Ghunsa, we were back on the trail heading west. This felt like the beginning of the true GHT as our previous section up until now was on a fairly popular trekking route. The next 2 passes, Nango La and Lumba Sumba, are areas seldom travelled by trekkers.

We turned off from our previous trail at the sign for Lumba Sumba and quickly began climbing up the valley. The cedar and juniper trees were covered with novelty size mosses and the air was filled with the sweet floral smell of blooming Daphne (an evergreen Himalaya shrub).

Within the first 30 minutes we had to bushwhack around a large down tree and the trail thinned from there. It was clear we had left the trekking highway for the local’s country roads. The trail was stunning even though we were in the clouds. We wandered through giant Rhododendrons of the likes we had not yet seen. They must have been hundreds of years old.

It was a steep 3,000 foot climb over about 4 miles to our first Kharka (pasture). The majority of the campsites are at seasonal yak kharkas because they are typically the only flat grassy areas in the mountains. It felt good to be in our first camp with our own food that we had planned so much for. Since we arrived early in the day, we played some frisbee and Sarah started a fire.

When we awoke, the clouds had cleared and we had nice views of the mountains enabling us to see across the Ghunsa Khola valley where we had been the week before.

We ventured over our first pass, Nango La, around 15,600 ft and we placed our khadas there. People place khadas over passes, on bridges, and at sacred places; it is part of the ritual to let it go. Then we post holed and glisaded our way down the pass.

The rest of the trail followed the river and took us through more beautiful rhododendrons up and down steep wet boulders. All the paths either go up-up-up or down-down-down. The trails are rather technical but continue to amaze us with absolutely stunning flora and mountains.

Today we celebrated Sarah’s 33rd birthday! After a solid day of hiking over the pass we got to another kharka to set up camp for the evening. Shortly after we finished with our tents a herd of large bull yaks came through. Initially the herd continued through towards the river but the last one stopped dead in its tracks and stared. It appeared to be territorial behavior. As he stood grunting, bucking his head, and giving us the mean mug the rest of the herd moved back in solidarity. It became pretty clear that this was their usual resting place and we were intruding. Tom and Matt headed into the kharka’s shed to make sure the drop from the porter was there. In the process Matt nearly got run down by a yak who was charging straight for him. Luckily Tanner saw it happening and shouted, “Matt! Look out!” Fortunately Matt made it into the structure and was spared.

Tom quickly learned to speak yak herder, hooting and hollering while waving a trekking pole with Matt, and was able to create some space between our tents and the yaks. Coming to Sarah’s rescue multiple times, Tom yelled like a crazed lunatic in the streets every 10 minutes to push them back. It became clear that the yaks wanted to be part of Sarah’s birthday party and they weren’t going to be leaving anytime soon.

After being closely approached by the yaks too many times while trying to enjoy the view, we got in our tent early and played cards. Tom brought out Sarah’s very own sweet custom watercolor card and a piece of brownie birthday cake (BBC) gifted by Tsiring. Sarah always loves chocolate cake on her birthday. She even got to make a birthday wish, blowing out our mini lighter over the brownie. Then it poured rain all night and we felt lucky to be nice and dry in our tent.

The following day we hiked for 11.5 hours, going 8.5 miles with over 10,000 ft of elevation change. We arrived in Olanchun Gola at night with our headlamps leading the way across rock slides and shadows. The village was already tucked in for the evening so we walked through quietly saying “Namaste” until we saw one of the locals. We asked in our broken Nepalese where to find a guest house and we were kindly escorted. We are so grateful for all the kind Nepali people who have helped us along the way.

We explored the village of Olanchun Gola the following day and rested our legs. We had to stop with boarder patrol so they could check our permits. They were so kind they even made us tea (a spicy black tea with ginger, black pepper, and other herbs) and we spent a good half an hour just chatting and enjoying their company.

Then we hiked up hundreds of steps to the top of the village to visit the Gompa, spinning the prayer wheels along the way (always spin clockwise). We only got to see the outside of the Gompa because the 2 monks were busy eating lunch and we had lunch waiting as well.

That afternoon Matisse, a German friend we made in Ghunsa who is also hiking the GHT, caught up to us. It was nice to have a friend on the trail with us to share stories. He ended up being the only foreigner we would see for weeks.

We left early and embarked up a “road” along the river joined by a pup we named Sumba. ‘Road’ in these parts is a generous term as it usually disappears into the river and one often ends up hiking on side trail for much of it. Our day of hiking quickly turned into fowl weather gear in the late morning then back to sun in time for us to break for lunch. As we climbed up the valley towards pass camp hail and white out conditions dominated. We continued in the late afternoon as the trail dwindled to a network of yak paths. We were guided by GPS tracks and instinct.

The porters had dropped off some of the group members gear in advance and had provided us a picture to find it. There was also some concern that the place on the map we showed them was not the place they went. We got to a large flat area that was labeled as Pass Camp on the map. The group was exhausted and it was getting late but we only had one tent. Two group members were going to camp in this spot, but it seemed the porters had chosen the camp 1,000+ feet higher. We were the only two with a tent. We passed off the tent to the 2 other teammates to sleep in while the other 4 of us continued on. At this point it was dark, in a white out and snowing, as we made our way up and over the tenuous ridge. After an hour and a half of trail finding, side stepping, and positive vibes we miraculously found our stuff and were able to make dinner, get warm, and sleep in tents. It was a close call and we felt lucky to end up on the right side. Our night was a little more cozy than usual since we slept in our teammates 2 person tent instead of our luxurious 3 person tent.

The pass was steep and our packs were heavy. As a group, we decided to all bring snowshoes after hearing about previous GHT hikers struggling through deep snow for hours, wasting precious energy at altitude. We were thrilled to get the snowshoes off our packs and on our feet. The weather was on point all day with the sun shining and tolerable temperatures. Prayer flags were hung on the pass and we continued down a mix between rocky trail and snow shoeing to a reasonable kharka.

We were greeted by our 3 friendly porters an hour outside of Thudam. They had carried our food for the next section after we departed from Ghunsa. Thudam is a remote little village without any tea houses. The porters had made friends with a local family helping them out in order to have shelter and food. It’s beautiful to see how villages will invite strangers into their homes and take care of them. Thudam felt like it was out of story book. A small small village, houses made out of wood and rocks (some don’t even use a single nail), with a perfect flat kharka across the river for us to set up camp.

Two curious young boys came over to us and we showed them how we set up our tent and then let them help us. We taught them how to play frisbee and were really impressed at how quickly they were able catch on. Even when we can’t always communicate well with language, playing a game seems to break those barriers leaving us all with smiles and laughter.