Over the Thorong La

So we made it over the Thorong La pass yesterday. Was a pretty intense day, after so much lead up and time spent acclimatizing, we started in the dark at 5 am to make sure we were up and over the pass before the typical noon storms roll in. We had a perfect day of it, only took 6 hours to get up and down to the next town (mutkinath)
We hiked through the most amazing sunrise over the gargantuan himalayan peaks. Was a very surreal experience. we reached the pass at 8 am before most others, spent 15 or 20 minutes up there and headed down. The elevation made the hiking very demanding at an elevation of 5000m there is 50% of the oxygen that is at sea level. Needless to say, breathing was very difficult and every step uphill was a great effort. Hiking at a snails pace was neccessary. Luckily we managed to surpass most other hikers and reach the pass with few others around.

So now that we have reached the other side of this mountain range, things are much different. The landscape is very dry and reminds me of Kamloops. Things are also much more developed here. While on the other side we were hiking where there were no roads through tiny undevloped villages, today we hiked on roads with trucks and tractors and motorcycles flying past us kicking up a dust storm. Turns out, as we suspected, this area has been more developed over the last 5 years and a road now goes all the way from Pokhara to Mutkinath. Today we walked through a dust storm in an area that felt like it could be Egypt of Afghanistan to arrive in a fairly large town called Jomson. We are planning to skip over a few days of the trek by takin a jeep to Tatopani tommorow. This is mostly because the best part of the trek is behind us and the trek is a bit tainted now that there are vehicles and people trying to sell us stuff again. So in Tatopani are hot springs and the worlds deepest valley. The Kali Gandaki river is at an elevation of 2200m with the peaks on either side of the river at 8000m. Qualifying it as the worlds deepest valley. From there we hike one more day to Ghorepani and spend a night. The next morning we plan on hiking 1.5 hours up to an area known as Poon hill where there is an amzing view of the mountains. After that we plan to hike to Nayapul and then take a bus back to Pokhara, Nepals second biggest city. Though, apparently it is much cleaner, quiter and has less traffic than Kathmandu. The city is beside a large lake with amazing views of the himalayas around. So we get there on the 27th then I spend 10 days there doing a yoga retreat and checking out the surrounding area, and then I have to decide what to do until the 22nd when I fly to indonesia. I might try to change my flight to spend 2 weeks in Thailand to do some rock climbing, just an idea for now but I will look into the details once in Pokhara. Thats all for now though. Will update again when in Pokhara, when I hope to put up some picutres and whatnot. Take care hope everyone is doing well. Ciao for now.