Rest day. Going no where.
Breathtaking views from Larjung Jungka Viewpoint…..a couple in so much love…we leapt over mighty Himalayan mountains
Today we are supposed to rest from sunrise to sunset.Our guide however suggested that we should climb up to a plateau close to the snow-clad mountains and glaciers behind Manang, known as the Larjung Jungka Viewpoint.
He said that the climb was a must-do to help us adapt to high altitude condition so as to avoid AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness). According to him mountaineers at 3000m and above normally prepare themselves by doing a number of climbs up and down back to their base camps – there are 4 base camps below Mt. Sagarmatha( Mt. Everest)- before final attempts to conquer the summits. So, none of us said no to the suggested climb for none wanted to be struck down by AMS, not after having paid so much for this journey on foot.
Down behind the shop-houses we walked across the Marsyandi upstream basin full of stones and rocks. Soon we were at the foothills of slopes inclined at 45 degrees. The zigzag path with fresh footprints was on what appeared to me a huge mass of moraine. Stunted short pines and boulders sporadically covered the slopes which showed signs of surface creeping.
We trekked up, step by step. It had become natural to us to plod on slowly and steadily, slightly hunched, step by step, in the image of a trekker in motion that is by now always in our minds by day and in our dreams by night.
Not far up the slopes, an aquamarine glacial lake appeared down the other side of the ridge, surrounded on all sides by glacial deposits of mud, coarse pebbles and lumps and lumps of rocks, both sedimentary and igneous.
A glacier pond
Mee Poon's awesome photo of the same pond
Further up we could see salient ice erosion features like pillars capped with boulders and gullies jammed with rock-falls. I was utterly bewildered by the geophysical forces that had eroded, transported and deposited this mass of several hundred meters of sediment and debris. Gosh! How thick was that primeval river of ice? Was then heaven and earth all ice and nothing else? Where were men then?
In less than an hour we reached the top of Larjung Jungka Viewpoint from where we had a panoramic view of the entire Manang township and the surrounding areas.
Larjung Jungka Viewpoint with a tea-house serving coffee and tea is ideally located for one to soak up the amazing beauty of glaciers and related features. The rolling plateau is broad enough for all to walk about for the best views of its surrounding valleys and mountains. We could look out to the Marsyangdi basin from where we had trekked into Manang. The Marsyangdi upstream basin is a series of interlocking v-shaped valleys extending deep onto the horizon where snow-clad mountains running along both sides of the valley finally merge into a plateau of ice fields.
Views of upstream Marsyangdi Valley from Larjung Jungka (Mee Poon's camera)
Mesmerized by the beauty of nature, a young couple felt so much love that they hug each other tight and stayed there on top of the world motionless and speechless. I would have done the same if I had with me a darling young and sweet. I could do the same on the same spot here, perhaps in my next life. No reason not to.
Mee Poon took some wonderful pictures of us leaping into some distant snow mountains in the Marsyangdi valley below.
Jummmmmmp
In the late evening Jamie helped me send a message back to office. I still didn’t want to have anything to do with anything or anybody outside this lost world. So my message just said I was fine in Manang.
At the internet café some of us ate fruit cakes claiming they were simply delicious. At dinner most of them ordered yak steaks. And these were finger-licking good. For some reasons I abstained from both indulgences. I did taste a tiny bit of a cake and a small bite of yak steak too, kindly offered by Mee Poon.
I bought 2 pairs of quality socks as blisters were about to cause me unbearable pain. I also purchased a torch-light after the one I had had damaged as they say it is necessary to use it at Thorung-La where our climb will start one two hours before daybreak.
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