Dhani (800m) to Siurung (2054m): 15 KMS | 8 HRS | Trek
The snow storm hit at night like a speeding truck running a red light. Visibility was zero and it was freezing cold, but my body was overheating for some reason. The snow was piling up by the second and the weight of it on the sleeping bag was pinning me to the ground. Gasping for air, a sudden realization dawned on me.
There are no snow storms at 760m.
The first attack of diarrhea hit around 3am and kept me up till the surrounding peaks turned golden by the rising sun. I felt a sense of camaraderie with high-altitude mountaineers who narrowly escape death on summit attempts. Surely, their suffering was almost as bad as mine. Wide awake and reflecting on my past, I made a promise to avoid the non-veg Dal Bhat if I made it out alive.
The plan was to go from Dhani to Siurung, a largely unexplored mountain village of the ethnic Gurung community. A completely uphill climb of more than 1200 meters that cuts away from the Annapurna trail, joining back a day later.
The first two hours were great from the get go. I soaked in unrestricted views of Manaslu throughout the climb that passed through quaint villages, fields and forests. But soon the effects from last night’s “snow storm” started showing signs. I felt weak and the weight of the bag kept increasing. The sun was bearing down on us and I was struggling and panting, and the steep trail didn’t let up for a second. My Garmin counted 190 flights of stairs and told me to keep it up.
Shibu kept checking on me but I was rather upset he had listened to me in the morning when I clearly wasn’t well enough to do this strenuous climb.
“All good brother? Let’s go jeep trail, more safe for you” he had suggested in the morning as we set off.
“All good! Follow me!” I yelled back and bravely led the way uphill, away from the jeep trail.
Twice I felt my vision go partly black and blurry.
The sun was directly above us and I reminded myself to step carefully . The trail was a dusty make-shift path filled with large stones and I wasn’t particularly watchful of where I was stepping, putting unwanted stress on my knees and ankles. I was drinking so much water from my camel bag that I soon ran out and Shibu was kind enough to share his. Every stop I’d lay down on the dusty grass trying to recover some energy. It was just Day 2 and there was no way I’d be able to do another 15 days of this. It felt like the adventure was over even before it started.
After 8 hours of grueling punishment on my hamstrings and back, we entered the village and I sat down by the first house. We had both run out of water and my lips and throats were so dry I couldn’t speak. I looked around helplessly.
Shibu had gone ahead to do some recon. He soon came back around the corner to and announced triumphantly “Good good brother! Only 30 minutes more!”
Those 30 minutes turned out to be an almost fully vertical climb to the village of Siurung. I kept hearing the word “Heja Man” as we passed many older men and children on the trail. A few bold children followed us for short distances yelling “Heja Man! Heja Man!”. I tried to smile in return, their hero’s welcome giving me some strength to continue. I caught up to Shibu and asked him what “Heja” meant. “This means diarrhea” he answered, happy that I wanted to learn Nepali even in my condition.
I spent the rest of the climb extracting a confession from Shibu, that he did in fact walk ahead with the sole purpose of informing the whole village of my diarrhea instead of finding us shelter and water. We spent another 15 minutes of physical and mental torture trodding through the village to finally find our stay for the night. The tea house we were staying in belonged to a school teacher who whipped up a big pail of lemon tea in an attempt to revive me.
“Heja Man climbing fast. Very hot today.” he declared, trying to instill some confidence in me.
I wanted to finish the tea and crawl into bed right away. But what a view! The sky behind Manaslu changed from white to yellow to golden to red, the trailing clouds from the peaks mirroring each shade . We sat there for two hours watching in silence.
I fell asleep in my sleeping bag and was woken up for Dal Baht around 7pm. I couldn’t have a single bite of that either. Some more lemon tea and I went back to sleep under several layers of blankets to keep away the bitterly cold. Before I slept I decided to tell Shibu in the morning that we’d be turning back and returning to the trailhead.