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Published: July 23rd 2008
the exit gate leaving Khangsar to the basecamp
This was the exit where we took a wrong trail. You should choose the right one going up to the Gompa. It's always going uphill...TILICHO LAKE
May 9th … Manang - Khangsar
I'm getting really excited dreaming of Tilicho Lake already. I don't know why but this place seems to be so important for me to visit as the highest lake in this region (Tilicho is not the highest lake in the world i just found after the trek, there is the highest one in Tibet actually above 6,000m).
So by leaving Manang after lunch time heading to Khangsar, I'm only one and half days away from Tilicho Lake. I didn't remember how long we walked from Manang to Khangsar, may be it took us about 3 - 4 hours, so by around 5pm we have already arrived in Khangsar. Walking to Khangsar was quite a nice walk, I only remember 1 part where we had to go so uphill and that was not so long. And the view was nice, a bit dry... and you started seeing the mountain rocks that looks so scary as if it might fall down.
This village is very quiet, it looks like no trekkers really stay in Khangsar. The wind was extremely strong when we reached Khangsar, even our room has the
holes so it's not windproof. I didn't even bother to check the village due to the strong wind so I just stayed in the bedroom until morning.
We brought some croissants and instant coffee (I was so proud of having croissant and good coffee in this village) that felt so luxurious already for our coffee time in Khangsar. Dipu has been so kind to go outside and ordered dinner for us in the bedroom, although I was a bit worried that they might not have a proper food. As usual Dipu ordered Dhal Bal and I ordered Noddle Soup and boiled Eggs. As I mentioned earlier, if the lodges where we stayed looked a bit awful, I would stick to noddle soup and boiled egg for my source of energy.
I couldn't describe much about Khangsar, it looks like an empty city though with stone house style. And there might be only 2 -3 lodges in Khangsar.
From our room, we could see a nice mountainview... actually almost in every lodges we stayed, we got the mountainview room! The only thing that I complained a little bit along this trek is about the blanket. Since we didn't
bring our own sleeping bag, we always had to use the blanket. All lodges have plenty of blanket available, but you might have to choose the blanket by yourself so you could get the cleanest one. I always asked Dipu to check the blanket, at least we could choose if we ask.
May 10th - Khangsar - Tilicho Basecamp
We woke up in the morning ready to go to Tilicho Basecamp. For the first 2 hours, we were lost since we picked the wrong direction. After the gate, we picked the left trail and we ended up at the end of a hill that is going no where and from that point we saw there's another trail going up actually. So we decided to get back to the exit gate of Khangsar, and we asked the villager the direction. When we went back to the gate, we saw a Sign that is threw away in the bush. We put the sign back wishing that this sign will help other trekkers not to be lost like us wasting 2 hours walking.
It's quite uphill from the gate, we had to pass an old Gompa after about
1 hour walking. The Gompa was kind of closed so we could't get in. Continued walking for about 45 minutes, we passed a nice new lodge called Tilicho Peak Hotel, it looked quite new... Then we had lunch overthere. I had noodle soup again here... and tea...
Leaving Tilicho Peak Hotel, we kept on walking... We had to choose the trail going to Tilicho Lake not so long after Tilicho Peak Hotel. There is what so called "Lower Trail" and another one is "Upper Trail". Lower trail is said to be a faster one to pass in comparison to Upper trail. But you have to pass the landslides area if you choose Lower trail. Well, of course we choose the faster one without realising how difficult it is... Anyway they also said that it's better to choose Lower trail.
In about 1.30 hour if I'm not mistaken we saw a very stiff trail going up and for me it looks so scary. I didn't feel like passing this stiff area, it looked so scary for me, and slippery. We really had no choice other than passing it. For Dipu it's not a problem, but for me... it scared
me to hell since it's very stiff, there's nothing you can grab, on the right side is the rocky hill and at the left side is the free fall style of cliff... well yes, it's free fall! If you fall, there's nothing to hold you and you'll be absolutely death. Trying to walk carefully while I hold my breath almost cry... I stepped up. When I tried to hold the stone on the rocky hill, actually it's not even a stone so you couldn't even hold your hand there... it's actually a compact sand!
About halfway on this rocky hill, I slipped down and almost fell down. It was a really scary moment for me, I screamed for Dipu (he was ahead on me) and told him I fell. I couldn't stand anymore... my body was like more than 45 degree grabbing the ground with all of my effort trying to keep my body from falling down the cliff. I didn't know what to do except waiting for Dipu to help me, I couldn't even move! Dipu saw me, and he asked me to wait... he went to the safe area, leaving his backpack there and got me. It
felt like really a long time waiting for Dipu to get back, I didn't even know whether I could stand it... I could have fallen at anytime! If I fell, and it would be the end of me... and the end of this story as well.
Dipu came back in about 10 minutes, I was still on the same position. He asked me to give him my hand that was almost impossible to do. If i handed him my hand... I would lose my balance and I fell down! Dipu had to seriously convince me to trust him and to gave him my hand so he could grab my hand and pull me up again. I was so damned scared and felt that I had no other choice, so finally without thinking I raised my right hand and so quick after Dipu catched my hand and pull me really fast. I was still shaken, and Dipu lead me holding my hand going up to finish this difficult part.
We finally managed to pass this scary part, we took a rest for a while. I was still shocked realising that I was so close to be "In memoriam of
See this tiny line? That's the trail going to Tilicho Lake
You have to pass this kind of hills with landslides part going to the basecamp Reni!". I couldn't even cry...
Well, we kept on walking... me hoping that the rest of this trail to Tilicho would be an easy one. But no.... In fact it's even worse! After a while we had to pass the landslides area!
Before started passing the landslides area, we met a guy so we asked how difficult it was to pass it. He said that it's ok, you just have to be careful with your step and try to walk faster. The first step you put your foot on the sliding sand you might slide down a bit, so try to keep your balance and step your other foot forward. At first I didn't really understand what he meant... when I saw the landslides area, I understood! Technically it was not really walking by my definition, it was more like sliding following the sliding sand. You could barely see the trail!!! It was a 45 degree mountain of sand, and the sand is just falling down whenever you step your feet on it. Some part it was even more difficult since this slipping sand is combined with going down or up. And it was not only 1 or
45degree landslides area
somepart of the landslides are sand, some are stones as can be seen in this picture... Good luck ! 2 landslides... it was far more than that. We didn't expect that at all. So after 1 landslide, we took a rest thinking that we have already passed the landslides area... but it's not yet finished. There came a second lanslides... a third one... a fourth one.... and next and next and it's just a never ending landslides.
As an amateur, I've never imagined that people walked on the landslides area. But they do! Even porter with their heavy stuffs walking passing it... and you would never imagine how could they keep their balance! With their not so aerodynamic stuffs to carry at their back, I couldn’t believe how they could still walk and sometime they could even help me passing a few difficult part and smiled at me thinking may be what’s this silly girl’s doing here as if I didn’t belong to this mountain area.
I couldn't even think anymore, just walked passing these landslides. Dipu had to put extra effort to help me passing it. At some part that we think too dangerous, he had to pass the landslide first, putting his backpack at a safe ground, getting me and carry my backpack to pass
If you fall, that would be free fall style!
Don't think to fall here... there's nothing to hold, and you'll be down to the river... it. Never in my life I saw and walked thru such a scary landslides area.
Endlessly and desperately hoping to pass the landsslides area, we finally reached a safe point with a flag saying "thank you". For me... it's really a "thank you"!!! Big thank you in fact that I've passed it.
For about 1 hour then we walked to reach the Tilicho Basecamp... it's snowing a little... So happy to see yaks close to the basecamp... and warm kitchen in basecamp. It's already 6pm, pretty dark and sitting in the kitchen with fire felt like a luxury. I felt so lucky at the same time that we managed to reach the basecamp with all the difficulties and troubles.
There's only a cook in the basecamp, they said that the 2 women that used to work there were sick so they went back home to Khangsar. And this poor guy was also sick due to lots of trekkers that came just a day before us, and he had to prepare meals and everything by himself. We were so lucky that during our stay there when we arrived, there was only us and israeli couple, and 1 australian
guy. After having tea, we ordered our dinner, dal bhat for Dipu... and rice with Tuna for me. Dinner tasted so good, may be it's a combination of the cold weather and today exhaustion.
We had a nice chat with this limited guests. The information from the Israeli couple that just came back from Tilicho Lake really help, they said that the lake was frozen… but it’s still beautiful there… and you can just follow the stones at the trail heading to the view point of Tilicho Lake. He told us not to be worried about getting lost since there’s only 1 trail to follow.
We exchanged story about our scarying landslides experience today… and they said that actually they came to the basecamp choosing the upper trail, since they were advised that the upper trail is the safer one than the lower trail. But actually it was very difficult and also dangerous passing the upper trail they said. We couldn’t compare how difficult it is between the upper and lower trail. We said that the lower trail was difficult, but they’re also pretty sure that the upper trail was difficult so they decided to try the lower
trail tomorrow. Anyway… we hope to catch them again in Jomson, so we could exchange story again about the upper and lower trail (finally we met them again in Jomson after passing Thorung La, and they confirmed that both trails -upper and lower- is difficult and dangerous, but they preferred lower trail since it’s shorter than upper trail, and the uphill and downhill part was not as extreme as the upper trail). I hope this information would help trekkers going to Tilicho basecamp to decide which trail to choose between lower and upper trail.
There is no electricity in basecamp, so we prepared our candles and headtorch before sleeping, getting ready for tomorrow. We planned to start at 7 am, estimating 5 hours to reach Tilicho Lake and 3 hours going down plus 1 hour resting there so we should be able to reach the basecamp at about 4 or 5 pm. There was only an Australian Guy that would also go to Tilicho Lake tomorrow, the Israeli couple was actually already back from Tilicho so they would try to reach Yak Kharka tomorrow from the basecamp.
May11th… Tilicho Basecamp - Tilicho Lake - Tilicho Basecamp
We woke up at 6 am, washing our face and brushing teeth while ordering our breakfast. It was really cold, snowing and cloudy… made us worried whether we should go or not to Tilicho Lake today. The mountain looked like surrounded by cloud. We almost cancelled it, but the Israeli couple advised that we should go since the wheather changed quite quick here. They also left the basecamp yesterday with the same weather, and they had a nice wheather all day long. So after breakfast and the confusion of going or not, finally around 7.30 we left the basecamp… heading up to Tilicho Lake. The Australian left before us, anyway I didn’t really want to walk with him. He looked like a pro, he just arrived from Jomson passing Thorung La to Yak Kharka in one day. I would feel embarrassed if I walk with him… and I won’t be able to walk as fast as him.
It was really a beautiful scenes on the way to Tilicho Lake. There was no life being can be seen except the mountain of sand, stones, a few species of plantation that can survive the high altitude (very few…), and the wild
deers we saw running and crossing the trail up to the upperhill. We saw no one along the trail, and it’s a bit scary but beautiful! There was only a few landslides (not so many in comparison to the landslides heading to the basecamp), and it was quite safe to pass. Slowly ascending, passing the so familiar landslide and normal trail… we stopped every 30 minutes and had some drink to avoid dehydration. FYI, you should prepared at least 2 liter of water and bring lunch because there’s no place to buy food and refill water on the way to Tilicho Lake. We brought enough water and boiled potatoes for lunch also energy bar.
After about 4 hours, we finally reached the zigzag trail meaning we got closer to the lake. We met the Australian guys that already came back from the lake at this zigzag point. See how fast he was… we haven’t even passed the zigzag trail and he was heading down already. We asked whether he could see the path to the view point, and he said there was no path actually can be seen. It’s all snow, and you had to walk for about 30
minutes in the snow. Actually he said that he was a bit disappointed since you can only see the frozen lake. He didn’t mention specifically whether he saw the shape of the full lake or not, I guessed not!
So after the zigzag trail, walking carefully in the snow for 30 minutes… we thought we saw a small shape of the lake. We tried to find any sign of stone path… and there was nothing we could see except snow covering everything. And there was even no foot step that we could follow, all covered by snow. For a while we tried to guess how we could see the whole shape of the lake, and Dipu decided to give it a try using our pole and tried to find the view point. What happened was he fell down up to his neck into a very thick snow and he was so scared to hell and said that we shouldn’t risk ourselves walking and trying to find the viewpoint to see the whole shape of the lake. So we stopped at the safe place, and had our lunch… enjoying the beautiful atmosphere there for about 1 hour.
It was
so magically beautiful and peaceful overthere. There was only two of us, sitting in the snow, eating our lunch… and there’s no sound except a sound of avalanches from a distance (it sounded so scary). Everything else in life seemed so unimportant anymore in my life but the feeling of peacefulness being so close to natures… this amazing place that inviting me to come and witness its face. I forgot everything and kind of hypnotized by the natural beauty of this paradise, and I felt so thankful that we managed to reach this place despite of all the difficulties. There’s nothing matter anymore, all the hectic work in our normal life, all the tragic traumatic experiences, and all the wishes that never came true… it’s not important anymore! I was thankful to be here… and that’s all matter!
I felt hesitated to leave this peaceful place after 1 hour rest, but we had to go back to the basecamp so we did. NO stress at all heading back, there was no pressures as we still had plenty of time so we tried to enjoy our walk back as much as possible. We enjoyed the experience of being the
only human in this area as there was no other trekkers passing it at this time… and we could walk and sit everywhere on the trail that I thought as a luxury making my pant dirty and we didn’t bother at all!
We arrived at the basecamp quite late around 6 pm, as we stopped every here and there along the way. Happy coming from Tilicho Lake, we stayed another night in the basecamp… relaxed a bit… had dinner… and slept… Tomorrow would be difficult due to having to pass the landslides area again since we had no choices, that’s the only way! I didn’t even want to think about tomorrow, I was still happy about my today experience… and let me think tomorrow about having to pass this landslides! There was no use to worry about it now… I was happy and peaceful now!
We planned to reach Tilicho Peak Hotel from the basecamp tomorrow, we didn’t want to push until Yak Kharka since we might be exhausted having to pass the landslides. We predicted around 6 - 7 hours walking tomorrow from the basecamp to Tilicho Peak Hotel, while for a professional trekkers it might only
take 3-4 hours. For us it’s double, since we always stop everytime, and some part Dipu has to do it 3 times… one for himself and put the backpack, second… getting me backway, and third… passing it again with me while carrying my backpack. It must be really tiring for him doing that, but we had no other choices.
May 12th… Tilicho Basecamp - Tilicho Peak Hotel
After breakfast in the morning, we left the basecamp slowly walking to our next stop. I tried not to think about the danger of landslides area that we have to pass today, until we pass it.
After about 1 hour walking, we reached the landslides. Carefully passing it, there came our first problem. As can be seen in the pictures, we all know that the trail is really small sometime it’s only the size of your one foot and other time you can barely see it. When we tried to pass one landslide hill, already half way… I saw one yak coming. I screamed and told Dipu a Yak came approaching us so we had to get back to the safe area. So we did, getting back to the
area where there’s stones so you can sit there while waiting for the Yak to pass. There was no space for Yak and us to walk side by side, not even space for 2 people to do it.
The second problem was, actually after we hide behind the stone there were more Yaks coming… so many maybe more than 25 of them. The third problem was, actually the Yaks were so scared of seeing us as we were so scared of seeing them so they stopped walking in the middle of the trail. For sometimes, we looked at each other with no movement taking place. I guessed we just have to really hide so they can’t see us… so we did! Finally, one tried to pass the trail… they got so suspicious and ran so fast, sometimes they even went down this sand mountain not to be close to us while passing it. I guessed they’ve never seen human so they are scared of us. Waiting for more than 25 yaks to pass the trail was a long time. Sometimes they just stopped and checked whether we’re still there or not, and I almost thought they would never pass
the trail if they could smell us still. May be we’re both getting tired waiting of each other already, finally the Yaks collected all their guts and ran passing us. I felt so sorry that I’ve made these Yaks scared eventhought I didn’t do any harm to them, just hiding!
After that we continued walking and I immediately stopped since I didn’t feel confident to pass it. Dipu said it’s ok, let’s just walk together but I refused. I asked Dipu to pass this landslide , put his backpack and got me back to pass it. So there came another incident, I saw Dipu threw his brandnew DSLR Nikon camera so the camera fell and sliding down this landslide without nothing to hold it to the end of whatever it was. I screamed and cried since I didn’t understand what’s going on and why Dipu threw his camera down. I saw it from a distance, and I was so scared by not knowing what made Dipu threw his camera.
When he came to me, his face was so pale and he was so quiet… He told me that he’s ok and he hold my hand to pass this landslide so we passed it. I was still crying, and afterward Dipu said that he almost fell down since he couldn’t keep his balance between his backpack and the big camera (he kept it outside), so without thinking he thought he pulled out the camera bag from his neck and put it down the trail (he didn’t threw it) while I saw the camera falling down. I didn’t think that the space was enough to put the camera on the ground as I mentioned earlier, the trail was really small… of course the camera falling down since it’s 45 degree sand!
I told Dipu it’s better to lose the camera than me losing him! Anyway, we still had 2 extra small cameras. What we lost was Camera with extra wide lense, and 500 pictures that we took… As a result, we didn’t have the Tilicho Lake pictures since we only brought 1 big camera by that time so we lost our pictures. We were sad that we lost the pictures… not because of losing the camera.
Again, we encountered Yaks once more, and this time the landslide was even more dangerous since it’s going up. Well, I told Dipu not to be scared and kept on walking. I was pretty sure that the Yaks would try to find the safe place and let us passing them, based on our experience before. They wouldn’t block our way, but they would go up or down as they were more pro than us walking in the landslides. So we kept on walking, and I was right… they tried to avoid us by going down the landslide. They could walk in the 45 degree landslides better than any human being. I was so astonished seeing this fatty heavy hairy creatures sliding and walking! And I became more confident and was even more motivated to finish the landslides… My quote was “IF YAKS COULD WALK IN THE LANDSLIDES, SO COULD I”.
So, continuing walking while trying to forget our lost today… we finally reached Tilicho Peak Hotel in the afternoon. It was very cold there too, so we stayed in the kitchen for dinner before sleeping. I remembered in the evening, we stayed outside for a while and saw the amazingly beautiful golden color ice mountain in the dark… It’s sparkling like diamond because of the moonlight, the color was so wonderful worthed all the effort we did to be there… The lodge was clean… our room was a lot nicer in comparison to the basic lodge in the basecamp.
Tomorrow morning, we planned to reach Yak Kharka via seasonal trail heading there. Our next target would be passing Thorung La as the highest pass in this region. We have already completed Tilicho Lake, and my next dream was about being in Thorung La. I felt so content and happy… forgot about landslides and our loss already!
May 13th - Tilicho Peak Hotel - Seasonal Trail to Yak Kharka (was lost until 2 pm) - Khangsar - Manang
This route mentioned above was a bit weird. Actually it’s not supposed to be like that, we actually were lost on the seasonal trail to Yak Kharka from morning til about 2 p.m. That was not predicted at all, that we’ll be lost here. After walking for about one and half hour, we saw something like a village going up… when we reached this village, we saw that it’s an empty village with no one living here. But I guessed the villager in Khangsar may be keeping their goats there. We thought we could ask for direction, but no body to ask. So we tried to follow lots of foot step that actually lead us to the wrong direction. Following foot step is not always right guys! We are the evidence of misguiding foot step.
From morning walking without seeing any life being… no human… no horses… no nothing… We walked endlessly until about 2 pm until I finally felt weird that we haven’t seen anything. And it’s already 2 p.m, and the trail that we followed looked weird since I could only see lots of mountain without any clear connection.
I was telling Dipu finally, I thought we are lost! Dipu still tried to find the right trail, but I was so frustrated already and my feeling was not so good any more about walking to this endless mountain while we’re not so sure where to walk anymore. So nearly frustrated walking for hours, I called it off!!! I wanted to get back to the intersection going to this seasonal trail, and from there I wanted to reach Manang. We had a big quarrel since Dipu was telling me that we would go to Manang and walk to Humde and going home! He didn’t realize how I want to reach Thorung La… I was so frustrated hearing that he gave up already, so I walked so fast almost ran leaving Dipu behind. I was so upset and mad of him! How could he gave up easily!!! He walked better than me… he was more professional than me… and he’s stronger than me! I couldn’t even walk properly like him, but I won’t give up that easily. I told him to go home alone, and I will continue walking by myself…
We didn’t talk for about 1 hours while we finally reached the intersection… I was bursting and crying! We finally talked after we reached the intersection to this seasonal trail, and Dipu said we will go to Manang, and tomorrow we will try to reach Yak Kharka via the normal trail in Annapurna Circuit.
Around 3.30 pm we reached Khangsar, so we stopped to refill water. Out of curiousity, we asked the villager the right trail going to Yak Kharka via seasonal trail. And so funny, they said lots of people got lost passing this seasonal trail… so we’re not the only one. And I felt so weird at the same time, if they know there are so many people lost there, why don’t they make a proper sign?
I got upper leg injured on the way to Manang from Khangsar, so we walked very slow. Going up it’s ok for me, but I couldn’t go down. It really hurt my leg to go down. Due to this injury, we reached Manang really late already… It’s around 7pm… and I was so exhausted… worried that tomorrow I can’t continue walking to Yak Kharka.
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Shlomo
non-member comment
That was my dream!
beereni, tilicho lake was my dream too. but I had different adventures. all people I asked about the trail said there are landslides but they are not as bad as you described it. I want to fly one day to Jomsom , from there walk 5 days through Tilicho lake and fly back to pokhara from Homde. I hope one day I'll do it. I just hope I won't be to scared do the landslides. thank you for the information. here is my story: http://trektheunknown.com/2008/03/06/annapurna-circuit-%e2%80%93-day-9-%e2%80%93-trying-to-reach-tilicho-lake/