Day 21 - May 23 - The climb to Shikha

Today we repeated the climb we did last November on day 13 of our Annapurna trip. Although we tried to avoid repetition, in this case there is only one reasonable route up the valley from Tatopani. All the alternatives went much higher and required camping equipment, which we had sent back to Kathmandu. It's a beautiful and interesting trail, though, so repetition was really no problem.

The sweltering heat of the lowlands WAS a problem. It had rained hard in the night, so Tatopani felt even more tropical than usual. Even when we started at 7:30, we were already dripping with sweat. We tried to gain altitude as quickly as possible to escape the heat.

The overnight rain had also brought down a small landslide on the road. We walked across it easily but traffic was stopped in both directions. An impatient jeep driver tried to make it across at high speed, but predictably got stuck in the knee-deep mud. It was still there when we passed out of sight.


We climbed steadily all morning and reached our lunch place Shikha about 12:30. Thunderstorm clouds were building too, and the first drops of rain hit just as we were walking in the door. It rained and hailed heavily while we were eating lunch.

Although the rain stopped briefly, we wisely decided to stop there for the night. The clouds opened up again just as we were taking our bags to our basic room. We pitied the German group who had passed us intent on reaching Ghorapani way that night. They would climb most of the afternoon in the rain.