Trekking to Tibet: La Chu Camp

Contemplation

From the journal:

I'm sitting in the shadow of this mighty mountain I've come so far to see...

...I'm so shaken up. We've spent another 9 hours bouncing over the tracks of western Tibet to the foot of Mt Kailash. My stomach is a mess, my emotions are a mess, my body is a mess.

I'd decided yesterday not to do the kora, as I'm so broken up that I felt I'd probably just give up and die there. When we got here, I looked at it and thought "Don't wallow, fool! Don't be a pussy. There's absolutely nothing you can do now about what's going on at home. So: Do what you came for - face your demons!"

Now I've heard that Drolma La (the 18,500ft pass on the route) is thick with ice and somewhere between two and several people have died crossing it. The down side is apparently really steep and without crampons (which we don't have) these people allegedly slid to their deaths after crossing it.

Altitude, while not an issue for me while at rest, has become very obvious with exertion. The start and finish altitudes of the Guge Kingdom hill climb yesterday were substantially lower than those we face here, and I was completely wrecked there after climbing less than 20 steps. I'd need a 3 to 4 minute pause before tackling the next 20. Translate that to this mountain and it becomes pretty daunting. To hear that people have died...

No decision either way has yet been made. The Saga Dawa festival is here tomorrow and we weren't planning on beginning the kora until the following day. The mountain looks so easy and friendly in the late afternoon light - the thought of death waiting up there seems so unlikely and yet it came pretty close to us on the trek out of Nepal. And that's supposed to be easier than this...