Kangchenjunga

Three in the morning. Several mobile phone alarms ring. It’s day three at 4,000 meters (13000 ft), day five of the trek. Only my nose sticks out of my three sleeping bags: a hut sleeping bag in my 5 degree sleeping bag, which in turn is in the sleeping bag of the tour operator. The whole thing on a thin mat on wood. My pants and fleece are also in my sleeping bag to warm them up. Nevertheless, it is best to put everything on as quickly as possible and to slip into my mountain boots so that the ski socks don’t get cold. I stomp out of the unheated hut through the freshly fallen snow to the outhouse. Listening to the crunching snow, I estimate the temperature at -15 degrees. Our transport Dzos (crossing of Yak and cow) must have frozen badly this night, not to mention the horses of the other groups. Having arrived at the toilet, I don’t see as much of the variety of human excrements as before and you can smell them less in the cold. Thank God the sky is clear, the full moon tints the giants of the Himalayas in a blue glow. Euphoria starts to grow and warms me up, because if it is clear now, we will see the sunrise and afterwards have good weather at our destination.

Almost every day there is the same spectacle. In the morning it is nice weather, the maximum temperature of the day is reached around ten o’clock, the snow melts, then it gets cold again and it snows again. Our cook prepares us a small breakfast with porridge and tea, then we start through the valley towards Goecha-La, the highest point of our 8-day tour. We trudge over frozen streams through the moonlight, you don’t need a lamp. It is slowly getting lighter and we can already see the snow-covered peaks of Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world. However, something’s different than two days ago. There is not that euphoria, not the tears in the eyes like at the Dzongri lookout, where the mountain range appeared all of a sudden and I was struck by the beauty of what I saw there. Here the majestic mountains appear slower and I feel a bit uneasy because there are still a few hundred meters of altitude difference ahead of me, all well over 4000 m (13,000 ft). The air is thin and if you go about it too fast, you get a headache and may not make it to the finish line before the clouds arrive.

After sunrise and maybe 200 photos it gets quite steep. I feel good, but then I realize that there is no point in hurrying, our guide by the name of Budda is always waiting for the rest of the group. I’m a little surprised that I’m first behind the guide. Our two Spaniards, oh Sorry, a Spaniard and a Catalan, are actually the fittest. Juan is an ultra-marathon runner, but Jordie had altitude sickness the last few days. When the sun transforms the valley into a glittering white, the two guys speed up and overtake us. I realize that I can’t keep up anymore and get in lane behind Conny, who has always set a pace that was just right for me the last few days. A few minutes after the guide and the Spaniards but before the young Indian Vicky we reach the viewpoint totally exhausted. Just breathe, then get the camera out. Or maybe satisfy the massive hunger with our packed lunch? It doesn’t matter, just be quick, the clouds from the valley can arrive at any time. After these matters have been settled, we are staring at this wonder of nature that presents itself before us. We are now only a few kilometers away from the Kangchenjunga, only that with 8586m (28,169 ft) it is four kilometers higher. The GPS with geoid correction shows our altitude at 4620m (15157 ft). That’s as high as it goes, from here on there’s restricted area. I am proud to have made it here without altitude problems and I am totally tired looking for a rock on which I can settle down. I fall asleep in the warm sunshine. Then the clouds arrive, one of us didn’t make it. Suresh, the other Indian, is 56 years old and just a bit too slow. Too bad for him.

On the way down, the experiences of the last days go through my mind again. The long way from our starting point at 1750m, how Conny was pushed off the path by a wild, pregnant yak (well, she had wished for wild yaks), getting used to the toilet situation, where not everyone has always hit the hole, a lick and a promise with ice-cold creek water, the blooming rhododendron on the way below 3500 m, the delicious food, that our team conjured for us from everything the Dzos carried (even chocolate cake we had in the Himalayas), the beautiful views every morning, the jolly atmosphere in our group of six people, from whom we were indulged additionally with wonderful Spanish sausage and Italian cheese, but also the cold, as soon as you come to rest, no matter how much you wear. For a long time, we had cured ourselves and waited in order to be able to experience this trek. Now we are torn between the sadness that the trek is soon over and the anticipation of a warm shower and a soft bed.

Five days later on the flight to Varanasi. It took a while, but the former mountain kingdom of Sikkim fascinated us, with its breathtaking nature, which all too often hides in the fog, with the Buddhist monasteries, with its delicious, Tibetan-Nepalese food, with its friendly, shy, East Asian looking inhabitants, with the cleanliness (for Indian standards), with the few tourists, with the peacefulness and the clear mountain air. Sikkim, trapped between Nepal and Bhutan, felt so different from the India we had experienced before.