Sikkim Trek; April - May 2003

04/25 Kokchurong to Dzongri Hut

7:30am

Warm night (43 degrees) and a glorious morning. Slept very well and had pleasant dreams.

Dzongri Hut, 12,400 Ft, 3:00pm

Gained 1,495 feet today, starting with a steep 1,000 foot climb right away. Sun faded to mist and clouds, making it a rather chilly day. We climbed out of rhododendron and pine forest to rolling highlands with low juniper and grasses. Martin spotted a yellow rhododendron ready to bloom, but still in buds. One good patch of purple wildflowers. Met a nice group of Germans on their way down.

On a particularly steep section of the trail I am forced to answer nature's call by hanging off the tenuous branches of a rhododendron tree. It's not a glamorous scaling event, but far more functional and requires a similar knack of finding foot and hand holds and one-handed acrobatics and messing about with equipment; in this case, tissue. I complete my task and regain the trail with a climber's sense of relief and accomplishment.

The village of Dzongri is one of the few on my Nepal/Sikkim map. We toured "downtown" Dzongri; a half-dozen stone huts and a couple of friendly zoes. Looks like it is inhabited year-round, unlike most of the native huts we've seen.

Arrived at the trekkers' hut around 12:15pm after a 3 1/2 hour walk. Lunch included a very good beet and mushroom soup with a potato and rice-noodle stew over white rice. I had a pack of Martin's Thai Airlines peanuts to add some protein.

After lunch I changed my shirt, pants and socks for the first time in seven days. Did a load of laundry in the stream - quite brisk - and have it hanging all over the tent to dry. We're staying here two nights so tomorrow can be another drying day.

Our plan is to get up at 4am and hike to "Dzongri Top" for a clear view of the entire range before the clouds come in for the day. Then we'll come back to camp for some food and an afternoon nap. Most of the porters have a day off, but some have gone down to Chokra to purchase more food.

I am thinking of home and furniture and being really clean. I also remember that today is the day escrow closes on the sale of my San Ramon townhouse. Ilana is signing all the papers, and I hope it goes smoothly.

5:00pm

I spent the afternoon sitting in the front of my tent. I also took the time to set up the ThermaRest "easy chair", which was a brilliant stroke!

I finished Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. It's a very beautiful and stimulating work, but I couldn't make enough sense of it to complete the homework assignment Don had given his students. I am determined to read the other two works in the volume, then re-read Pilgrim before returning home. After that, I want to have it explained to me.

There are horses roaming about, looking for grass or anything else to eat. There's not much grass left around the site, though. They have better luck in the garbage pit, but keep getting beaten away from it by whoever notices them.

It occurs to me that this is the first time I can remember living around horses, zoes and yaks (or animals of any sort) for days on end. I have also become quite curious to know how they can place their hind feet with such accuracy. I am pretty good at picking my way along a rough trail, but it requires close coordination between seeing a foothold and stepping on it. Coordinating four feet, a second pair five feet behind the first, seems impossible.

There's a handsome chunk of granite just outside the tent. I am struck by the thought that with a bit of polish it would look great in a bank, post office or courthouse. There are also several bone fragments, some trash and a lot of dung scattered here and there. How many banks could we erect just by picking up the stones lying about?

The afternoon has alternated between patches of bright sunlight (which hasn't put a dent in the drying of my clothes) and clouds actually passing through the camp. Occasionally you can see a great distance and there are puffy clouds in blue sky, then it goes to pea soup and you can't see the horse across the way. Mostly it is just damp and increasingly chilly.

The cloud flow comes up the valley from the south or streams over the ridge from the west. They linger, clear, and then flow back down the valley towards the south. They're not actually going anywhere, just milling about.

8:35pm

About to turn in, with a 4am alarm. Martin and I took a brief stroll up to the ridge at dusk to watch the clouds roll by. It's clear overhead, but there are electrical storms to the south and west. It's been coming closer, and is pretty impressive. I hope it doesn't actually reach us. Broke out the down jacket for our pre-dawn excursion.