August 29-30

Monday the 29th was a chill day.  We had a nice breakfast and then did a final gear check before packing our duffels up for the journey to basecamp.  Each climber will have two 50# duffel bags to contain everything needed for climbing Manaslu.  Organization is critical because searching through two duffel bags to find something small is a frustrating process.  We’ve separated our bags into two categories.  One bag is for stuff that we won’t need until basecamp and the other will stay with us along the trek.  The gear check went well and no adjustments or last-minute shopping was required. 


We spent the afternoon with a few others from our team in the pool and hanging around outside.  Tomorrow, we begin the next step in our journey and leave the comforts of the Hyatt Regency behind.  Dinner was a team event, and the size of our group became more evident.  We have 12 climbers and 6 trekkers.  This is much bigger than I expected and after a few conversations, we find out that some of our teammates were last minute additions.

The best conversation of the evening was with a private guide named Thomas.  He was introduced to us in the team meeting as being from Argentina.  This rang a bell in my head, and I wondered if the connection could actually be true.  A little later, we had a chance to talk, and I asked him if he remembered a climb on Aconcagua in January of 2009 where he was hired to guide a team arriving in High camp at 19,200’ because two of their guides were sick and had to leave the mountain.  It took a few more details including the fact that he had just summitted the day before coming up to join us and then Thomas remembered the situation well.  Another minute or two and he found this photo of Alan (Pipestone shop foreman), Alan’s wife Debby, Kriss and me along with the rest of our team on the summit.  Now that’s a small world!

It’s Tuesday the 30th and we’re headed out after breakfast.  It’s good to be moving again even though we will have a bumpy, twisty, and turney ride for 7 hours to Besishahar.  Here’s a photo of our team: 


The ride was all that was advertised and more.  We saw significant road damage due to big rain events from the monsoon season.  Some washed out areas created one-lane roadways with loose edges over steep cliffs.  Not the sort of road to be driving a wide bus full of climbers and trekkers on.  We got to one spot that was also steep and had an S curve in it and of-course two-way traffic.  The result was a half-hour traffic jam that had to be sorted out carefully to get everyone untangled. 

Arriving in Besishahar, we got settled, had dinner and off to bed.  Tomorrow we trade our bus for jeeps as the roads are forecasted to be much rougher.

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