Annapurna with snow at the higher elevations and glaciers reaching down to the valley we were following. At the village of Manang, we spent two nights getting used to the altitude. The next stage would be over the Thorung La pass (17,769 feet).
I had gone ahead of my group so I was on my own when I reached a large hut at Thorung Pedi, just below the pass. This was a miserable place, run by a lazy, slow-witted guardian. Or maybe he was high. The dining room was dirty and the dormitory room, where there was no fire, freezing. A large group from Italy occupied many of the bunks. Most people were feeling the altitude, and everyone was tired from the last section of trail. I took a top bunk with very little space between the bed and the ceiling and slept badly.
The Italians, who had two guides, asked if I wanted to join them. They said they would leave at 3 a.m. I thanked them, and said no. I reckoned to give them three hours start, and follow on my own when it got light. I wanted to do this part on my own and I didn't anticipate any problem keeping to a trail which had been a main trade route for centuries. At daybreak the next morning, I left the hut, and followed a steep winding trail up to the pass.
A few hours later, just as the trail leveled out, I found I was obscured in cloud with snow starting to fall. I followed the footsteps of the Italians for a little while, but then the snow obscured them. Visibility dropped, and it was getting colder. It didn't take me long to decide that I wasn't going to make the pass on my own. I had not anticipated bad weather and had made a mistake by not joining the Italians and leaving earlier. They would have cleared the pass before the clouds came down and the snow started to fall.
This was no time for heroics. I saw the possibility of frost bite or worse if I hung around. I was disappointed, but not particularly so. I had simply been unlucky with the weather, and now a new plan was needed. So I turned around and headed back down to the hut. I was already making an alternative plan. I would not wait for my group to arrive and go over the pass with them. I would head back down the trail and find a village called Manang where I had heard there was air service to Kathmandu, cutting short the Annapurna trek.
I got lucky. There was a flight to Kathmandu scheduled for the next day. Two local women, an Austrian trekker with altitude sickness, and I waited for the plane the next morning. It arrived suddenly and dropped down quickly on to the short paved runway. It was a Royal Nepal Airlines six-passenger Pilatus plane, specially designed for mountain flying. We took off equally quickly, bounced around as we gained altitude then leveled out. To the right I could see the whole length of the mighty mountain range, and far below tiny ribbons which were the trails we had used. In one hour and twenty minutes we left the mountain range and dropped down to Kathmandu airport - a trip that had taken 8 days on foot. I hadn't completed the Annapurna circuit, but I'd had a good hike with agreeable companions.
A few days later, in my guest house in Kathmandu, I saw a sign: "Jerry Brown from USA is in the city jail and would appreciate guests." I bought an English-language paper to give Jerry, and got admitted to the barracks-like city jail. I was escorted to the visitors' area, a space outside a large window of the cell block. Looking out from the window, jostling for space and trying to make themselves heard were the prisoners who had visitors. I shouted American, and someone went off and came back with a young fair-haired guy. This was Jerry. He seemed composed, and not particularly surprised or pleased to have a visitor.
Amid the babble of all the other people shouting messages across he told me why he was inside. He had tried to mail some hashish to his girlfriend in the States, and the package had been intercepted. He had put his name and guest house address on the outside of the package. He had not
I had gone ahead of my group so I was on my own when I reached a large hut at Thorung Pedi, just below the pass. This was a miserable place, run by a lazy, slow-witted guardian. Or maybe he was high. The dining room was dirty and the dormitory room, where there was no fire, freezing. A large group from Italy occupied many of the bunks. Most people were feeling the altitude, and everyone was tired from the last section of trail. I took a top bunk with very little space between the bed and the ceiling and slept badly.
The Italians, who had two guides, asked if I wanted to join them. They said they would leave at 3 a.m. I thanked them, and said no. I reckoned to give them three hours start, and follow on my own when it got light. I wanted to do this part on my own and I didn't anticipate any problem keeping to a trail which had been a main trade route for centuries. At daybreak the next morning, I left the hut, and followed a steep winding trail up to the pass.
A few hours later, just as the trail leveled out, I found I was obscured in cloud with snow starting to fall. I followed the footsteps of the Italians for a little while, but then the snow obscured them. Visibility dropped, and it was getting colder. It didn't take me long to decide that I wasn't going to make the pass on my own. I had not anticipated bad weather and had made a mistake by not joining the Italians and leaving earlier. They would have cleared the pass before the clouds came down and the snow started to fall.
This was no time for heroics. I saw the possibility of frost bite or worse if I hung around. I was disappointed, but not particularly so. I had simply been unlucky with the weather, and now a new plan was needed. So I turned around and headed back down to the hut. I was already making an alternative plan. I would not wait for my group to arrive and go over the pass with them. I would head back down the trail and find a village called Manang where I had heard there was air service to Kathmandu, cutting short the Annapurna trek.
I got lucky. There was a flight to Kathmandu scheduled for the next day. Two local women, an Austrian trekker with altitude sickness, and I waited for the plane the next morning. It arrived suddenly and dropped down quickly on to the short paved runway. It was a Royal Nepal Airlines six-passenger Pilatus plane, specially designed for mountain flying. We took off equally quickly, bounced around as we gained altitude then leveled out. To the right I could see the whole length of the mighty mountain range, and far below tiny ribbons which were the trails we had used. In one hour and twenty minutes we left the mountain range and dropped down to Kathmandu airport - a trip that had taken 8 days on foot. I hadn't completed the Annapurna circuit, but I'd had a good hike with agreeable companions.
A few days later, in my guest house in Kathmandu, I saw a sign: "Jerry Brown from USA is in the city jail and would appreciate guests." I bought an English-language paper to give Jerry, and got admitted to the barracks-like city jail. I was escorted to the visitors' area, a space outside a large window of the cell block. Looking out from the window, jostling for space and trying to make themselves heard were the prisoners who had visitors. I shouted American, and someone went off and came back with a young fair-haired guy. This was Jerry. He seemed composed, and not particularly surprised or pleased to have a visitor.
Amid the babble of all the other people shouting messages across he told me why he was inside. He had tried to mail some hashish to his girlfriend in the States, and the package had been intercepted. He had put his name and guest house address on the outside of the package. He had not
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