I am at 4925m or so, in a bright yellow tent next to Tilicho Lake. Getting here involved an unbelievable effort today, trekking up endless dusty trails, negotiating yak herds, traversing avalanche-prone scree slopes, and climbing through thigh-high snow! It’s pretty cold, but I am wearing lots of clothes in my sleeping bag and, after Dorchi served hot chocolate and chicken soup, things could definitely be a lot worse. During our ascent, I wondered if I would make it, or pass out from the altitude and effort. There was such a sense of surrender in me to whatever was going to unfold. I definitely felt like I was stepping closer to heaven.
Finally reaching the lake was a bit of an anticlimax as it was getting dark, on top of the weather being cloudy all around us – the views were therefore almost in greyscale with all the snow, cloud and occasional black rock. I managed to do the video recording of David Whyte’s “Tilicho Lake” poem as planned, after sending Dorchi and Syange ahead so I did not get distracted by them. To be honest, I was so physically tired that I had a bit of “that’ll do” attitude going on, instead of my usual perfectionism with these things.
The lake is completely covered with ice, even now in the second week of May. It’s so thick one could walk across it. At one end stands a vertical glacier, and the other sides are surrounded by varying degrees of mountain slopes. We are camped out on one of those slopes, listening to the ice groans on the lake, avalanches rolling down from the peaks and night-time sleet falling on our tents.
Tomorrow we start very early to get to the Pass, hopefully with less snow to wade through than today. My body is holding up well in the midst of these extreme physical hardships today, and I only have a vague headache as testimony to these great heights. Once we are over the Pass tomorrow, there’ll be more and more oxygen for me as we descend. Hooray!
“Tilicho Lake” recital at Tilicho Lake
Right-click or ctrl-click this link to download
