On my trip I took a series of photo collages to put together at a future date. With our internet being down the last few days, I have had some offline computer time to work on them. Here are a few for your viewing pleasure. *they should open into a new window to let you look at the big versions up close*
River in Soppong
I will probably redo this collage a bit as it was my first attempt and I learned a lot from the following two. I love the colors though! Yafit and I played in this waterfall for quite a while our last day in Soppong. It's got a natural, mini water slide at the bottom and a few bathing pools up top. Pretty much perfect.
Valley View
On the Annapurna circuit trek there were a few junctions where we could choose between hard and easy paths. One time we aimed for easy and we got hard. Crazy hard. In the pounding rain. Straight up a mountain. The second time we chose hard and we got hard. Crazy hard. In the burning sun. Straight up a mountain. Both times we were rewarded with stunning views. This is a valley view from the second of these two adventures. We started our day just around the other side of the mountain on the left (not too far up from the river - yeah THAT river. The one alllllllll the way down there). This shot was taken just after our first tea break - aka probably about a third of the total distance that day. Luckily it was just about the highest point of that journey.
360 and Beyond
At 4800m (15,748 ft), Thorung La High Camp presented one of the hardest challenges of the circuit. We inched ourselves up the last kilometer, sure that we would never see the top. Again and again we saw false summits. Again and again we held out hope that our guest house would peek out from around the next pile of rocks. Again and again we were disappointed to see nothing but more mountain to be climbed. When we did actually see buildings in the distance, even the promise of food, warmth, and a place to sit were not enough to convince us we could make it. Don't believe me? Witness Markus' reaction to our first sighting of the lodge. In case you don't speak German, let me interpret for you: that is not an expression of joy. In fact, I think he was actually trying to will the buildings closer to him because he was sure he couldn't get any closer to them.
We did manage to get there though, and once we recovered enough to walk again we explored the area a bit. This panorama shows the entire camp and surrounding mountains. It doubles over on itself at the end but it is so beautiful I figured there was no harm seeing the same mountain twice. Enjoy!
River in Soppong
I will probably redo this collage a bit as it was my first attempt and I learned a lot from the following two. I love the colors though! Yafit and I played in this waterfall for quite a while our last day in Soppong. It's got a natural, mini water slide at the bottom and a few bathing pools up top. Pretty much perfect.
Valley View
On the Annapurna circuit trek there were a few junctions where we could choose between hard and easy paths. One time we aimed for easy and we got hard. Crazy hard. In the pounding rain. Straight up a mountain. The second time we chose hard and we got hard. Crazy hard. In the burning sun. Straight up a mountain. Both times we were rewarded with stunning views. This is a valley view from the second of these two adventures. We started our day just around the other side of the mountain on the left (not too far up from the river - yeah THAT river. The one alllllllll the way down there). This shot was taken just after our first tea break - aka probably about a third of the total distance that day. Luckily it was just about the highest point of that journey.
At 4800m (15,748 ft), Thorung La High Camp presented one of the hardest challenges of the circuit. We inched ourselves up the last kilometer, sure that we would never see the top. Again and again we saw false summits. Again and again we held out hope that our guest house would peek out from around the next pile of rocks. Again and again we were disappointed to see nothing but more mountain to be climbed. When we did actually see buildings in the distance, even the promise of food, warmth, and a place to sit were not enough to convince us we could make it. Don't believe me? Witness Markus' reaction to our first sighting of the lodge. In case you don't speak German, let me interpret for you: that is not an expression of joy. In fact, I think he was actually trying to will the buildings closer to him because he was sure he couldn't get any closer to them.
We did manage to get there though, and once we recovered enough to walk again we explored the area a bit. This panorama shows the entire camp and surrounding mountains. It doubles over on itself at the end but it is so beautiful I figured there was no harm seeing the same mountain twice. Enjoy!
