Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Day 2&3 - Acclimatization trek

Our acclimatization trek is a MUST DO! The landscape is beautiful.

Moday: We walked about 6 hours from 4100m to 4600m. We did a lunch break front of the Huatsan glacier and his beautiful dark blue lake with some icebergs floating. This glacier is very active, and avalanches very frequent. We slept front of this glacier, enjoying the alpine glow on the Huatsan massif. It is a really impressive massif. The night was not very cold. I am amazed that I did not even have a small headache due to the agrresive altitude gain.

video: 4600m panaramic view from our sleeping camp : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0yHirQAzpk

Tuesday: 7h of intense trek. We walked about 2h and reach the upper glacier lake of the Huatsan massif. The lake is turquoise, it is gorgeous ! To reach the pass, we have to go through a loose rocks section, then walked on the snow. The view at the pass is stunting. You are between 2 valleys and surrended by snow capped mountains. The pass is at 5000m, and I feel great. Then we went down, running in the scree, following by a short walk to another lake. This time the lake is green, due to copper and iron. We had our lunch there, then we went down the valley for few hours until 3800m to go up again to reach Churup base camp at 3960m. The last ascent part was tough. Long day ... but so beautiful

video: panoramic view from Huasan Pass : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSHxJpu0bsw

Please note that this trek is not for beginners, it is for intermediate/expert due to:

  • various types of terrain : mud, snow, scree, loose rocks, broken rocks ...
  • it is pretty steep : angle between 30 to 45 almost all the way
  • no trail : so you need to use the french step to ease the pressure on your ankles

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