Trekking, Day 8, Kagbeni, Muktinath, Jomsom – Up early at 6 a.m. because I wanted to hike up to the pilgrimage point of Muktinath at 3710 meters to see the village and temples up there before hiking down to Jomsom in the late afternoon in order to get our flight the next day. We left at 6:15 a.m. and started the very-very steep climb up the ridge towards Muktinath. It was overcast and cold when we started but tolerable. We reached the top of the first ridge and traversed the top of it to the base of the second one.
We started climbing the second ridge and it began to snow lightly. Not letting the element stop me, we continued on but it began to snow harder and harder. We hit the crest of the second peak, walked across the field towards the third ridge. Ram kept telling me we had a lot more climbing to go but I wanted to see myself. The snow gave us zero visibility, but once we were close enough to the third ridge and I could see the trail going up at a 45-degree angle, I figured I had been beaten.
The snow came down harder and harder and the wind picked up making it a full-on blizzard. I decided to go trekking through. We turned around and headed back down the mountain, and I took note that we could not even see the village because there was so much snow. We arrived back in Kagbeni at 8 a.m. for a tea break and to dry out before leaving for our final destination Jomsom. We walked back down the dry riverbed for three hours and finally arrived in Jomsom, just before the wind picked up.
We got a room in a lodge near the airport and sat inside all afternoon because it was too windy and cold to go outside. It began to snow in the late afternoon and continued to snow all night. Ram taught me the game Carrom Board, which is just like American pool crossed with shuffleboard. You flick these poker chips across a powdered board attempting to knock the pieces of your color into the four-corner pockets. It was so cold and there was not any power, so Ram and I retired to our room at 7 p.m. for the night.
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ADDENDUM-
While we were sitting around the table, I learned all the words to this Nepalese song that Ram and Som had started to teach me in Ulleri. All Nepalese people know this song, it is called Rassampieree. There is no direct translation for the title, but Ram told me people say it when they are celebrating and waving a scarf over their head. It is a celebration chant, the words not the song. They sing the song at the Donsai festival in April, but people generally sing it all the year around. This song is written phonetically so we can read it, then the translation follows. This song is also sung at Nepalese weddings. Insert text of Nepali song.