Flashback: Nepal...Matt speaks!

HI everyone! Well, as I previously alluded, Matt has written a blog on his sans-Jen adventures in the mountains! He is a little shy about the whole thing, but I personally think this blog effort is above and beyond. You can see for yourself..enjoy!
So I started out this trip with the intention of participating in the art of blogging, but it will be obvious to the blog fans that Jen has been doing most, OK all, of the entries. She has far more talent and patience with it than I do. I promised I would write something about the trekking that I did while Jen was at her yoga retreat though, and if there is one thing that I can expound upon until everyone else is sick of hearing about it, it's mountains. So here goes.Our first trek was a great experience, and definitely scenic, but it left me wanting a bit more. We had some spectacular mountain views, but it involved looking at the high mountains from the vantage of the surrounding hills(even though those "hills" were over 10000 feet tall). I wanted to get into the thick of the mountains, stand at their very feet, and completely immerse myself. So I worked out a plant to hike to Annapurna Base Camp and back over 7 days, and hired a guide so that I would not be travelling alone.My guide turned out to be fantastic! His name was Mani Tamang, he spoke 7different languages (Nepal is about as crazy as India is in terms of the number of languages spoken here), and he was very friendly. He also had quite a talent for spotting wildlife--we saw forest deer and two different kinds of monkeys, most of which I would never have seen on my own.The first couple of days were spent hiking through the lowlands. The weather pattern had changed from our previous trek (which was dry dry dry),and we had to hustle to get to our destination each day before the afternoon rain started. The third day was when the fun really started though, as we hiked from about 10,000 to 12,500 feet in elevation, passing through a narrow gorge with HUGE cliffs rising up on either side. It looked a bit like Yosemite Valley, and I had to keep reminding myself that these cliffs were tiny compared to the mountains above them, which were hidden from view.At 12,500 feet the trail emerged from the canyon into a natural ampitheater,surrounded literally on all sides by 7000 meter (23,000 ft) peaks. Or so it appeared from the map, since by that time the afternoon clouds had once again appeared. I did get to see Macchupuchre before it also disappeared though. Although it's one of the lower peaks in the area, it is arguably the most spectacular, with a huge snow face dividing two very symmetric rock pyramids. It's also considered a sacred mountain of the gods, and for that reason it's never been climbed because the Nepalis won't give anyone a climbing permit to attempt it. I was transfixed and thrilled to be able to see it so close.The plan was to spend a night here to acclimatize to the altitude, then hike up the next day to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC). This time, the afternoon clouds started to drop not rain but snow. It began snowing at lunch time and snowed all day. Mornings were usually clear, but the next day I arose to find about a foot and a half of new snow and more coming down. All morning long Mani and I watched a stream of people coming down from ABC looking a little bit cold and a lot unhappy that the weather had prevented them from seeing any of the mountains they had come so far to see. I thought we might scrap the plan to hike to ABC, but things cleared a bit after lunch and Mani and I decided to take advantage. Fortunately it is only about an hours hike to ABC, which is at about 13,500 feet. Equally fortunate was the fact that the hordes of fleeing trekkers had packed down a very nice trail through the snow. However, although the snow had died down,it was still pretty cloudy and there still wasn't much to be seen when we arrived.
At this point I need to launch on a tangent about what trekking in Nepal entails. Every 1-2 hours along the trails are lodges which offer rooms for the night (for the unbelievable price of $1.25) along with a full restaurant menu. This is a beautiful thing because it means that you don't have to carry a tent, sleeping pad, food, stove, etc, and of course because a room with stone walls and a mattress is a lot more comfortable than any tent.This pattern continued all the way up to ABC, which isn't even a Nepali village but exists only as a trekker's facility. The really incredible thing is that everything there, including the concrete in the buildings, the furniture, the stoves, etc, was brought there on someone's back. No trucks,no cars, not even any horses are mules can go there. And all the food and propane tanks have to keep being brought up to replace what's used. It is an amazing testimony to human strength and determination, especially in such a remote spot as ABC.
To get back to the story though, the climax of the trip came the next morning. We had gambled that slogging up in the snow would be worth the effort, and the gamble paid off the next morning when we got up at dawn to find totally cloudless skies, and we could finally see what had been around us the whole time. ABC is situated in a fairly flat valley that is essentially surrounded 360 degrees around by these 7000meter peaks. It's always pretty frustrating to try to describe how spectacular these kinds of places are. Annapurna itself is a huge,incredibly broad and steep mountain along its south face, which rose a stunning 12000 vertical feet or so from the glacier below it. It was really difficult to appreciate the massive scale of the South Face of Annapurna, it was almost too big to take in all at once. In some ways the other surrounding peaks, most of which were almost as tall, were more impressive because they were more narrow and pointy looking, such as Annapurna South (which I thought looked like a giant icy octopus)and a mountain appropriately named Fang Peak. Beneath these mountains were 3 big tongues of glacier ice that were badly jumbled and cracked as they flowed down the mountainside. Lower down all 3 merged into one huge sheet of ice that ran down beside ABC. Best of all, the whole panorama was sparkling in the dawn light due to the fresh coating of snow. The multiple summits of Annapurna each had a plume of wind-blown snow spinning off into space, making it look like someone had lit a bunch of little smoky forest fires up there. Me and all the other folks at ABC stood out in the chill and took about a million photos (I'll try to post a few soon).I really didn't want to leave, but eventually we couldn't wait anymore. The hike out was pretty uneventful, but relaxing. It got pretty cloudy again over the next couple of days, and I couldn't believe how lucky we had been to have the one totally cloudless morning coincide with our time in ABC. It never hurts to be lucky!