Once we reached the picturesque village of Khambachen, on the way to Kanchenjunga North Base Camp, it was time to rest, enjoy the amazing views of the surrounding mountains, and get ourselves ready for our first acclimatization day hike the following morning, to Jannu Himal base camp.
Kanchenjunga - Acclimatisation day hike to Jannu Himal base camp
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We awoke around 6 am and ate breakfast, then headed out around 7 am in all of our warm gear to make our way to the start of the trail. To reach the trailhead we had to cross the suspension bridge we crossed the previous day on the way to Khambachen. This is always good fun, and guaranteed to blow out any cobwebs that still remain from last night’s sleep!
After crossing the bridge we took a left towards the start of today's trail, filled with excitement and eager to get going.
The trail started by heading up steps made of large stones, and we were soon making our way higher into the valley toward base camp. We could all feel the air getting thinner as we ascended from 4100M at Khambachen, to the highest point of the trek so far, the 4700M Jannu Himal base camp. We all felt strong and excited to reach our destination and pushed on further.
As we continued, the landscape started to open out and we realised that to our right was a huge glacier running alongside the path we were walking on. The side of the glacier had obscured our view up until this point, but now we were as high as the lip of the glacier wall. We made our way carefully to the edge and looked over and marveled at its beauty.
We could hear the glacier creaking and cracking under the pressure of the tons of ice and rock weighing down upon it. Such a surreal sound to hear with your own ears! At this point, I realised that the mountains that appeared so distant from Khambachen were now running right alongside us. All that separated us from their mighty slopes was the glacier we were looking down upon. I would say at this point, this was the closest we had been to snow-capped peaks during the first few days of the trek. I was totally awe-struck, and the feeling was absolutely amazing!
When done inspecting the glacier, we carried on towards our goal of base camp. After a short while, we came upon a fenced-off area containing a stone as large as a house and covered in Tibetan mantras. This area was obviously some sort of worship area used by Buddhist pilgrims who were also on their way to visit the holy mountain, Jannu Himal. We stayed for a short while, doing laps of the stone in absolute amazement of its size, before continuing towards our goal.
It was not long until we reached our final destination at base camp. The views from here were absolutely incredible! We were almost totally surrounded by 7000M peaks! The most spectacular peak of all was, of course, the mighty Jannu Himal. Standing next to the mountain in all its glory makes it so easy to see why the locals made this a holy mountain. We spent some time in the presence of these giants, taking many pictures and videos, and just sat quietly in awe of the unbelievable beauty directly before our eyes.
We were also aware that the more time we spent at this altitude, the better it would be for acclimatisation. With that in mind, we stayed for around 1 hour, taking in the sights, before starting the journey back down to Khambachen.
Although we were totally happy with what we had seen and experienced on this day, the excitement was not over yet! As we made our way back down the path we had walked up around 1 hour before, my friend noticed a wet paw print in the sand. The print was too big to be a normal cat. Could this be a snow leopard print, we thought? After taking a few pictures we hurried back down to Khambachen, eager to show the pictures of the footprint to our guest house owner. He confirmed to us that this was indeed a Snow Leopard footprint! He had seen many as he lived and spent a lot of time in that area. He told us stories of how Snow Leopards had eaten 2 of his Yaks the previous season.
We all felt super lucky to have seen the footprint, not something many people have seen in real life! I think that the Leopard had its eye on us as we made our way to base camp, decided to let us pass before making its way to a nearby stream next to the glacier for a drink, and then returned to its hiding spot before we passed on our way back down.
This was the perfect end to an amazing day. The hike to Jannu Himal base camp was one of the nicest days walking I've ever done, in all of my treks in Nepal.
