Tempting as it is to follow the lead of influencers and nowadays even so-called professional journalists I have resisted the temptation to come up with a catchy title. I'm choosing to trust that anyone reading will be genuinely interested in what I'm doing/saying.
On Friday I went out of town to the Coromandel and did the popular Pinnacles route, which is one of the highest points on the peninsula and probably the one with the best views. It has been on my list to do this climb for a while. I was expecting to see empty car-parks and tracks due to the current pandemic panic, but if anything it was a busier than usual for and I heard a lot of overseas accents.
When you reach the Pinnacles hut at around 590m the view is awesome in the true sense of the word, The massive rock lumps of the Pinnacles are easy to see, and the final climb looks pretty daunting. A brisk 40 minutes or so took me to the top - about 760m, lots of stairs and ladders and quite a bit of scrambling around rocks worn smooth by the passage of many people over time. The view makes it well worthwhile when you get there.
My accumulated altitude on my virtual climb is now 4563m, which is a little bit higher than the village of Dingboche, and halfway to the summit of Everest! Soon after we leave Tengboche on the Everest trail, the forest abruptly gives out and the vegetation is reduced to scrub, mostly a species of dwarf pine which are hardy enough to survive the temperatures, which can get well below zero overnight even in the climbing season. In the early morning about at the position I am now above Dingboche the wind is keen and blowing steadily and there are swirls of light snow. I spot a dwarf pine that is growing icicles horizontally in the direction of the wind.
Incredibly, in this increasingly hostile environment, there are still thriving villages. Dingboche seems to be an place where much stone work is going on and as we hike out of the village we hear a steady sound of chisels on stone. Higher up we encounter what looks like a barn made completely out of rock, the roof made up of slabs of thinly carved stone.
Farms are in evidence as well, although they are mostly below us in the Pheriche valley, the yaks from these farms roam up nearly as high as we are. They are incredible agile on the steep terrain by any standards and more remarkably so for their bulk.
Even though we have spent a day in Dingboche acclimatising, the thin air makes it hard work for us, although our guides appear completely unaffected.
Thankfully, that is one challenge I don't have to face in my virtual climb... Rest day tomorrow!
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