Nov 13 2024 – Tengbouche to Kyangjuma

Could’ve made it all the way back to Namche. But spending three nights in a place I’ve already spent two nights just seemed silly. Especially since the 1000 vertical feet climb to get here took a lot out of me.

Anyway, Kyangjuma consists of two oldish lodges on a wide spot in the trail. But it has a view!

*Snow covered peak of 21,729 foot Thamserku*

Done a fair amount of people watching today. Observation 1, there’s a whole lot of couples up here. Doesn’t make sense to me. This isn’t a romantic getaway destination. And I’m pretty sure any relationship I’ve ever had would’ve spectacularly exploded up here when you add in the strains of trying to not die just walking up the trail. Observation 2, the vast majority of tourists have zero trail etiquette. Common sense is the person carrying the heavy load uphill gets the right of way, and the tourist carrying a water bottle and camera downhill doesn’t. That’s not how it plays out. I feel bad for the porters carrying all the tourists stuff most of all, because theirs is a thankless shit job, but after 15 days of getting cut off myself by these clowns it’s starting to cause feelings of trail rage. Observation 3, 99% of the people who have trekking poles up here have no idea how to use them properly, and if they were to attempt to use the pole to arrest a fall using it the way they are they’d just end up with a broken wrist. Which raises questions for me – how is that not a frequent occurrence? For the past 3 days I’ve used my poles to arrest falls at least twice a day. I can’t just be more clumsy than these people?