Tons River to Taluka Trek - May 13

Above: Yoga with Yveline in the yard at Taluka, after a 20km trek out of the mountains. We had an audience of porters and locals for this session.

Self portrait taken after meditation in the meadow above the Tons River, with a final look into the sanctuary of the Himalayas (in the background)... a very sweet moment.

This was a long trekking day, as we had to climb up from the Tons River to the meadow above, followed by a lot of up/down trekking to Seema and then on to Taluka. It was about 20km with several thousand feet of elevation gain/loss. Chris was not feeling much better after the tiring trek the day before, so we decided to set out at 8AM, and take it slow (as we'd done the day before). I paced us for most of the way. Once again, he was not able to eat or drink much this day... and just as it had on the way IN, the sun came out (after a cloudy start) and it got pretty hot. I was feeling pretty strong... but we did not have much nutrition for this long trek.

As we entered the village of Seema, we heard some major tree crashing from above the trail... sounding like a rockslide... then some guy came running at us and waving his arms for us to go back. On the slopes above there was a logging operation, and their method of getting the cut logs to town was to just trundle them down... but they dropped right across the route into town. We saw several logs crash down as we circle out into the terraced gardens below the trail to make out way around the detour.

It was another 9 hour day of left foot/right foot as we worked our way to Taluka and the rest of the group. We arrived at around 5 PM and had a little bit of Tang (supply had run out now)... and a few cookies. We sat in the yard with the rest of our team for a bit before Yveline suggested yoga. That was perfect for me after the long day of trekking. We did about an hour practice, including sun salutations and a good range of poses. Raja watched (along with our porters and a few others) ... and decided that he needed to restart his own practice, which he had not kept up since college days. We decided that we would yoga again in the morning before breakfast/departure for Sankri.

That night we had our final dinner in the mountains... it was a feast prepared by Mingma! Raja joined us for that as well. It was a good team moment... bittersweet as we were ready to move on to our next destinations, but as all mountaineers, reluctant to leave the sanctuary of the mountains.