HARDEST Day So Far - Kanchenjunga Trek Part 3

Today's the hardest day so far. Today we saw the first big price jump with Dahlbott was 600 a person for the Dahlbott. So the total bill ended up being like $35. Almost $40 now because somebody just got a $3 Red Bull, $38.50. Red Bull for breakfast. Carry it out. Can't leave the cans here. Can't leave the cans here because we'll just throw them in the bushes. Yep. So off to Gunsa today and we will have an acclimatization day there tomorrow so tomorrow not really a rest day because there's, you know, side treks and little exploration hikes you can do. But I believe it's 3200 meters at Gunsa so after that we're only supposed to be going 300 meters per day but we'll see how that works out. So as we're moving up in elevation, see the bigger trees and we also see like the climate starting to shift, you know, from that tropical kind of perpetual summer down there. Even though further down it does get cold, it still had that tropical vibe. It wasn't super humid but I was sweating a lot more and now we're moving into these bigger trees. Fall colors, leaves are changing. This is also the red panda habitat, kind of in this in-between zone here. So I don't know how high it goes up but it's pretty hard to spot a red panda but we're taking our time, taking it slow, trying to see if we can spot one because that would be awesome. Well I was starting to get my hopes up that we were at the pole which is the tea stop. It's a big village though. A lot of, I think it's their barns and stuff for those cattle. So apparently the tea stop is way on the other side. So I got my hopes worked up. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna get some tea and rest soon. I'm definitely starting to feel the beginning of some altitude. Looking forward to that extra acclimatization day tomorrow, that'll be nice. Probably go to bed early again tonight. I've been going to bed at like seven o'clock every night and like in between dinner, in between when we get to a spot and dinner, I usually lay down for a couple hours. So just trying to get as much recovery as possible because once again, we're still not in the mountains. Still in the hill region. It's pretty funny. They don't consider anything under 6,000 meters a mountain in Nepal. A hundred rupees, a dollar for black tea. Prices are definitely going up. It's alright. I needed that. So this is actually a Tibetan village and up that valley, two or three days you can get to Tibet. So we're going to be going to the right there. Starting to catch some glimpses of the big boys there. Yeah, now it's really starting to feel, we're not in the Himalayas yet, but man, makes you feel like all that hard work is paying off to catch a glimpse of the giants there. This is a memorial to the helicopter crash in 2006 where 24 people died or something like that. 20 something people died from the World Wildlife Federation and the minister, Nepali minister and his wife and it was a big, big deal. A lot of people died that day and so to honor those fallen people, they erected this memorial. So that just is a reminder that, you know, there are helicopter rescues available, but those are still risky. You know, bad weather can come out of nowhere and even if you need a rescue, there's no guarantee that you're going to get one, you know, because to call for a rescue when there's inclement weather, you're putting the rescue of the people in the chopper at risk too. So you know, you really have to be careful when you're doing stuff like this. You can't rely on a rescue because there may not be a rescue coming. Well, we made it to Gunsa and we'll be spending two nights here. Climatization day tomorrow. A lot of big guest house here. It's also the turning point for when we go to the South Base Camp, we're going to come back and spend another night here before we head over the Salele Pass. So it gets a lot of traffic through here from multiple directions. So I just took a super cold shower and then did some laundry, hung it up on the line, had some Dalbat, and they normally have power here, but I guess something happened to the village. The power line went down, so possibly tomorrow we'll have power, we can charge up some stuff. I found out before the trek that my phone, Galaxy S8, has a Pulse Ox on it. Pulse Ox sensor, reader, whatever. So I just tested it, it's at 88. So tomorrow's an acclimatization day, and if it's not doing better tomorrow, possibly the next morning, I might start taking Diamox as a prophylaxis, like a half a dose. And that's supposed to help prevent altitude sickness, and you can also take it if you have altitude sickness, but we'll see what the trusty Pulse Ox says tomorrow. It is a cold morning here in Gunsa, and good news is, Pulse Ox is looking better, 92% oxygen saturation this morning, so it looks like I am acclimatizing, no headache or anything like that. These mountains in the background here though, last night they were like glowing in the dark, I don't know if the moon was on the other side over there and it was reflecting the light, but it looked absolutely amazing. So today we're doing a quick day hike up to the top of that ridge there, supposed to take maybe an hour and a half, two hours, maybe another 600, 800 feet, something like that, so just get a little more altitude to help acclimatize and then come back and sleep down here again. But man, I'm really digging Gunsa, this nice little valley surrounded by the mountains here, hills, some of these are hills, but some of them are clearly mountains in the background there. So it's going to be a nice little easy day in Gunsa, I'm not bringing my big pack, I'm just going to carry Sam's pack with water and first aid kit and stuff. Man, it is cold this morning, but I know as soon as the sun hits us on that hike up, we're going to warm up real quick. Well we made it up here, high above Gunsa, maybe about 300 meters above Gunsa, you can see Janu Peak or Mountain Janu, we can also see Foley off on that side where we were yesterday Great views of the river and the mountains all the way around, only took an hour and twenty minutes, so definitely a lot easier hiking with Sam's bag than mine, but this will definitely help the acclimatization for the rest, we should be hitting the base camp within two or three days, something like that, so that will be the highest elevation of this whole trek, I believe it's around 5200 meters, and then we probably have, after that maybe another ten days, something like that left to go to the south base camp, which is on the other side of this range I believe, on the other side of that, so we're going to go up that way, north base camp, back down, and then around this to the south base camp, and then back, following a different, on the other side, not following the Tamor River, but a different route back. Well we got the power back on here in Gunsa, just in time for us to leave, charged up some things and today we got about maybe a six or seven hour day to Kambuchon, might be tough because we are gaining a lot of altitude today, I think we're gaining elevation wise more than 300, like 900 meters, 600 meters, so might be a struggle, but we'll see, I'm feeling pretty acclimatized to this elevation right now, but how about you ma'am, are you feeling acclimatized? Yes. Are you ready to go? Yes. Okay. At all. Oh my god. So these are sea buckthorn berries, and when we did Annapurna circuit, we had sea buckthorn juice, they take these and they boil them with water and they add a bunch of sugar and it's delicious, almost tastes like, kind of like orange Gatorade or Tang, but way better, made fresh, sea buckthorn berries, so I haven't seen anyone around here selling that, but if we end up doing Annapurna again, probably see it up there. These berries are only found at a certain elevation, and these little red berries, they're sour, you can eat them, so when they make the juice, they mix them with a ton of sugar. Today's the hardest day so far, I'm really struggling, passed through the gate at the edge of the town, which means we're almost there, and that's good, because I am hungry, I mean, wow, look at that. So, made it here from Gunsa in a little over five hours, left at 840, 148, so five hours and eight minutes, not too bad, I read it could take up to seven hours, so definitely I think we might take an extra, extra acclimatization day here, because I was definitely feeling that elevation on that, a couple of those pushes, but this is absolutely phenomenal. Another beautiful little valley here surrounded by the mountains. Infamous.