Annapurna, we keep climbing.

After a few days of rainy weather and less than ideal rumbly tummies, the weather cleared up and our spirits were high. 

The views were grand and the sun kept us warm.

We stopped for tea at a smaller village where we had the most unusual tea setting.

The longest row of prayer wheels we saw. I spun all of them!

This part of Nepal is Buddhist without a doubt.

After unmounting our horses we entered the town of Manang.

The area turned out to be very photogenic. Can you spot the caves on the pinnacles where monks used to live?

In Manang we learned why we were so out of breath. We also decided to stay a few extra days and do day hikes to acclimatize.

Ali had the highest O2 concentration of everyone that attended the presentation on high altitude. She earned a candy bar for that feat.

Our day hikes took us to some amazing view points and we got to acclimatize. Climbing without the packs seemed easy and we almost sprinted up the hills.

We left Manang and went to a town with the funny name of Yak Yakarta. Wonder why they call it that?

We kept climbing for days, above the tree line the valleys became barren and dry. Below, the river was becoming a trickle and the waterfalls that fed it were frozen. We were getting close to the source and the pass.

To cross Thorung La pass we left before sunrise. The sun greeted us from the other side of the mountains.

Eventually we all made it to the top of the pass. That is 17,769 feet for the non-metric viewers. I found it exhausting and our trekking was not even halfway done.

What goes up must come down and the same day we crossed the pass we had to hike down the valley to where the trail ends on a patch of green. It was a knee buster!

So what to do when you have eight thousand plus feet to go downhill and you are an adrenaline junkie?  Well, mountain bike down the Himalayans of course!  But we'll save that for the next post.