One hell of a hard day!! And not just that … that was the hardest day from the entire 16-day trek. It was the day that nearly brought me to tears, exhausted me to the point I wanted to give up numerous times and got me so frustrated that when I got to the top I had never felt so much relief, satisfaction and gratitude all at the same time.
Woke up around 5:30 am with the idea of heading out before 6 am and get to the top before 10 am. Med guy from the night before had warned us that at 4,600m the weather gets worse after 10 am so we wanted to give ourselves the highest chances of seeing some views when we reach the lake hence the early start.
When I woke up I went through the “Should I do this? Or should I just go back to bed and have a rest day instead?” dilemma but somehow I found the motivation to get up and get going … until I opened up my front door to check the weather and saw it was pouring rain 😀
Nouh was gonna join me. He was a crazy adventurous guy which is why I guess we clicked so well. The weather couldn’t stop him, nor the near guarantee that we’ll get to the top and see nothing. He was determined and in that moment I needed his dedication to find mine, which was desperately hoping I’ll screw the whole plan and just go back to bed 😀
I got my classic boiled eggs, had a quick tea, put my hilarious raincoat on and off we headed to Braga to get on the Ice Lake trail. Braga was about 30 min walk from Manang, back from where we had come the day before. The trek to Braga was easy. In fact, it was more of a walk than a hike so it felt like a nice little warm up before the hell that was about to come.
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Manang to Ice Lake via Braga
At Braga, we checked at the ACAP check-in point. They’ve got these checkpoints in a few places along the trek. The idea is that they can keep a track of how far we’ve gotten to in case we get lost. All checked in and ready to go, we shortly found ourselves going through some wet bushes clearly NOT on a trail in search of the Ice Lake path. It took us a few minutes to find the path but only a couple to pick up exactly 5 dogs that (no kidding) ended up climbing all the way to the lake with us.
Once on the path, we quickly realised why Med guy was saying the trek was tough. The trail was super narrow and covered throughout in little stones which were making it extremely slippery. That on its own would not have been a big deal (we had already walked on slippery trails for 6 days and we had nailed it each time) but the dogs walking literally in our feet and the precipices we were gonna fly into if we did slide, were making the trek pretty nerve-wracking and kinda dangerous.
The dogs all seemed super friendly and one of them was even helpful walking ahead of us as if he was guiding us to the top but annoyingly the rest were all walking in our feet, to the point where I kept hitting with my boot the head of one of them because he was so damn close. I was starting to get a bit uneasy. “Was he just gonna get angry and bite me?” … I mean, who would get hit in the head a few times and just keep walking without acting out? Well, this dog did 😀 I must admit I was pretty happy that I managed to get to the top and back down without the need to rush to a hospital for a rabies jab haha
The dogs aside, the trek was starting to hurt almost as soon as we got on the trail. It was entirely uphill until the very top. Not a single long stretch of flat or down … only up and up and up for exactly 3 hours and 45 minutes from Braga. The days before weren’t that different terrain wise. We had climbed stairs for hours, gone uphill until we could barely stand on our two feet, we had learnt (the hard way) the meaning of slippery, dusty, narrow paths but this … this was a totally different game and it freaking hurt!!
The altitude at Braga was 3,450m so we had to go up to 4,600m. When I thought about it initially, going up 1,150m didn’t seem like that big a challenge. How naive!! Every few steps I needed to pause. I could fill up my lungs just fine but the altitude was getting to me big time. We were moving slowly. Slower than ever before. I was checking maps.me every few minutes because I just couldn’t wait to get to the top. It was draining. We were gasping for air. I couldn’t understand why I was getting this tired. I could breathe properly, yet every five steps I needed to stop. It was so frustrating.
Every time I was feeling we had finally covered a nice long stretch and checked maps.me to get a reassurance that we were doing well, I was getting the tough reality check that we had only done about 100-200 hundred meters. It was an absolute motivation killer and I was starting to give in. Even the dogs were feeling it. One of them was even sick and could hardly breathe for a few minutes. He wasn’t giving up though. He put himself together and continued on. It was incredible to watch how determined this dog was … and he was going up for literally no reason whatsoever haha. Soooo if the dogs could do this sh**, so could we and we kept on!
For the first time though, I was starting to feel as if I couldn’t reach the top. It felt sooo bloody far, my lungs and my legs were not working in my favour. We stopped for a quick 10 min break but honestly, it was pointless because the minute we were trekking again, we needed to stop after a couple of minutes anyway.
After a bit of rain, a lot of puffing and panting, 3 hours and 45 min of sliding and near falling, we were finally at the top. It was finally flat!! I couldn’t believe we had made it. It genuinely felt endless to the point where I near teared up out of frustration, exhaustion and eagerness to be done. The fact I was pretty convinced we won’t be seeing any views wasn’t helping with the motivation either but somehow WE MADE IT!
Once at Ice Lake
Once at the top I had my first meet up with the local Nepali yaks. I had never seen yaks before so I wasn’t quite sure if they were the aggressive type so I was slightly hesitant to pass by in case they came after me 😀 Luckily we had picked up a couple of German trekkers on the way so we mingled with the yaks together. To my surprise, the yaks turned out to be fat, lazy, “can’t be bothered” kinda animals so they showed zero interest in us and we finally found ourselves at the lake.
Sadly, the weather was pretty bad so we couldn’t see any of the Himalayas layered behind the lake. On a nice day, the views really are spectacular, with two layers of mountains boldly guarding the lake. The actual lake wasn’t that impressive or as large as I thought it would be but I was trying to numb my disappointment by focusing on the benefit of the acclimatization.
As part of the rest day in Manang, it’s advisable to do an acclimatization trek to get the body used to the change in altitude. Most people opt for a couple of shorter treks, of course, but hiking up to Ice Lake is actually supposed to be the best acclimatization option from Manang since you’re going up over 1,000m.
Once I got to the lake, it was so cold and windy that I put on everything I had in my backpack – trekking trousers to shield from the wind, a fleece, an extra jacket and even gloves. This was the coldest I’ve been on the trek. After about 45 min I was done, it was uneventful and cold and I wanted to get down.
This is when a group of three Israeli guys joined in and they brought all the eventfulness I could have wished for 😀 Those guys were crazy! In all shapes and forms of the word LOL!! They rocked in two in t-shirts, one in sweater, absolutely freezing their butts off. They didn’t bring a single layer of clothes to put on but they had packed Israeli coffee, a gas cooker to make the coffee, 5 cups to pour it in and a huge pack of cookies for the picnic. They didn’t, of course, have any water either. They were nuts (in a comical sort of way) LOL! “Why bring water when we’ve got a whole lake in front of us?” – was their thinking. Fair point LOL
They boiled some water from the lake, made some coffee and shared dozens of crazy wild stories from their month of travelling in India 😀 Despite the risk of finally getting my stomach totally messed up, I couldn’t resist the offer to try the crazy coffee so, at 4,600m, I had my first few sips of Israeli coffee made out of lake water and to my surprise, it was delicious. Just before we started pouring the coffee, the most fun French girl joined in as well. Her name was Adelie, aka the only other solo female traveller I met who was also doing the entire trek without a guide or a porter. Who would knew that just a few days later we’d bond so much to the point we’d later plan for her to come see me in London. Hiking solo sure is a totally unpredictable wild experience 😀
The guys told me that for the acclimatization to work its magic, I had to stay at least an hour so at after 1 hour and 20 min I was ready to start going down.
From Ice Lake to Manang – the way down
The rest of the guys stayed on so I headed down myself … with Buddy, the dog that was guiding us all the way to the top. He was a keeper! This was the first time I was gonna hike completely on my own and I was excited but also a little bit anxious that I may not find my way down. Going back was easy, finally downward … but the trail wasn’t that clear and in some cases maps.me wasn’t really helping either. A couple of times I got totally lost. There were landslides that had ruined the trail making it really hard to figure out which way to go. I couldn’t get it through my head how we had passed some of the landslides without falling … they looked terrifying on the way down.
There was no one in front or behind me. It was kinda cool! I felt totally alone in the wilderness so when my bladder called for a pee, I didn’t expect to be caught by one of the Israeli guys who was literally running down and had managed to catch up 😀 Whooops LOL! Evidently can never be truly alone on this trek haha
Luckily, a few minutes later, I went past him whilst he was taking a break and didn’t see him again so I could enjoy my solitude 😀 Thankfully, the few times afterwards that I felt totally lost I made a good “left or right” call and eventually made it back down, with Buddy, who got lost halfway down but was now walking beside me. My heart had gone back to beating normally, my pulse was no longer going crazy, I was relieved … Magically, I didn’t fall down, I didn’t get lost and I even had Buddy to walk all the way back to Manang with.
I was in Manang at around 2 pm just in time for lunch. I then took a nice walk around the village, had a lovely chat with Dyana and Andrew from the previous day and head over to the Tilicho hotel for dinner and some reading. Day 7 which was meant to be my rest day was the toughest day on the trek. It was exhausting, emotionally and physically challenging but also tremendously rewarding. Looking back, if you can do the Ice Lake trek and come out of it not too badly physically and emotionally crushed, nothing else can stand in your way till the end of the trek, not to this extent for sure!!
Daily Costs
- Room – Free
- Boiled eggs – RS 320
- Fried rice – RS 490
- Veg curry – RS 495
Day 7 Tips
- If you decide that the trek to Ice Lake is a bit too much, definitely still do some sort of hiking to acclimatize quicker. The pass is no joke and you need to give your body the highest chances of getting through it. There is a small lake just next to Manang which you can hike to that will give you about 300m altitude change. You can also hike to the monastery to get the same elevation but as much as you’ll need it, don’t just sit around all day drinking cappuccinos and indulging in apple crumble and cinnamon rolls 😀
- Talking about apple crumble, 100% have some at the bakery (next to Tilicho hotel). It simply is the BEST and you’ve deserved the treat.
- Bring layers for the hike to Ice Lake. It does get cold and windy so you want to be prepared to feel comfortable spending at least an hour up there. For me, Ice Lake was much much colder than the pass so you can imagine how happy I was I had layers and gloves to put on.
- Bring a raincoat and plenty of water. There is actually nowhere to refill with water once on the trail so bring at least 2L with you.
- Oooh and bring food! You’ll be spending at least 6 hours from when you leave Manang to when you get back so you’ll need something to boost the energy at one point. Be prepared and bring a celebratory treat for when you reach the top!!
- I highly recommend the Ice Lake trek, YES! despite the horrific story above 😀 It’ll try to crush you but when you come out of it alive, you know you can do it all.
- Finally, don’t forget to take your ACAP permit with you in case you have to check in again at Braga (you don’t want to have to go back for it).
- Enjoy it and stay present! Namaste 🙂
Day 7 Gallery
