Annapurna. A surprise sunrise.

The roof tops of Chomrong, a lovely village half way from Nayapul to Annapurna base camp. My plan was to sleep for a few hours then head up to Annapurna base camp, turn around there, and come back as quickly as I could and get back before dark. It was an ambitious plan as the roundtrip distance was about 28 miles but the type of hiking that I am used to. As it was I got back well after dark and was scolded by the hotel manager for worrying him. I went to bed without food as everything had been eaten or put away. The bed was literally a board about two feet wide.

On my trip to Annapurna Base Camp the clouds shouded the peak continuously and it rained off an on. I feared for my Nikon which was not waterproof. I was worried about the extreme humidity getting to the film base and ruining it. Base Camp was in the clouds. On the hike up to Chomrong the first afternoon this photo shows the maximum view of the mountains we were able to see. This photo was taken towards evening. It cleared enough to see a small patch of sky, the sunset above the clouds and a high ridge of Annapurna. It was lovely though.

The second night I woke in the middle of the night. I stepped out on a balcony and right in front of me were the dark silhouettes of the high mountains. Machupuchare was towering above me close enough to reach out and touch. I took my camera and followed a path upwards out of the village and tried to find a good vantage point to see Annapurna just in case it remained clear at sunrise. I went a few miles in pitch darkness led by a large dog that slept in the front yard of the hotel. I found a large boulder next to the path that was flat on top and sat on this and waited. While I waited the clouds came back in and it got misty. I could not longer see the stars.

Daylight increased bit by bit and I could see some clearing but at higher altitudes the clouds were quite thick. I waited and meditated.

This was when it happened. At about 5:30 am the clouds began to thin, to disperse, and there were these rents in them as if it was cotton batting that some one was pulling apart. I could see the sky and it was pistachio green. It seemed to take forever but gradually the clouds thinned more and more and the sun came up higher and higher. They call the Himalaya the Roof of the World and it felt like that to me in those moments. I was anxious and fearful the clouds would just sweep in again and my tantalizing glimpse of Annapurna would be eclipsed.

As the sun light penetrated more of the shadows the clouds thinned some more and finally it really looked like it would clear.

On the eastern horizon Machupuchare, in English called the Fish Tail, towered over the gorge of the Modi Koala and looked as dramatic as the Matterhorn in Switzerland.

Machupuchare is almost 22,000 feet high, quite a bit higher than the Matterhorn, and a striking mountain particularly when silouetted like this against the rising sun.

The clouds were doing strange things and every second they looked different as if they were trying to fool me, pretending that any moment they would shut out this gorgeous view I was witnessing.

Finally the clouds stabilized perhaps due to thermal changes at altitude, a slight warming, and it looked like it would continue to clear as the sun rose higher rather than close in again, but for me it didn't really matter because everything my eyes could see was beautiful and dreamy. What was it the Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote: "everything that's beautiful is but a brief, dreamy, kind delight." (?)


Then the clouds completely effervesced and left the whole mountain in view with that lovely first light still creeping slowly down the glaciers towards the valley.

At last, around 6 am this is what the mountain looked like. Hiunchuli is the sharp peak to the right and what looks like the highest part of Annapurna to the left is really the south summit which is 24,000 ft high. Between Hiunchuli and Annapurna south you can see the highest summit of Annapurna a little offset to the rear which is 8091 meters high, or 26,902 feet above sea level, the eighth highest mountain in the world (and one of the most beautiful).

This is my friend Lopsang who was on Annapurna back in 1978 with the successful women's expedition led by Arlene Blum.

When I got back to the inn after photographing the sunrise on Annapurna the owner was sitting out on a small piazza at a table having chia. There was an older Tibetan llama there as well. They were talking to each other. Lopsang and I took pictures of one another with Annapurna in the background. As we finished up and made ready to head back down to Nayapul the llama came to me and put his hands together in the Namaste greeting and said something to me in either Nepali or Tibetan. I thought it was Nepali. The Gurund man smiled at what he said to me and nodded his head in agreement. Lopsang also smiled. "Do you know what he said", he asked me?
I didn't know. "He said, 'that mountain loves you very much.'"