Monday, August 21, 2006
Butterflies, marmots and cows... part 2
Here's a butterfly who came to say hi on the way up of the second day. There were loaaaads of butterflies around, flying in twirling groups or just gently rising by streams alone... This one stayed with me for a bit, it looked so peaceful :) So after the valley that comes after the really steep slope I was describing in the part 1, there's a gentle rise on which is the chalet where we slept. Higher up are two lakes and this time we actually bathed in one :) Really quickly cause the water was real cold but still way better than last time we'd gone when it was completely frozen.Ah you can start to tell that my arm is getting a tan here :p
DAY THREE
The tamir pass... Not sure of the spelling on that one. Now that was an adventure :o
We set off from the chalet which is at 2100 meters and this is what we looked like then:
all happy smily, not knowing what awaited us... and then we went all the way up to the Tamir which is 3000m high. Now 900 meters already sounds like quite a climb, but we'd done 1000m the day before so that's not too bad. The thing is we sort of took a wrong turn and ended up having to climb a very steep slope (mean climb) to get back to the path. We'd strayed about 200 meters under the path I'd say. And then they're real traitors because it's actually a double pass... you go up and get to a first ridge and then down because you know it's a pass between valleys so it makes sense that when you get all the way up you should go down... but then the path starts right up really steep AGAIN. And they don't warn you on that one grrrr... You think you're done and you have to start right back. So you basically go through two passes in the day. Going up looks like that:
Now it would have been ok if the ground had been nice and solid but not only did I really have to use my hands to go up (not easy with a stick) because it was that steep, but the ground was literally crumbling under our feet :o It was very intense and way more like climbing than walking. So here I am, in pain, going up the second bit.
Now sorry, it's not really chronological, but the next pic was a first place that was real high but wasn't the pass itself. We already needed to rest for our poor little feet :) So that's how I was coping, and dad was pretty much in the same place :p
It's after that nice rest that things became rough. All in all, we walked for 8 to 9 hours that day. Now the silly thing is I had shorts on, and our shoes go up quite a bit as you can see, so that the ankle is covered. And it was very sunny and warm... so now I look like I'm wearing white socks even when my legs are naked: my skin is real white up to sock level because it didn't tan where the shoes were whereas it burnt higher up :o I was pealing like crazy after that.
Anyways here's me struggling again and then the view from the second pass.
You see that first lake down? that's where we went for a quick swim again with my dad. Where we're sitting is 3000m so I guess the lake should be down at least 300 or maybe even 400 meters but it's still pretty high up. That means COLD but we still had a quick swim and it felt brilliant after all the walking. Here's me attempting to tan while we were drying off.
Our trek didn't end there though, we had to walk on to the next lake you can see, it's near that one that the chalet is. I was dead when we got there and getting up the next morning was pretty tough...
So yeah I did include marmots in the title because on the next day, day 4, of which I don't have many pics, we saw tonns of them swarming about. Then we thought we saw one on a rock, it was sitting up real still and we got very close and started wondering why on earth it wasn't running away... And then we realised it was actually a rock. It looked wicked from a distance tho :)
Anyways here's me struggling again and then the view from the second pass.
You see that first lake down? that's where we went for a quick swim again with my dad. Where we're sitting is 3000m so I guess the lake should be down at least 300 or maybe even 400 meters but it's still pretty high up. That means COLD but we still had a quick swim and it felt brilliant after all the walking. Here's me attempting to tan while we were drying off.
Our trek didn't end there though, we had to walk on to the next lake you can see, it's near that one that the chalet is. I was dead when we got there and getting up the next morning was pretty tough...
So yeah I did include marmots in the title because on the next day, day 4, of which I don't have many pics, we saw tonns of them swarming about. Then we thought we saw one on a rock, it was sitting up real still and we got very close and started wondering why on earth it wasn't running away... And then we realised it was actually a rock. It looked wicked from a distance tho :)
# posted by V @ 3:11 PM 
