Nepal | Mountains and Coca-Cola

Day one of our Manaslu trek was an utter disappointment. The first thing you noticed was the rubbish - by the roads, on the roads, behind the buildings, beside the river bank. Cigarette packs, cookie boxes, Snickers wraps, instant noodle containers. But most of all, tens upon tens of Coca-Cola bottles. If there is anything that matched the ghastliness of that sight, it is the impressive ability of the company to haul and sell its products high into the Himalayas. The second thing you noticed is the particular flair exhibited in house construction. Reminiscent of early 90s Polish architecture, it seemed as if the builders aspired to pack as much punch into every single building as possible. Combine pink with green, add a Doric column or two, break as many angles as you can, add a second staircase outside but abandon the plans after building a few steps. The third thing was the roads. Blasted into the mountains by the Nepali army and Chinese contractors, they were a far cry from the narrow, forested pathways promised on pictures. The final thing you would notice is that you did notice so much. The fabled remoteness at that very moment seemed remote itself. Only the white peaks glowing in the distance reminded you of where you were.

It all went away, however, with every passing day and every step, as we made our way into the mountains, culminating with the crossing of the Larkya Pass at over 5,100m above the sea level. Rubbish never disappeared completely but the magnificence of the sights did its best to make up for it. Wide roads gave way to hanging bridges, gargantuan steps cut into the mountain, dusty trails zigzagging through Himalayan blue pine and rhododendrons. 'Gargamel' houses gave way to atmospheric villages inhabited by Bhotias of Tibetan descent and their monasteries, mani walls, chortens, and other Buddhist landmarks. The remoteness changed its meaning. You were not far away from people and everything they bring into their environment. You were far away together with these people in the life they made for themselves in the harsh realities of the Himalayan ranges.

Each day soon started to resemble one another. We would wake up before 6am, having spent the majority of the previous 9 hours finding every excuse imaginable not to leave the warmth of the sleeping bag. Our relationship with it became increasingly intimate as the temperature plunged further so that Marta began calling hers Chmurka, or 'little cloud', and would most certainly choose her over me if presented with a choice. As if to confirm my suspicions, Marta would spend the first fifteen minutes wondering aloud why she was ‘sentenced’ to doing this trek and forcing me to promise her that I would never trick her into anything remotely similar. Thankfully, that also gave way as she put on her five layers of clothes and warmed up with a Tibetan chumpa porridge. We would soon leave for the next village, which would on average consist of around 15kms of walking and a 1000m in elevation gain. Walking became meditative, or maybe just mindless, as the altitude took away the ability to reflect on anything beyond where the next step should be. It is only when we would stop to catch a breath that we noticed the beauty that was around us. And yet, as with most landmarks, we had to tell ourselves quietly that this little peak is the 8th highest mountain in the world, and that little river has more Class V rapids than all rivers in Europe combined. Reaching the destination of the day around 4pm, we would go through the motions. Filter the water. Unpack the backpack. Put more layers on. Unroll the sleeping bag. Put the liner in. Drink tea. Play board games. Read a book. Have dinner. Go to sleep. In all of these, we would see the same faces of fellow trekkers, becoming more familiar and comforting with each day.

Manaslu itself became anything but comforting as we circled it over almost two weeks of trekking. Standing at 8,163m above the sea level and surrounded by 10 peaks, each over 6,500 metres high, it almost blended into the background. It seemed benign, non-threatening. In fact, it was anything but. First climbed in 1956 by a Japanese team, it soon became known as "Avalanche Central" and earned its regrettable place among the most lethal eight-thousanders, with a fatality rate of almost 20%. It is riddled with features such as the ‘hourglass’ - a steep, smooth patch of terrain, perfectly angled to capture enormous amounts of heavy, wet snow. The snow that fell down in such quantities and at such frequency that we once observed two simultaneous avalanches.

All of this begs the natural question of why would anyone want to ever risk their lives to climb it. Mountains themselves are a social construct and do not possess any intrinsic qualities. They are neither savage nor welcoming, neither bleak nor uplifting. We see in them what we want to see in them. And by and large, it is different from what our ancestors saw. To them, mountains were to be avoided, not climbed. Inhabited by gods, demons or saints. Olympus, Mt. Fuji, Sagarmatha, Mount Sinai, Mount Meru. It takes a daring and ultimately a selfish personality to try to scale it (note from Marta: Oskar finally admitted it!). All biographies of mountaineering greats - Messner, Kukuczka, Loretan, Bonnington - reveal as much. They all naturally also had other motivations. The queen, the country, the family, the poor. But, at the end of the day, the did risk their lives in that pursuit of futile utility mainly for themselves.

This does not mean that the mountains do not offer anything in return.  Most of us exist for most of the time in worlds which are humanely arranged, themed and controlled. One forgets that there are environments that do not respond to the flick of a switch or twist of a dial, and which have their own rhythm and order of existence. To quote from Robert MacFarlane: 'Mountains refute our excessive trust in the man-made by confronting us with timespans longer than we can envisage.' They induce modesty in us. And therein lies the paradox. The very same mountains that draw on our selfishness are supposed to bring out our humility and modesty.

As for us, we came down from the mountains with slightly different feelings. Marta with a sense of relief at completing an awe-inducing but also a challenging and unforgiving journey. Me with a seeming contradiction in terms - yes, it is all selfish and futile but oh how much it keeps drawing on me.

When we still had energy for Scrabble

Marta and her coffee-finding skills, even at 3,000m

Second stage of Marta's daily reactivation

Manaslu on the right :-)

New favourite animal

Yak train at 4,500m