Top of the ridge

Once we got to the top a wonderful morning revealed itself to us. Really fierce sunshine beat down on us as we contoured northwards along the ridge .

Around 12 30 we met Sherpa Ringji coming back to us with a kettle of hot lemon tea - very welcome. He offered to take one of our rucksacks and when we couldn't decide whose one, he insisted on carrying both of them.

Andy soon appeared. The others had reached the designated lunchsite early. Now that the weather had changed for the worse (the sun had disappeared again) he had sent them on again in order to keep warm. He then made off with my rucksack.

All this concern was touching, but why? Did they know something that we didn't?

Shortly afterwards we started descending very steeply through the rhododendron forest that we had entered.

As we got deeper into it, it became more and more sticky underfoot until we were going through no more than glutinous black mud and tree roots.

It was very draining. One's feet slipped all over the place, with many a muffled curse as one got jabbed by a sharp tree root or branch.

Lunch in the Rhododendron Forest - strain shows in the faces

Showing the trail of destruction around the stream

At long, long last we emerged from the forest by the side of the Hinku River. We saw the enormous destruction done to the area by last year's flood.

You can clearly see the floodmarks 50 feet up on the banks and that all the vegetation below this has simply been swept away. What was a narrow river is now a wide trench 50-100 yards wide which was full of big boulders and other debris - along which it was our doubtful privilege to walk.

We began to debate whether this was worse than the glutinous forest. We knew we had to walk along this stony streambed until we came to the temporary new bridge, with our campsite being on the other (western) side.

The scary bridge, one slip and...

Oh my God, you don't expect us to cross that?

Imagine a steep-sided Himalayan valley, with a fast-flowing river well below us. The bridge consisted of one log that went all the way across, another smaller log to the left of it that went as far as the middle of the bridge, with another log to the right of it that started from the other side of the bridge but only reached halfway. This second log had a branch still attached to it which stuck out uselessly into the air.

To allay our fears, Andy crossed the bridge then re-crossed it, "Right", he said, "Walk directly behind me with your hands on my shoulders. Who wants to go first?" And of course I did, because it's less nerve-wracking to do it first.

Colin asked if I would like him to take a picture from my camera of the crossing. "Of course!" I replied, adding grimly, "But you ought to take the case and strap as well".

Despite me starting off with the wrong foot (out of step, which meant that my right foot was inclined to bark Andy's right heel), we reached the middle quite easily. Then there was some delicate manoeuvring to be done.

Andy shouted instructions, but these were swept away by the wind and water noise. It seemed pretty obvious: the left foot had to be transferred from the left log (which came to an end) to the centre log, while the right foot had to go on the new log.

All this was accomplished with Andy having a tight grip of my hand.

At that moment my brain did begin to wander (what on earth was I doing here, one false move and it was a watery grave), but Andy did seem to want my right hand to hold onto something. I couldn't quite see what or why. As soon as I gripped it I knew. It was the vertical branch, the one I had thought was useless. It was there as a handhold. As soon as I had a good grip on it I knew I could do the rest on my own in safety. I turned around to the others and stuck my tongue out in relief.