Nepal Challenge by Steve_Shears

04.30 5th April - pre-dawn Easter Monday Morning

Our destination the top of Poon Hill to watch the sun rise over the Annapurna range - it is a pretty popular destination hereabouts and half of the world seems to be up with headtorches and ready to go. Our group have assembled and are bracing themselves for what I know will be a hard and challenging climb - Dee is up to see us all off -she feels a bit better but isn't up to it. I am still ill and weakened but my game plan is go for it and just get it over with! Today is my personal Everest, I don't have a lot of energy and the altitude is making my head feel like it is bursting but I know roughly how long it is going to take and when I have reached certain milestones on the journey to the top. I do not let up from a ruthless pace - and this is despite Luc the guide keeping saying something that sounds like it should be spelled 'pstari' which I believe is Nepali for 'slowly' - I laugh to myself because it sounds Italian somehow. But I don't pstari, I go at it with determination - the sky is turning a deep blue with the first promise of dawn. It is cold but not as cold as 2008 - maybe because it is a few weeks later than in 2008? Light is starting to glow behind the towering Himalayan peaks as I crest the top and make a beeline for the observation tower. My lungs feel like they are burning but I've done it. Emma thinks it is a real mind over matter job and she is probably right. Everybody else hoves into view, by which time I am downing a cup of hot chocolate -I thought I would reward myself and sod the consequences on my digestive system! -it was all downhill from here (sort of) anyway - well, relatively speaking it was - in comparison with what we had been doing for the past few days. Lots of group and individual photographs where then the order of the day and I caught on camera the shafts of light piercing the purple/blue gloom as the sun rose over the Annapurna range. It somehow didn't feel quite as profound as 2008 - I think my issues were different now, but that said, there was something magical about standing here. My fellow travelers and me were beginning to feel the first faint warmth of the new day as the sun rose higher - okay it wasn't EBC but it was an achievement to be celebrated and there had been lots of personal moments of psychological and physical crisis for everyone of us at some point over the past few days and we had overcome them to stand here! Yay! Well done everyone!

About 7am Ghorepani - recovering!