Nepal - Kangchenjunga trek
Day 7 - Ramche
I spend the afternoon roaming in the area, watching the clouds playing and the amazing mountains all around us.
As soon as the sun sets temperature plumpets and eventually goes down to -20C in the middle of the night.
We can hear Himalayan blue sheep (locally called bharal - they are actually from the goat family despite their name) wandering around through the camp during the night.
Day 8 - Ramche to Oktang and return to camp
Glad to see the sun rise and bring us some warmth after that cold night.
The blue sheep that we heard during the night are now roaming above the camp, about 30 of them.
It is a very clear and sunny day and an easy walk to Oktang. We pass an altar and prayer flags, reminding us that Kangchenjunga is a mountain considered sacred by the inhabitants of Sikkim and eastern Nepal.
According
to the map (Trekking routes to Kangchenjunga 1: 100 000 Paolo Gondini)
Oktang (and certainly the Kangchenjunga South base camp) is beyond the
moraine that we follow. To reach Oktang you'd need to walk down onto the
glacier (there is a small path if you look for it), cross the Tso glacier
and ascend again onto a flat area. My guess is that it would take a long
time (not so much the distance as the probable difficulty of picking
one's way across the glacier). So what we do instead is follow the easy
path along the top of the moraine.
Eventually we reach an unstable scree slope where we stop and hang
about, enjoying watching small avalanches coming down Kabru until
a rock fall on the scree only meters away reminds us that it may not be
such a good spot to spend time at.
