Sept. 17, 2008. Quintessential Jumlam day.

This was a relatively easy 5 hour day to Kharnak Sumdo. We started with more downhill, crossing the river myriad times in sandals. The current strength ranged from mellow to attention-grabbing but never scary. It was cool and cloudy, but not cold. The canyon was lined by incredible rock walls. There were 1 or 2 narrow stretches that added spice. We also passed the (in)famous cave of the stone lingam. For brave and accomplished rock climbers only! Lunch was at a major Sumdo; Joel had an attack of stomach, perhaps caused by cucumbers! After lunch, it was not far to our dusty camp, but it was little uphill. Our camp is actually on the same river that flows through Dat, an area I visit two years ago. So, in a sense, today marks the link-up to my former geography, sort of a book-end to my re-visit to the lower Miyar nala. There are 4 days left on the trek. One day of solid up and then a pass a pay for 3 days. We are at only 3700 meters and the next pass is ~ 5200 meters...hmmm, this speaks for itself.

6 PM. I am sitting in the dining tent trying not to fall asleep. Didn't sleep too well last night: 11 hours in the tent and maybe 4 hours asleep. This afternoon I brought out the cheese from Trader Joe's in Seattle that I have been carrying for 3 weeks: Wensleydale (in honor of Wallace and Gromit), an English blue whose label I can no longer read, and a generic "smoked cheese". We broke out the first two on plain crackers in the dining tent around 4. The Wensleydale had produced a tense gaseous excresence into it's bag, while the blue had undergone several metamorphoses. Sensory overload! P. was not feeling well but the rest of us blissed out. I retired to my tent, fell asleep, and promptly entered REM sleep and astral projected my soul to somewhere beyond Jupiter. Perhaps this is related to the early American comic strip, "Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend" by Winsor McCay, in which the protagonist has psychotic dreams after eating toasted cheese sandwiches. In McCay's work, politically incorrect ideas were allowed to sneak into print with the excuse that they represented dreams rather than reality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams_of_a_Rarebit_Fiend). I woke up and gradually returned to reality: camping in a canyon in the Indian Himalaya, still comfortably unreal.