Tibet Day 9 - Pang Pass

Sun Oct 22- 06

4370m, to Pang Pass summit of5200m, downto 4300 in Rongbuk Valley

63kms

Riding time 5hours:19mins

One week from now Ill be in Bangkok, I told myself as I started today knowing we had 5 nights of camping in a row from here. The hotel was freezing cold, breakfastcrappy, but any day riding a bike is better than a day in the office.

The road out of Shegar was nice and the morning light stunning. After about 12k, we turned left onto a bumpy gravel road. I started late with Terry. We ended up tackling the whole day together. Pang Pass lived up to its reputation today. There are 42 hairpin switchbacks that wind their way up to the top, where you are sometimes rewarded with your first full view of the Himalaya, Makalu, Everest, and Cho Oyu. Terry and I methodically pedalled up and got to the top in 3hrs 34mins, a long ass morning climb Id say. Had lunch in the Everest Tea House, where I forgot my visine. Ive had horrible trouble with my eyes in this dust, and my contacts arent lasting very long no matter how careful I am with them. Forgetting my only visine was nearly a critical mistake, as my vision was maybe 60% the whole downhill and flat today, even for 2 hours after I removed my contacts out... but Andres bailed me out with his eye drops thankfully.

The downhill was..... AWESOME. Id say top 3 of my life, really. We found an old yak singletrack and descended a full 1000metres, afew ofus anyways. I even got a flat tire but didnt care I was so happy to be ripping this downhill.

When we got to the townat the bottom, Palden told us its another 15kms along very rough washboard gravel again. It turned out to be 8 or 9 k (we gotta get these guys bike computers or gps systems). Nick and I spewed negativity the whole way back...but it actually reminds me a bit of Canada here, glacial streams next to us and a light snow coming down.

I feel pretty beat up today, my left hand is cramping up something fierce, maybe from teh downhill pressure. My wonky right achilles tendon has flared up fully now too and hurts every pedal, and Ive begun taking the diamox again to combat some altitude headaches that are coming in waves.

The view from the top of Pang Pass though was unforgettable, seeing most of Mt Everest, Makalu, Cho Oyu, just amazing. Tomorrow up to Rongbuk Monastery.