The "Strive Challenge"

Nov 12, 2023
4 min read

16 October – Labana/ Jigmelang Tsho Today after an early breakfast, you begin your days hiking. The peaks above the trail are often used for sky burial. En-route you will have views of Mount Jhomolhari (24,035 feet/7,326 metres) and Mount Jichu Drake (21,856 feet/6,662 metres). Now the trail drops down to Simkorta tsho (lake) at 4,100 m (13,451 ft) which is the highest lake on the trail and further down you will reach Janey tsho at 3,850 m/12,631 ft from where there is a possibility of dropping down to village of Tshaluna. However, you will keep following the trail towards the right until you reach Jigmelang Tsho.

Druk Path Day 2

In the morning my pulse ox is down to 81. This is the only symptom of altitude I've had.

It's a frosty morning with a beautiful sunrise.

We had breakfast outside

Our guest left early - at about 6am - and was able to make it in time to connect with her friends at the monastery. As the sun rises the views start to reveal themselves. This lake is Itso which means "hidden lake"

There was a flock of snow pidgeons

Today’s walk was nice an had undulations. The hard part for me was the first uphill because my low pulse ox, so had to go very slowly and I felt it in my chest. The next one was easier and progressively easier as the day went on - good because the altitude remained the same.

We saw some button quail

Surprise for the day. Yesterday my guide told me our next campsite at the lake will be very crowded - 50 people are there. I was not well pleased with the news and mentioned maybe it was crowded because it was Sunday and today it would be empty. As we descended the first (or second?) undulation, we started seeing people coming the other way (from Paro to Thimphu). These were the 50 people coming from our campsite scheduled for tonight - good news is they wouldn’t be there. Here you can see them stretched over about a mile of the trail - people and ponies. They seemed to be a mix of Americans and British people, almost all wearing shirts with “Big change” emblazoned on them. As happens with big groups they were spread out for about a mile.

In the first group walking up I noticed an older man with silver hair (like mine) and hiking poles. He seemed to be having some issues and I noticed there was a guide immediately in front of him carrying his pack and water

because he said he needed a drink now. I didn’t think much of it. The group of 48 had about 100 ponies carrying their stuff. It was slow going for us because there wasn’t always room for us, them and/or their ponies. The ponies were also stretched out in groups over a mile.

We stopped for a tea break (tea and cream crackers)

and a group of 3 men came by. They were rather separated from the main group and seemed to be having a good time, so I asked them what this was all about. One of them said Big Change was a charity set up by Richard Branson’s children and he asked if I saw Richard Branson. All of a sudden it clicked that he was the guy with the guide hauling his backpack/water. The group totally ripped up the trail - it was very muddy and full of excrement from their 100 ponies - thank goodness there hadn't been any rain.

The Strive Challenge is an annual adventure which raises money for Big Change – an education charity set up by Branson's children, Holly and Sam, to back projects that support young people to thrive in all areas of their life, not just in exams. I think Sam was one of the first people we passed and Holly was a bit further back. This Strive Challenge also included a bike ride through Bhutan - thank goodness we weren't affected by that. I am not a fan.

After we finished our tea we heard another group ask the guide if one of them could ride a pony because he/she was “done”. Not a good idea for so many reasons: no extra ponies so someone would have to carry its load, the terrain is rocky and, now, quite muddy- it wouldn’t be a nice or stable ride, no saddles ….

As we walked up to the final ridge we saw two colts in the 100 pony train which were fun to see. This uphill was a bit of a trudge.

4100 m was high point of the day.

Beautiful views opened up

and we came upon a rock outcrop which reminded me of the famous Trolltunga in Norway. It was very high up and I really felt the vertigo when the wind picked up just as I got to the edge....

And there were some interesting hillsides and caves

Lunch was along the side of the trail with a beautiful view. It consisted of rice, hard boiled eggs made the Bhutanese way, noodles/mushrooms, vegetables. Also my M&M treat for achieving the day's highpoint.

we descended through a forest of rhododendrons and silver leaf pine trees

to our camp on the other side of the lake from where the Branson contingent stayed. Thank god it didn’t rain because the ground was very churned up and muddy after all the people and ponies.

We arrived to camp at about 13:30, so 4 hours which included time for lunch. Distance was ~8 miles. Our ponies were delayed due to the crowd on the trail and we almost beat them to the campsite. I decided not to wear my sandals at the campsite because there is a whole lot of fresh pony excrement around.

Today’s tea break is popcorn and cream crackers - two favorites. It’s a shame the tent rather smells like pony excrement.