Tilicho Lake expedition - High altitude sickness and more

These notes were written by my friend Joost from the Netherlands, with whom I walked the Annapurnas together with Toni. In particular, this part is where we went on an expedition to Tilicho Lake, one of the highest lakes in the world, at 4,919 meters above sea level, and the moment when I got altitude sickness and got sick.
As you can read below, on the 13th day my adventure in the Himalayas ended, as I got altitude sickness and two Nepalese men told me that I should immediately descend because I could die, as my symptoms were really alarming: I could hardly breathe and I had an indescribable pain in my chest. Of course I listened to them and descended. I have written a text about it, I think it is on the blog or on my instagram. Anyway, I decided to descend and wait for the guys while I recovered and they conquered the Thorong La pass. I felt very proud that they made it, and even more happy that Toni brought me a small flag from the ones that are hanging in Thorong La pass, in my favourite colour: green. Of course I still have it and I carry it everywhere with me.
Thank you Joost for your stories that remind me of the wonderful adventures and experiences we had in the Himalayas. It remains forever indelible in my memory. BTW, I was really scare when I realise you took drugs in such a hard expedition, but I felt relieve at the end when I saw you feeling well.
At the end some pictures.

Day 9:

It's getting real now, views are getting crazy and i really feel like i'm in the mountains now. The altitude is also very noticable and at midday i got a massive headache because of it.

We walked along a landslide area where the path got swallowed by loose gravel and stones in a 60° incline all the way to the bottom, a fall of at least 900 meters. Rosi was scared to go across this part so we kind of helped her by widening the little flat bit but at one point this was impossible. When i tried to make her a little path more stones slid down from above and sealed the gap, i ended up pulling her across and in that process almost fell down myself.

A little bit further we could see around the mountain and were greeted by the most epic view ever, even if it was covered in mist. Tomorrow it'll hopefully be sunny and i can't wait to see this shit in full clear day. We arrived at the camp where we passed time, as always, playing uno.

Rosi asked toni in spanish to give her a good card and then she could fuck me over but instead gave her a skip turn and i could finish giving her 182 points. She was super pissed and went straight to bed.

Day 10:

YYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEAAAAHHHH BOIIII!!!!!

today my personal altitude increased to infinity, i got high, i took LSD in the mountains is what i'm trying to tell you.

Full 360° Total. Whiteout.

I woke up before 5 already to get prepare for the big day, everything was set and ready to go. Except for the weather, it was rainy and misty and shit and so we couldn't go and we ended up playing uno.

An hour later it cleared up really fast and so we went on our way up. I dropped 2 hits straight away and then later a quarter more because i underestimated the potency like i always do.

I started tripping hard, and with the altitude it made my entire body feel light and liquid and hollow. It was crazy intense, overwhelming and pretty scary. I sat down for a bit to catch my breath when tony and rosi came walking past, made a joke about the altitude and boom, just like that i felt safe again.

After going on i offered some strepsils and after 5 minutes of explaning that no, it's not drugs rosi took one. Later we stopped for a drink and i heard tony "Oohhh it's soo cold, and the cold weather, and the strepsils bhuuaaahhh"

The further i walked up this mountain the crazier it got, colours and greens stopped and it was just white, black and lifeless rocks. I started to realise i was walking ón one of those snowy peaks i have been staring at for so long. It din't anymore feel like just a mountain hike, we were on an expedition.

The entire area was an artwork of snow and rocks, thousands of black dots and lines poking through the white blanket of this cold mountain landscape. It was trippy as fuck.

Later and higher a certain area became blurry white as if it was some camera glitch but only in real life. It was a snowcloud seen from the inside. It wasn't much longer and the snowcloud fully surrounded us. Nothing there to see except for white. Just white.

Bro you have to understand me, everywhere you looked was just a full vision of nothing but white. In every fucking direction. I couldn't even tell where the mountain stopped and the sky began. I was seeing more white than i could ever think was possible, more white than the human brain was ever meant to handle. So much white it burned my eyes and made them hurt for 2 days after.

This place wasn't real, i was walking inside an empty dream. It was pure nothing and sensory overload to the max. Absolute perfect simplicity creating untold intensity and all of it underlined by the most amazing badass dark psytrance mix i have ever heard.

I walked the way to Tilicho lake dancing and playing with the vapor trail visual of my bright red walking stick. Took a pee and got really uncomfortable, felt as if i was doing something incresibly disrespectfull. Took some of it's snow as a sovenir and then went on our way back through this fantastical winter wonderland. Tony asked if i was ready and i said yes, then Rosi pointed to all the stuff i had not yet packed and so i told them no, i am not ready yet. Then on the way back tony made some yellow snow with a big fucking smile on his face and really making an artwork out of it.

When we left the snowcloud a thousand hours later and entered the real world again it all slowed down for a bit. I was able to gather my mind a bit and mentally rest. I sat down and stared at the mountains, i understood how they worked, i could almost see them grow. I had some thoughts about friendships, money and traveling but mostly i was just picking up the pieces and recolecting myself. My mind was still far gone.

Day 11:

Slept until 6 am, put on clean underwear, ate breakfast and then toni told me rosi was sick so we played uno. Then after the uno we played more uno and after that it was uno time.

We went exploring a bit around so iwe walked up one of the mountains and then toni wanted to ran down the side of it, but i told him "this is coming from a guy who took drugs on top of a mountain: that's a stupid idea." So we walked back and ran down the side of it. Once we arrived we ordered a dal bhat and took a nap untill dinner. Then after dinner rosi was better, we tried to play uno in the sunroom but it was too cold so we went to bed at 7.

Day 12:

Ate muesli with waaaay too much sugar for breakfast and then walked back from Tilicho basecamp to Yak Kharka. Rosi went real quick through the landslide area this time. After 3 hours we had a cup of tea at sri khadka then we walked 5 hours more. I was so fucking hungry when we finally arrived and finished my dal bhat whithin 5 minutes flat.

Day 13:

Rosi got really bad altitude sickness and couldn't even fully breathe. Toni walked with her to Manang and then went all the fucking way to Torung pedi, 25 km and 1000 meters of elevation. I just had to do 7km and 400 meters so i chilled and took my time. Nearly at the end of my walk the trail got fucked by a landslide so i went 50m straight down this 75° slope, found a walking stick and walked into the hostel.

I tied my thermos to the outside like a flag for toni to see, ate a massive dal bhat and went to chill up at Torung high camp after a nap. When i came down my pink thermos was gone, toni took it down and he was so happy to finally have arrived. Motherfucker didn't take the uno tho... forgot the one fucking thing that's central to every day of our trek.