How many steps can you climb in an hour? I suppose until you attempt it, you wouldn't know would you? From our tea house in Gorpani, which sits at 9100 ft, or thereabouts, we climbed around 3200 steps in the cold and pitch black at 4:30 am. I think we were all delirious with anticipation of the view of the Annapurna range at sunrise. What we found instead, was 100's of other climbers with headlamps flickering in the misty darkness in search of the same promise only to be disappointed to land in the clouds with no view of anything but each other! As the sky lightened, we got small peeks of several mountaintops in the range. It was a sight to behold after such a long day the day before getting to Gorpani in the first place. All told, I think we must have climbed over 7000 steps to reach this moment. We were now standing at 3200 meters, about 10,500 ft. Was it worth it? What do you think after looking at the photos yourself? Would I do it again? Would you?
