"Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have or days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway." - from The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein

Our confidence was shattered. Here we stood on a foot path at the base of Lamma La (pass). We would have to climb to 5150m on a trail. This meant that the advice of all the jeep drivers we queried at Rongbuk and base camp was wrong or referring to another road. We suddenly remembered all their warnings about avoiding a certain trail because it was very difficult.

This also meant that our guide book, The Lonely Planet, was probably not so out of date as we thought when it suggested hiring a guide and a yak!

At least at this point the trail was easy to follow and partly ride-able even on our loaded bikes.

A little girl walked with us at the beginning of the foot trail out of Zemuck. She was pleasant and we didn't mind her company. After Tenzing we were happy to deal with Tibetan children one at a time, though this little girl just happened to be going that way and didn't try to help us, which was fine.

After the steep down and up across a ravine, we were able to ride about 500 meters on the foot path, gradually climbing. Then the trail got harder to ride then harder to find. We rounded a bluff and the trail disappeared altogether. Joan walked ahead and found nothing but rocks and hill.

I found the remnants of a road across the valley. Together we pushed the bikes one at a time over rocks and across a small stream then up a short steep grassy hill. We rested awhile before starting down the vague outlines of an old road. It was nothing more than two dim lines of rocks. We saw no ruts or tire tracks or even foot prints.

The valley we were ascending did not have steep sides like Everest Base Camp. They curved up gracefully more like Scottish hills than Himalayan. Ahead we could see it make a very long gradual turn to our left. The pass, we assumed, would be just around the bend.

We could not ride the bikes at all in this part. We only had the energy to even walk them about 200 meters at a time between rests. What made things really difficult was not knowing. We didn't know where the top would be; we didn't know if the pass would be just as bad on the way down or if we would have to walk all the way to Tingri or if the stove would keep working or if something else would break.

The long bend in the valley just seemed to keep going and going. Joan hiked uphill over lumpy peat-moss like grass to a small rock outcropping hoping to get a glimpse around the bend. She returned a long time later quite defeated. "We're F--!" she said with conviction and despair. She saw only more of the same - an endless bend to the left, no top in sight.

Our little friend actually waited a few minutes with us, but then walked off while we stayed behind, wondering what to do. We ended up spending an hour or more hanging out and eating. About 90 minutes later, she came down over a hill--out of nowhere--and joined us for a few minutes, before heading home. We wondered where she could have possibly gone to-and come back from, in 90 minutes.

This was the lowest point in the entire Tibet adventure. We never had more doubt about succeeding. We wanted to be at home eating pizza. We weren't in much real danger but it looked like far more effort and discomfort lay ahead than either of us cared to confront.

To make things worse, we made the mistake of trying to take a short cut. Since the trail was dim and just as rocky and difficult as no trail at all, we headed cross country to the inside of the big bend. (Joan: my brilliant idea). We figured this would be much shorter. But after an hour or two of this the land got very lumpy. Sort of like a dried bog. It became pretty hard to push the bikes over it. (Joan: the whole place was sort of swampy, with a thickish layer of mud rolling over several large holes (may were springs) and round river rocks. Other times, we ended up pushing through some grass that was stiff as wood. It was extremely hard to push over, and it made a disconcerting crunching sound under our tires. I was sure we'd get flats).

Then we could see a real path again on the base of the hills on the right side of the valley. So with great effort we crossed back across the valley.

Things slowly improved from there. We pushed the bikes for about another hour. Then the valley leveled off somewhat and we reached a section of trail we managed to ride for a kilometer or so. We passed some falling down rock walled corrals and some abandoned buildings.

Finally we could see the end of the valley. But it looked very strange to me. I expected to clearly see the top of the pass. The valley headed south. Standing over the end of the valley was a tall mountain with three glaciers descending the north side. The end of the valley did not appear to be the top of a hill but the bottom! It looked like we were heading into a box canyon.

On the other hand, those glaciers would have a major stream pouring off them but our valley had almost no water in it at this point. The stream we had followed up had turned into a trickle then disappeared.

I looked around for some topographical explanation but I could see no way out without a major climb.

The solution didn't come to me until we came within 200 meters of the prayer flags indicating the top of the Lamma La (pass). It turns out there was a hidden valley, just beyond the end of our valley. The hidden valley contained the major stream I expected below the glaciers and headed off to the west, exactly perpendicular to the valley we had ascended. The hidden valley was not very wide and invisible from a distance. It had smooth curved sides as if dug by a spoon, just like the valley we had climbed.

While we cooked some soup at the prayer flags, a man with three loaded yaks walked by. We asked for Old Tingri and he pointed towards the trail down from the top. The slope was so smooth around there that we might not have found the trail without him.

The summit was a spectacular place, below the glaciers and above two valleys. We stayed awhile despite the biting wind.

We rode down into the hidden valley. At the bottom we had to put sandals on to ford the glacial runoff stream (brrr). Then we got on this wonderful red rock road. It followed the contour of the hill on the south side of the valley so though we rolled easily, we appeared to be climbing above the stream.

We were actually moving fast! What a relief that was. We cycled another 15km and slightly declining roads. There was one extremely difficult ford where we had to push the bikes, one at a time, over boulders the size of small televisions, tumbled by the stream so they looked like Easter eggs.

At this point when we reached obstacles like these, I no longer stopped and considered different routes or options like "maybe it's easier up stream" or "maybe I don't need to put on sandals." Instead we just went at the problem head on until we got across. It made us go much faster and made us more confident too.

Just before dark we reached the part of the trail I call The Runway. The trail went down a long, wide rocky plain. The plain angled at about 4 degrees perfectly evenly for about 3km. Two long parallel lines of white rocks, about 30 feet apart, ran down the middle of the plain. It looked like a runway. But it was not smooth like you would hope a runway would be. We went very slowly bouncing off the rocks. (Joan: each bounce felt like it banged my rims). At least we managed to ride the bikes.

About 1 km from the bottom of The Runway, I spotted several tents in the distance. I thought it was the nomad camp mentioned in the book. But Joan noted that they would be the first nomads with starburst yellow REI tents.

Next: Tibet Chapter 20 - On to Old Tingri

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