fog mountain
Above the northwestern Vietnamese town of Sapa is the tallest peak on the indochina peninsula. I’ve read that there is now a cable car that runs to the top of Mount Fansipan. When I was there, the cable car had yet to be built.
I’ve also heard that the views from the summit of Fansipan are spectacular.
I was traveling with two other young guys. I was the old man of the group at twenty four. We had met on a tourist boat in Hao Long Bay.
They were both european and were traveling together on their gap year. One of the guys had heard of Fansipan and wanted to hike it.
I had gained their respect, in the way that young men do, by performing a mostly successful running backflip off the top deck of the vessel into the water during swim call. They apparently viewed this as a measure of my character and decided that I would be a good person to have along on the adventure. That evening over drinks they invited me along.
We had taken an overnight train and a bus to get to Sapa from Hanoi and spent a night there in a hotel with a beautiful view of the valley. The rice fields had a topographic effect on the hillsides below. As though the landscape had been built using the contour lines from a map as an exact blueprint.
We had asked around about the mountain and had learned that we needed permits to climb the peak. These permits required visiting several different local government offices. None of which we knew how to find.
At our hotel they strongly recommended hiring a guide. A guide would take care of permits as well as lead us up the mountain. The trails through the jungle weren’t well marked and were easy to lose, we were told.
The hotel had a connection with a guide, of course, who was happy to come by and plan a trip up the mountain with us. Here we hit a bit of a problem. Because we were young and arrogant and thought we were tough we had decided that we only had one day available to hike the mountain. We had heard that it took a minimum of two days and usually more except for the very strongest and most experienced hikers. So we naturally had planned on hiking the peak the following day regardless of the weather and on being back in time to catch the bus to Lao cai and from there, the last train to Hanoi.
The guide thought this was a bad plan. But we insisted that was what we wanted to do. He finally agreed but told us that it would be impossible to make it back to catch the train.
The next morning we were up before sunrise. We left our traveling gear at the hotel and carried with us only light hiking gear with some water and a bit of food. Our guide had arranged a truck to drive us up to the trailhead outside of town. We arrived in the early light. It was foggy and raining lightly. Our guide was a vietnamese man about our age. He was wearing jeans, a t-shirt and tennis shoes. We piled out of the truck and he asked if we were ready. The three of us all nodded the affirmative and with a grin he turned and set off into the jungle at a brisk jog.
As the day wore on he maintained this pace as we pushed upwards through the jungle. The rain had begun falling harder and the trail was mostly mud except when it occasionally followed the course of a knee deep, quickly running stream.
Our guide never stopped, only slowing from a run when the trail became too rough and steep to permit or to occasionally turn and with a smile ask if we were tired.
I was in better shape than I am now and stubborn enough that I put myself on his heels and refused to fall behind. My other two companions lagged a little ways, but kept up.
We climbed on, up the mountain in the rain and fog. My boots, the largest pair of Vietnamese army surplus to be found, were completely caked with mud. I got in the habit of hiking through streams and puddles whenever possible to try to rinse some of the thicker mud off and out of my boots while staying on the move.
My two traveling companions began to wear down. They fell farther and farther behind and began calling out to ask how far we were from the summit. ‘‘One hour” was always the response.
I kept my head down. I was tiring too. Already drawing from mostly mental stamina reserves and we were still “one hour” from the summit with the trail getting ever steeper.
Throughout all this our guide maintained a very casual aire. Smiling mischievously and regularly calling back to ask if we were tired. For all the world maintaining the image that he could keep running through pouring rain, thick mud and peasoup fog all day without the slightest hint of fatigue.
And then after a grueling push up a particularly steep section of trail the guide finally paused and we waited for the other two to catch up. He turned to me with a smile, “I’m fucking tired” he said. And we both laughed, standing in the rain completely soaked and covered with mud. Our companions made to the top of the rise and one asked. “How much further?” “one hour” was the reply.
We pushed on. No more than fifteen minutes later we reached the summit. It was completely shrouded in clouds. Our view was a small metal pyramid marking the highest point and the rocky peak dropping away into the fog. I’ve heard the view is spectacular.
We caught the last train to Hanoi that night.
