An early start for the big day of stage 4. As we start the race at over 3800 metres the day is all high altitude with two climbs well above 4000 metres. This was meant to be a very runnable day and to begin with is was on tracks but as we gained altitude I began to have to walk more and more.
We turned up a valley heading for a hidden cave with painting dating from the 1300s. The amazing thing is that this cave was at 4100 metres and only accessible with the use of a cable hand rail. Why would anyone want to live up here? It took about 1 hour 20 to reach the check in point and another hour to visit the cave with substantial climbing on precipitous narrow paths.
The run down the valley was fun with outstanding views and landscapes. We contoured round a set of cliffs to head down to a valley where the water point was. We then had another 1k to get to the next check in check out. This was an amazing 5 storey cave settlement now abandoned. I managed to bang my head on a doorway and loose some blood.
The next section was about 3k through villages and pastures before heading unto a high plateau that eventually headed down towards Lo Manthang 6k away. Much of this was runnable and Sven left our little group and stormed ahead. George and I kept a good pace over pastures, fields and irrigation ditches until the last descent and climb into Lo Manthang where George ran out of energy and I managed to finish a few minutes in front of him in 3.39. Menai struggled today but did a great job to complete the round in about 5 hours.
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