Druk Path Trek - Day 1

Yesterday walk to Tiger's Nest was a good warm-up for our 5-day trek from Paro to Thimpu. Before roads were built in the 70's, the Druk Path trek was the "road" between the two cities.

We had separated our stuff into two packs, one that the driver would take to Thimpu, and the other to be carried by horses as we trekked.

It took about 30 minutes to drive to the starting point, at about 2500m, above the National Museum. There we met our trekking crew: a trekking guide, a cook, and the horse person. Yeshey (our guide for the whole trip) also joined us, so there were four people and five horses just for the two of us.

Today's walk was 1,100m up to Jili Dzong, which overlooks Paro Valley.

The first hour was along an unpaved road, although only one vehicle passed us so it wasn't dusty. We started around 10:30am, and looked to be the only group starting this trek today (it's shoulder season).

After the hour we broke off onto the old paths, now used primarily by tourists and their entourages. It was a very scenic walk through pine. It was a great temperature for trekking - about 14C or so.

Lunch was a hot lunch, rice with chicken and a couple vegetable dishes. The trekking guide carried the food in tiffins in an insulated container.

We reached camp around 1:30pm, early enough that we had time to visit Jili Dzong. It had been impacted by the 2011 earthquake, but a benefactor was paying to have it restored. The temple inside was completed, and so we heard the history.

We walked down to camp (at 3500m, about 75m below Jiii Dzong). We were very impressed with our tour operator (Bhutan Tour Club). There were three tents set up, one for Heather and I to sleep in, another for eating (which doubled as the tent for the guide and cook; the other trekking crew slept near the horses away from camp), and a kitchen. The equipment was all pretty new and designed for the temperatures we would face (about -5C at night). We had two sleeping bags each, Marmots rated for -20C, so we were plenty warm at night.

We only got cold between sunset and getting into the tents. Dinner was at 6pm, multiple courses with plenty of nutritional value, and tasty. They even gave us a hot water bottle to warm up after dinner! We stayed up for a few more minutes, then took them to warm up the sleeping bags. We were asleep before
7pm.