Bhutan's Famous Tiger's Nest

The Tiger’s Nest (Taktsang) is unquestionably the most famous and breathtaking landmarks in all of Bhutan, and from my latest 12 year travel experience of over 60 countries, I would place it in the top 10 in the world.  To get there you must travel 3,000 feet up from the city of Paro, situated at about 7,000 feet, which brings you 10,000 feet above sea level. Translated in human terms, if the partial pressure of oxygen in your lungs is 100 mmHg at sea level, it would be about 70mmHg in Paro and 55mmHg at the level of the Tiger’s Nest.  That leaves you with about half of your oxygen carrying capacity and the reason that trekking up to the Tiger’s Nest from Paro is both an adventure and a challenge, one that not everybody can easily accomplish regardless of age or agility.  

 

I turn 73 in three days from the start of this writing; the trek up to the Tiger’s Nest was the highlight of my one-week trip to Bhutan. To accomplish this goal, I had to trek about 2 ½ miles up and the same distance down.  I was under the impression taken from the internet, that the distance was 2 miles in either direction = 4 miles of total distance.  But that’s not what my trusty apple watch told me.

Trekking to the Tiger’s Nest was also a personal challenge I was looking forward to, with a body that has long since begun its decent into oblivion, including a weak left ankle, and an arthritic right knee with little cartilage and pseudogout, and countless other ailments that are too numerous and boring, even for me, to bother documenting here.  Celebrex and glucosamine were used liberally to even the score and give me a fighting chance.

Moreover, the Tiger’s Nest trek serves as an apt metaphor for my life…trekking through a mess of protruding, crossing tree roots, a little muddy at times, a terrain of rocks and boulders that mesmerizes with endless curving repetition as the trail carves a path that crisscrosses the mountain, dust rebounding from your pounding steps, staining your shoes, and your travel pants, making its way to the remaining surface of your body, into your lungs as these fine particles follow your breath, and evenly covering the entirety of your surface.  All of this to reach that moment of exhilaration as you reach the Tiger’s nest, admire the surroundings, catch your breath, and return back down the mountain while passing others moving in either direction.

Starting from a variable but manageable incline, the higher you go, the greater the challenge. The terrain becomes more variable and at times steeper, and the higher you have to bend your knee to reach to the next level.  The unpredictability of the terrain during the ascent and decent forces you to concentrate intently on every step taken.  Failure to concentrate puts you in great jeopardy for falling, not a good thing for anyone in Bhutan, especially someone at my age.  To be sure, there is no ambulance waiting at the foot of the mountain to be called to rescue some clueless tourist who has just sprained an ankle, broken a leg, or had a heart attack from the physical strain of the trek and paucity of ambient oxygen.

Starting off with small boulders and unstable and unequal steps on dusty terrain that is littered with poop donated by the horses that defecate freely as they carry the old, the infirmed, the obese, but mostly those too insecure to make it on their own, up to around the half way mark, there is a café for rest, refreshment, a lovely view for picture taking, and toilet facilities to relieve yourself of any excess fluid you may have accumulated nursing on the water bottle that you were warned not to forget.

I must have stopped 20 times to catch my breath.  My heart rate which is in the mid 50’s at rest, shot up to the 140’s – probably near my maximum heart rate – all due to the strain of the expedition. 

And it was not only the unstable and unpredictable terrain, not only the horse poop that covered the path with particularly large pies of excrement, it was not only the tourists who were competing for poop free footing, it was also the heat and the progressive dehydration that found its way insuring a light headed semi instability that lulled you into a sense of careless abandon.  I must have almost fallen 50 times, none of which seemed to phase me which is sort of amazing when I think about how careful I try to be to not get yet another injury that would limit my mobility and my dancing.   

There was a point where you climb the mountain at near the height of the Tiger’s nest only to be told that you now have to go down about a million steps and then come back up because of the contour of the mountain and the path that must be taken.  And that was both scary and breathtaking as you were usually on the edge looking down a few hundred feet hoping you would not fall and splatter your body into a billion fragments on the mountain rock.

Well I wouldn’t be writing this piece if I had failed to reach the Tiger’s Nest, so that should not be news.  And indeed, I am alive to talk about it.  But the energy and the anticipation I had for this trek energized me to perform my expected boundaries.  Usually the trek takes 2 ½ hours up and similar timing going down.  It took me 1¾ hours with a 7-minute break going up and 83 minutes with multiple interruptions and slowdowns going down.  Very happy with my accomplishment, very happy to make it without incident, very happy to not own a T-shirt that says “I trekked to the Tiger’s Nest and lived to wear this T-shirt.”  And very happy to be alive now that I am 73 and still remember who I am.