Madhu said there was no point in trying to get transport to Syabrubesi from Dunche, as it is infrequent and already full, but this was just as well as it provided the opportunity to make a new approach into the Langtang Valley, and we had the time. As we left the town, we could see…
Category: Nepal Treks
Nepal trekking lists
Langtang in Winter _ Day 2: Friday 14th February 2020 – U Kyang to Lama Hotel
A bittersweet experience on a trek is the knowledge that height gained is often sacrificed in height lost. Thus today we could see the long descent to the floor of the Langtang valley where the path would join the main trail. Finally in the valley was a lodge where we could have a hot cup…
Langtang in Winter _ Day 3: Saturday 15th February – Lama Hotel to Langtang Village
We were invited to sit in the kitchen while waiting for breakfast. Cooking was done on a semi-open fire, and surprisingly there seemed to be little smoke from the wood used. It was a cheery sight, and though a bit wasteful of wood the blaze got the breakfast ready fast. The path crossed landslides triggered…
Langtang in Winter_ Day 4: Sunday 16th February 2020
A high wind in the night, then stillness. Sleep came with difficulty in the mountain air. Then a bright morning with no wind; warm in the sun. The valley opened out to a Scottish highland glen, with its boulders, its rushing river, its small hydroelectric scheme with insulated pipe. A majestic stupa crowned a rise….
Langtang in Winter _ Day 5-7: Monday 17th February to Wednesday 19th 2020 – Tsergo Ri and return
This was the climax of the trip. Would I get up without any altitude symptoms, weakness, headache? Pepe, a young Catalan from Barcelona, joined us at the start. We gave him some suncream. Then he streaked ahead. It was just a long, long ascent. The only tricky part was when you reached an intermediate saddle…
In search of the Ganesh Himal base camp
To approach the inner sanctum of the mountains, we first had to descend quite steeply through the forest and cross a couple of rivers. The total ascent for these two days could therefore have been about 2200m, though without any altitude effects, since we were not staying at the top elevation of 4000m, but returning…
Further into the unknown region: The Ganesh Himal base camp.
Nile to Domje: While many of the most famous treks in Nepal are circuits, for example Annapurna, Manaslu, Kanchenjunga, there is also interest in going down the way that you came up, for example in the Everest base camp trek and the Langtang trek, due to the surprising new viewpoints you may have missed on…
Tsum Valley: The Upper Sanctuaries
Chhokang Paro to Nile: So now that we were in the upper valley, did the atmosphere provide subtle emanations linked to the remote, untouched nature of the place, and to the constant vibrations transmitted from the places of inner devotion, the gompas with their adherents always in solitary, meditative retreat from the maya and illusion…
Tsum Valley Approaches: December 2023
Jagat to Lokpa: we were still in the common area for trekking around Manaslu. Frequent mule trains descended, unladen, usually placidly, but at times there was jostling and kicking. We could see that this traditional means of transport will be replaced by the gradual extension of the road towards the villages in the Manaslu valley….
Toward the Unknown Region: the Tsum Valley in Nepal
Yes … a touch melodramatic, because the Tsum Valley in Nepal is only unknown to those who have yet to explore it. But the idea of the ‘unknown region’ is a symbol for adventurous travel, and maybe for deeper exploration, since Toward the Unknown Region is the title of a poem by Walt Whitman, and…
Langtang in Winter. Conversations we had on the trek: the pot cannot call the kettle black.
A trek is not just a geographical displacement; it is always a change in consciousness. Here is where it started, in Dhulikhel, just outside the main urban area of Kathmandu, in the early morning haze. The discussion of this haze, as part of a massive bank of pollution from the North Indian plain and how…
Langtang in Winter
Day 0: Wednesday 12 February 2020There was a window of opportunity in February, before work obligations in the spring. Covid was just starting its march across the world. Could there be a quick trip to Nepal, as the recorded cases of coronavirus were so far tiny? A convenient short winter trek would be Langtang. Memory…
Gokyo to Everest Base Camp: returning to Salleri
Sunday January 13th, 2019. Amazingly this is Day 18. Coming down is all part of the experience, and allows a retrospective contemplation, but while most trekkers stop at Lukla, and then take a plane ride back to Kathmandu, with more time on our hands we have elected to walk out to Salleri, the way we…
Gokyo to Everest Base Camp (part 2)
Lower altitude permitted some sleep last night. It is snowing, and all views have disappeared, only the sense of the gulf down to the river. Quiet, with that sense of mystery and stillness. After a steep rise, the path is contouring round. A yak follows us. There are footprints in the snow, but surely not…
Gokyo to Everest Base Camp (Part 1)
5th January 2019A gentle sense of achievement flushes the veins, as in the bright air we start to descend: there will be scalding soup at Gokyo, and in gradually waning afternoon light, views will open up besides frozen brooks. Colder air, wisps of mist condensing, calm silence; only busy ducks will forage in the waters…
Toward the Unknown Region
This eloquent title belongs to a poem in Walt Whitman´s Leaves of Grass. It begins: Darest thou now, O Soul,Walk out with me toward the unknown region,Where neither ground is for the feet, nor any path to follow? The epithet ´unknown region´resonates, challenges. This is how we may feel at the end of the trail…
Altibajos …. or the ups and downs of the trek – and its exigencies
We have to accept ups and downs, so nicely captured in the Spanish word altibajos. But it is difficult not to resent losing the height one has gained. A particular example occurs up from Namche. After patiently climbing to the pass at Mong, the path descends all the way down to the river, yes the…
Take things as they come
Should we embrace a teleological view of the trek, that it only has meaning based on its purpose to complete its objective and arrive at the final point, or should we follow that impressive advice of Robert Louis Stevenson, ¨to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive¨? Dear reader, you will probably feel…
Zen and the art of trekking
Sometimes the contrast between the real and painful effort made during the trek and the imaginative mental projection of finally crossing the highest pass, and the way we compensate in planning how to present this ´triumph´to others, makes one think that one purpose of trekking is to bleach out all pretence and vainglory, vanity and…
Everest Region: to the Gokyo Lakes
Beginnings Exactly ten years ago, during the January school break in Nepal, when I was working in Kathmandu University High School, we planned to do the Everest Base Camp trek. I was intrigued to discover that the trails would be snow free, for the most part, and provided you could stand the cold, they would…