Everest Trek Part 4: To Base Camp & Back Again

So when I left off, we had just spent all day trying to get to the village of Dragnag in order to prepare for crossing the Cho La pass, but complications on the trail over the Ngozumpa glacier had forced us to turn back and look for another way across. When we found the bridges also up when trying to cross to the village of Nha, we finally ended the day in Machhermo and had to plan another route around to base camp, skipping the Cho La pass. After studying the maps a bit we all decided that we would head south to Phortse Tenga and then cross the Dudh Koshi river ascending to the village of Phortse. From there we planned on taking the high trail to Pengboche and from there follow the main route up to Gorek Shep and Everest base camp. Our plan was to make for the village of Dughla, and then on to Gorek Shep.

The Village of Phortse

I hate getting behind, and my thought was that if I had been able to get over the glacier and the Cho La I would have ended the day in Lobuche. In the back of my mind this is really where I wanted to end the next day, but the distance seemed to make this fairly impractical. We were on the trail early the next morning and made good time retracing our steps south and we made it to the very picturesque village of Phortse still early in the morning. After stopping here for a few photos and dodging some streams that ran down the main trails through town we made our way to the top of the ridge and headed out on to the high trail to Pengboche.

The Vertigo Inducing High Trail to Pengboche

Monsoon Trekking: Helumbu

At the beginning of these posts I advised that these blog posts are a retelling of my experience, and should not nescisarily be used as an itinerary. When talking about the route we took through Helumbu, I really mean it; both because we took a few wrong turns and because we squeezed it all into one epic 31 mile day with my GPS unit telling me that we had near 6,500' of elevation gain and over 13,000' of elevation lost. I think some of the mistakes we made should be somewhat informative to other hikers and act as a warning to not make the same dumb mistakes.

I passed through this section of trail before back in 04', but unfortunately the more interesting villages of Melamchigaon and Tarke Ghyang were not on our itinerary. Our route took us over only half of the Helumbu Circuit, starting at Therapati and heading south to Sundarijal and on to Kathamndu.

Another Clear Morning; Hills as Seen from Therapati

Another clear morning greeted us, and for some reason that morning nothing on the menu really appealed to either one of us and we settled for just some lemon tea and decided that we could stop possibly in Khutumsang for a late breakfast or early lunch. The morning was a bit on the cool side, but again the skies were clear and it looked to be another great day for trekking. Our plan for today was to do a double days hike and make for Chisopani, a village just on the outskirts of Shivapuri National Park, and only about four hours from Sundarijal. My plan was still to walk all the way back to my front door. I figured it was just over five miles from Sundarijal to Boudha and then only two and a half miles from Boudha to my apartment. 

Fog Surrounds a Stupa just South of Khutumsang

Monsoon Trekking: Gosainkund

The trail up to and through the Gosainkund area was by far my favorite part of this trip. We got some stunning views, and the trail itself was a real joy...though Donnie may disagree with me on that last part. When I left off in the last post we had spent the night at the Landslide Hotel, named I guess for the large landslide coming down the valley face on the opposite side of the river. After a good nights sleep and some breakfast the next morning we were ready to go..kind of. Donnie, on top of his cold and bum ankle, was now also experiencing some gastro-intestinal distress. Being the task master I am, I told him it was a mere 6,000 vertical feet to Singh Gompa, a spot I hoped we could have some lunch at before pressing on to Laurabina Yak, where I hoped to spend the night.

Chorten in the Forest North of Singh Gompa

After leaving the guest house we quickly came to the split in the trail with the right path leading to Syrafru Besi and the one on the left heading to Thulo Syrafru, where we were headed. The trail almost immediately became steep, turning to switchbacks. Some Nepal gray langur monkeys played in the trees at the edge of the trail, though they were a bit too shy for pictures. After about a thousand feet or so of climbing the trail leveled off a bit, we passed a seasonal tea shack and rounded the mountain to a suspension bridge. As I was crossing the bridge I was lamenting that we were five days into this trip and I had not seen a single leech....I mean I didn't want to really deal with the things, but to go a whole trek in the monsoons and not even have an opportunity to brag about fending them off and such was disappointing in some strange, possibly masochistic way. Well, as they say be careful what you wish for.

Annapurna Circuit in 7 days (Part2)

So starting with this post I will go over in detail the actual hike itself on the Annapurna Circuit. This section will deal with getting to the trail head in Besi Sahar and the first two days which got me all the way up the east side of the trail to the village of Chame.

When I left off a few posts ago, I was traveling to Pokhara because I had arrived at the Kathmandu office too late to get my ACAP permit. The thought here was that the gateway of Besi Sahar was in fact close to Pokhara. After a seven hour bus ride to Pokhara I bumped into some friends, had some good food and enjoyed the laid back atmosphere at lakeside. Because the office that issues the ACAP permit didn't open until 10AM I had a relaxing morning, had a good breakfast and meandered down to the tourist office at dam side around 9AM. While waiting outside this office I read that the bus to Besi Sahar would take five long hours from Pokhara. Good grief. 

Tamang Heritage Trail: Part I

Ok, so we're back from hiking a little early, and short on anything to do with the Langtang valley, instead we did just the Tamang Heritage Trail. I'll explain why in this post (or the next) but the short of it is that Kim wasn't fond of steep down hills in the snow, something there was sure to be more of in Langtang proper. This part aside, we had a great time, saw some great stuff and met some fantastic people. I was able to map the whole trail with GPS and the results can be seen in the Google Earth image below. I've color coded each days hike a different color, and the places we spent a night are marked as the house with a flag.

I was really happy with how my Garmin performed, getting what looks like really good data almost the whole trip. The only day things got a little jumpy was on day 5 (purple) when we were walking at the bottom of the valley and had our worst satellite exposure. On close inspection you can see that there is a slight deviation between reality and where Google has their imaging, it's just under a 100' shift to the west. I've mapped all my photos and POI in one KML file, so if anyone is interested just leave a comment or e-mail me and I can send you the file.

So to get to this region you catch a 7 AM bus out of northern Kathmandu, with an estimated travel time of ten hours. Despite being under 80 miles as the crow flies, several ridges, rivers, and miles upon miles of switchbacks mark the actual route, making it a very long ride. To add to the comfort, the bus is made for Nepali people, meaning if you are over 5' tall your knees hit the seat in front of you. Our bus made numerous stops along the way, onloading and offloading various bags of grain, rice, potatoes, people what ever. At one point we came across a traffic back up due to a blocked road. Apparently there had been an accident, the guy who had hit someone on a motorcycle had fled on foot, and to prevent his car from going anywhere until police arrived the road had been blocked. Two hours later we continued on our way and reached our destination after only 11 hours and a few bruises. That night we stayed at the Hotel Peaceful and I awoke with the worst dehydration headache I have ever had, I felt like someone had kicked me in the back of the head with a steel toe boot. Only time in my life I have been nauseous from pain, apparently caused from some odd muscles I used to hold my pack on the bus and a lack of proper hydration. Lesson learned I guess.

So anyway on to the trail. By the time morning rolled around I was feeling much better. The day started with about 2,500' ascent up a bunch of switchbacks that would get us to Rongga Bhanjyang a pass at just about 7,500'. Along this section we got awesome views of Langtang Lirung and the adjacent mountains. Along the trails were numerous Buddhist Chortens (pictured above) and mani walls. These all added to the already picturesque landscape.
After topping the pass we continued down the "road" for another couple miles to the village of Godam, from where we took a trail gently leading down the hill toward the village of Gotlang. This is where we ended our first day, and the view from the community lodge there can be seen above (the mountain is Langtang Lirung). The lodge was run by a man named Dawa who was incredibly helpful and made our stay very comfortable. The village was extremely photogenic and Kim got some of her better pictures of people here. We also had the fortune of sharing the lodge with a Dutch couple, the kind of people that you are grateful to spend dinner with chatting over whatever. Really interesting people.
Above is a picture of Kim being mobbed by children who want their photo taken. They would all yell "One Photo?!?" and then after the shot they would run to see their faces in the preview screen, then run away again so they could get in another picture.

From Gotlang the trail descended gradually along the ridge down to the Bamdang Khola (a river) which we crossed then turned north along the Chilime Khola (another river) to the town of Chilime. We then crossed this river and began the long climb up to Gongoling, where we had lunch. While waiting for lunch some woman came through town singing and dancing which was kind of cool. The lodge owner was also very helpful and after lunch we made our way to Tatopani (meaning hot water) where we spent the next night. Here they also had hot springs and we were able to get a fairly nice bath.

I'll Continue the rest of the hike's details in the next post. My pictures can be viewed from the link on the side of the page "Tamang Heritage Trail" it's the mini slide show. Kim's much better and more numerous photos can be viewed HERE.

Trip to Boudhanath

The Bouddhanath Stupa is one of the largest in the world, and the surrounding blocks are home to many Tibetans that came to Kathmandu following China's occupation in 1959, and many Sherpa people that have moved here from the north east of the country. The area surrounding the stupa sells everything one can imagine having anything to do with Tibetan Buddhism, including prayer flags, lama hats, bronze statues depicting the Buddha and all the other characters of Tibetan mythology, Thankas (religious paintings), and a mish mash of the usual tourist driven merchandise.

Aside from the tourists there actually are many devout Buddhists that make their way here to either visit the Stupa or study as monks/nuns in the many schools that have pooped up in this neighborhood. Westerners are actually accepted at many of these schools now and you occasionally see some white dude walking around in the maroon robes.

This picture I think best shows the sheer size of this stupa, compare its base with the adjacent buildings and people. It's huge!

The prayer flags tied to its peak and flapping in the wind were a great sight. Other pictures from our trip to here have been added to the February folder and can be viewed on the left hand side of the page.

On a final note we walked over to this location from our apartment which is only about three miles away. That said, navigating a city where most streets have no name, and walls and other obstacles regularly block ones path is difficult and maps are of almost no help. This was the first time I got to really put the Garmin my dad got me to use, and I'm happy to report that it worked great. I was able to draw out a route in Google Earth, convert that KML file to a Garmin file using a program called GPS Babel (highly recommended) and uploaded it to my device. The combination of a shift in Google earths imagery and my devices lack of perfect accuracy made for slightly altered path, but all in all it guided us right to the destination with ease. Can't wait to use this in the mountains!

Where the hell are you?!?

For anyone that was interested in where in Kathmandu we were staying below is a shot in Google Earth. My father gave me a nice Garmin Handheld for Christmas which lets me store GPS positions fairly accurately (at least in locating buildings, trails or villages). I was able to take a shot just outside our apartment and it is recorded as "Lazimpat Apartment" on the map. You can see we are just south of the Danish Embassy. Further south of us you can see what use to be the royal palace and gardens, and south west of us is the tourist district of Thamel, with the Kathmandu Guest House at its heart and Pilgrims Guest House defining its northern border.

If anyone wants a copy of the KMZ/KML file I've put together so far just send me an e-mail. Which brings me to another question, uploading video and picutres on Blogger seems easy enough, but does anyone know how you can link file downloads such as KMZ's or other data files? Any suggestions would be great.