Visit To Nepal

Visit To Nepal - Nov/Dec 2001

(click on pictures for larger images (640x480) )

It had always been an ambition of mine to travel to Nepal to view Everest. Christine managed to do this last year as part of her post graduation round the world trip and the opportunity arose this year for me this year, accompanied by Jenny on her "post Doctoral thesis submission trip".

In February I had researched the various trekking holiday travel companies to see what they offered. Some of them offered quite good packages but were unable to offer a trip at exactly the time of year that we had available. So encouraged by Christine's experience last year we decided upon the do-it -yourself approach.

We departed Heathrow for Kathmandu via Delhi on November the 12th. British Airways to Delhi and Royal Nepal Airlines to Kathmandu. I had stated a wish to do as much travelling as possible on reputable airlines and not a budget travel on some of the ex Soviet Union military transport which we saw at Kathmandu. The journey included a somewhat lengthy 8 hour stoppover at Delhi but by ignoring all offers of help from the locals and going to the waiting room close to the international departures area we had an uneventful trip.

On arrival at Kathmandu we changed our money at the airport (before going through immigration) and having obtained visas in London we were able to jump the long queue at immigration. At a hotel booking desk at the airport we insisted that we wanted to stay at the Kathmandu Guest House and they booked us a room, although for some strange reason this meant that we were going to have top pay for the taxi to town rather than get a free ride. After a bit of a scramble to find the right taxi and not be hijacked by one freelancing for other hotels, we soon arrived at the hotel. After our first experience of an Asian town traffic the hotel was a sanctuary of calm with a quiet garden away from the busy streets. We followed advice from the travel desk in the hotel and arranged for a guide/porter and a porter to collect us from the hotel the following morning.

Wednesday morning found us at 6.00 o'clock down at the bus station. It was even more chaos than normal as it was the day before a national and religious holiday and there were many people trying to get home for the festivities. Fortunately our guide was able to get us tickets to Jiri, although I suspect that he had to pay a little over the odds for them. It was the last bus of the day leaving at about 10.30am and it was extremely crowded inside with another 30 or 40 people on the roof. Alright for day traveling but extremely cold at night. The journey to Jiri took about 11 hours but this included a stop for lunch and a couple of stops to repair a puncture. We arrived in Jiri at 9.00pm, a beautiful clear cold night with the stars shining and the village of Jiri lit by candles to mark the start of the holiday. The milky way was clearly visible but we were thankful to drop into our sleeping bags in one of the local lodges.

Early next morning we were up to a breakfast of milk tea and toast and off up the trail. The nepalese trails seem to either go uphill or down hill but never on the level. Later in our trek we were able to understand why this was so, due to the local and very unstable geology. The trails were usually a fairly good standard of footpath. They are the local main roads with all the traffic, goods and people travelling along them. In places they get over eroded and I think they would be terrible in the rainy season. But we only saw them in the dry. As the local road system there are tea houses at frequent intervals and at all the places one needs a bit of refreshment, such as at the top of the hills. Here is one such tea house in a small village on the trail from Jiri to Shivalaya. Jenny and our guide, Gopal, on the left and our porter, Krishna, just visible in the shadows on the right.

The first day is set at quite an easy pace and we arrive at Shivalaya by lunch time. The second day is a bit more strenuous crossing over a pass to Banadar. Day three takes us down a long valley full of fertile fields with flowers and butterflies in abundance. We stop in a charming village of Kinja for lunch of Dal Bhat and in the afternoon we tackle our first more strenuous ascent of 1000m to Sete. A small village half way up to the next pass. The following morning we continue up to the Lamijura La, a pass of 3500m.The altitude was beginning to show on our rate of progress and unfortunately we were not rewarded by the views that we had hoped for as the top was in the clouds. We descended for our nights stop at Junbesi. Our next few days trekking were at a much lower altitude and this picture was taken down close to where we crossed the Dud Koshi, the river which carries the melt from the south of Everest. Here it is only 1600m altitude, which is lower than our start at Jiri. The weather is sub-tropical with orange groves and banana palms in profusion. The Poinsettia like plants were growing to 15 or 20 feet high and there were Dahlias of similar size.

Even the tea houses sprouted pretty tea gardens for the tourists.

As we walked up the Dud Koshi valley the path slowly descended until we were walking on the valley floor. The picture on the left shows the path just before we cross the river at one of the many suspension bridges. It can just be seen in the middle distance marked by the innevitable prayer flags. The bridges tend to be set fairly high above the rivers so that they are not washed away in the rainy season. This bridge also marks the end of the lower part of the trek with the following climb of 500m taking us up to the town of Namche Bazaar at 3400m

A further 400m above Namche is the Everest View Hotel where reputedly they have at enormouse expense pressurised rooms for those suffering from altitude sickness. Our stay lasted just long enough to drink a cup of hot chocolate and take the pictures. This is our first proper view of Everest (8850m) which is the distant peak just to the right of the black peak on the left. To the right of Everest is Lhotse (8501m), another "8000m" peak and to the right of Jenny is Ama Dablam (6856m). Ama Dablam is a fine mountain which the trekkers get to know well as it is on the skyline for days as one treks in around it to reach the Everest Base camp.

We then trekked in towards the high peaks for several days. The distances traveled were not so far at this stage as we were limited by the safe altitude increase for each day in the places we stayed. On average we increased no more than 300m per day.The weather was fine at this altitude. We were above the layer of cloud which hung around in the lower valleys. In the sunshine it was warm, but out of the sun it was chilly, especially in the early morning.

The mountains were always a wonderful backdrop to our walking but as we got higher so the vegetation changed. The trees giving way to a low heather-like scrub and short grass well grazed by the Yaks. At times the cold air would come down from the mountains and there was a need to wrap up warmer. The picture on the left shows Jenny just before we reached the village of Pheriche at about 4200m with the peak of Lobouche (6145m) at the head of the valley. We stayed here a couple of nights acclimatising to the altitude and took a side walk towards Dingboche and a view to the East towards Island Peak and Makalu.

The route to the Lobuche settlement at 4900m took us further in to the mountains and the trail was becoming quite barren We were now beyond the areas normally inhabited by the Sherpas into a region which is solely for trekkers and more serious mountaineers. The bridges over the streams became little more than wooden bridges which presumably need frequent replacing after the wet season. We were in the dry season and with winter approaching the glacier melt water was low. The stream in this picture is the melt water from the Khumbu glacier which drains the south side of Everest.

Here is a view of the Khumbu glacier. At this point the surface ice has largely evaporated leaving a surface covered with rock and moraine. But the ice is clearly visible in the breaks. This view is looking back from the slopes of Kala Pattar over the lodges at Gorak Shep showing the line of the path that we had taken.

The last 500m up Kala Pattar I found particularly tough. The air did not seem to have any useful substance to it!! However it was able to be fairly chilling and we put on our cold weather kit for this last leg of our venture. Here Jenny can be seen on the top of Kala Pattar in full down jacket with the innevitable prayer flags flying just behind her.

And this is the view that she is looking at. After 15 days hard walking we had got there. Everest at 8850m is the black peak to the middle left of the picture with the snow plume blowing off the top. The sharper peak to the right is Nuptse and is closer but only 7861m. The weather was superb the sun viciously hot and burning and the sky really was as inky black as the photographs indicate.

I took a series of pictures to make up the panoramic view and this is the one looking further south with Ama Dablam the peak in the centre. Ama Dablam is an easily recognised landmark for most trekkers going in to Everest as it is a spectacularly shaped mountain and one has been walking around it for days.

The panoramic view below is compiled from 5 photos and covers the sector from North to South in an Easterly direction. This is the view that we had come to see and it is every bit as spectacular as the pictures imply.

The photographs shown here were taken at 1Mpixel resolution but have been reduced in format to save web space. I also hauled a film camera up there only to find that its mechanism had frozen when I got to the viewpoint. My mistake for not keeping it inside my jacket. This is a small selection from over 100 digital and 250 photographic images.

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