Old photos & Diaries

Wanda's Kanchenjunga Wild - on the trail

Thanks Wanda! These are from our Kanchenjunga Wild Oct-Nov 2001 explorations, a 42 day trip.

We spent lots of time exploring, first following an old and now disused trading route to Tibet then Wanda and Jamie went up to Jannu BC area and saw a snow leopard, then we all trekked out from Taplejung to Tumlingtar for some warmer middle hills exploration.

At Kambachen we took an acclimatization rest day and trekked up towards Jannu Base Camp.
A look at Jannu (behind and BIGGER in real life) is reason enough!
Lobsang, Wanda and some of the porters.

Oh, the middle hills. Every bit of land is used, whether for crops, grazing or for firewood.
Here people truly live off the land - if cut off from the rest of the planet, they would live much as they do now.

A contemplative moment. We mainly followed this bubbly river up. As we get higher the villages thin.

Much higher and the river is smaller. Yes, the bridge is bending in the middle!

Lets go exploring. Here we are high in the valley to Tibet. It was a rough, tough walk here but beautiful!

Where is that pass to Tibet? It is somewhere on the skyline. Lobsang waits while Jamie probes for crevasses.
We crossed this large snowfield but it did have two crevasses in it. The snow - the glacier - was about 50 metres or more thicker
years ago and so getting onto the upper slopes was probably easier.

We didn't find any sign of a trail and just made our own route up. Wanda decided it was steeper than she would like,
hence no pictures from the top. The view was incredible though, the real Tibet.

Yes, it is Jannu again (Khumbukarna is the Nepali government name for the mountain).
This is a Rai shrine to the mountain and during the monsoon months pilgrims worship here.

jdesign -- all rights reserved -- frozen in time July 2013