The Great Himalaya Trail begins...

Robin Boustead and Bob Rosenbaum walk a chunk of the GHT (Great Himalaya Trail), Nepal section

Imagine a trail from one end of the Himalaya to the other! In fact there is a trail, or rather many, it is just a question of working out which. Myself (Jamie) and others are working on this. Robin is doing more than that, he is trekking the most extreme version, the headline version, if you like, and writing a guide book. The "Middle Way" will be a trekking route, rather than the extreme route which is sometimes very adventurous trekking with occasional mountaineering.

Significantly, Bob and Robin trekked on the most direct route from the Kanchenjunga region to Makalu, a trail rumoured (by western trekkers) to exist, but virtually unknown.

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2 November, 2008, Robin says in a group email:

Hi everyone!

It feels like a long time since I last sent and email, in fact everything seems a long while past thru the fog of my brain right now. Anyway, I’m sitting in Kathmandu, 14 kilos lighter, feeling utterly exhausted, and certainly sporting a few less brain cells after a 2 month trek along the highest possible route thru the Eastern Himalaya. I’ll try not to babble on too much!

Bob [5 times+ trekker with Project Himalaya], a friend from San Francisco, and I started on the Kanchenjunga trek in full monsoon - heavy rain for at least half the day, deep mud, countless leeches (noticed at least 3 different species!), claustrophobic trails of dense bamboo, raging rivers and no views. With us were 8 Nepali crew, including Pema, our guide who I have known for 11 years now, a climbing Sherpa called Renji, a very lightweight kitchen carried by Birbhadur [Bir Bahadur?] and Karma, 3 tents (for 10 of us), a pile of dehydrated meals and energy bars carried by Nawang and Pasang, climbing gear carried by Lakpa and last but by no means least, Karma Dendi who carried the spare stuff for Bob and I.

Our first challenge was to try and find a potential starting point/border crossing with Sikkim to the north of the Kanchenjunga range (the Great Himalaya Trail is meant to be the highest possible safe route thru the mountains). On the maps there wasn’t much that inspired confidence, so all we could do was talk to locals and see if they used any passes to Tibet or Sikkim. Somewhat luckily we managed to identify the Jonsang La (approx 6,100m), but couldn’t reach it due to dangerous traverse of glacier in low visibility. Apparently, 2 Indian mountaineering groups have crossed this pass over the last decade and we hope that maybe it could be an ideal link to establish a Circuit of Kanchenjunga (yes, another crazy trekking idea!).

We headed back down the trail to Ghunsa after which we climbed a minor pass (4800m), the Nango La, which took us to Olangchungola. We attempted to dry our stuff in Olang’ which took two days – the weather was really bad! There is a broad mountainous region to the north west of Olang’ called the Lumba Samba. A friend, Jamie McGuinness is the only person I know to have crossed this range and he kindly provided trail notes. We also employed a local guide whose memory, it turned out, had some holes in it! Fortune smiled on us as we used all our info and we crested the pass on a partly cloudy day. From 5,200m we could see the Kanchenjunga massif with Jannu piercing the sky to the east, and the mighty bulk of Makalu to the west. Even Bob thought the leeches had been worthwhile!

The trail down from Thudam (a remote Tibetan community) was even more muddy, overhung and leech infested than before. When the locals told us, “If it rains then many, many leech coming!” they were right. We stripped down in a small bamboo herder's shelter later that day and picked leeches from each other, not sure if this counts as a male bonding experience or some sort of perversion. We got lost a little in our battle down to lower valleys as our local guide deserted us (can’t really blame him after the leech episode) and then we arrived in Chyamtang and decided on a rest day! The villages in this part of Nepal very rarely see foreigners and we were brought gifts of fruit and veggies, and when we left given blessings for the trail ahead – the contrast to regular trekking routes is profound in many ways.

Our next challenge was to map a high route to Makalu. It looked kinda possible on the maps, but a lot of up and down and unknown river crossings awaited us. We had a great day of trekking from Chyamtang to another village of Hongon. We’d picked up another local guide who turned out to be a true master of the mountains – Chinang was priceless. We climbed up to the Tibet border, near a pass called Popti Banjang. It was my birthday so I made the most of the 1,600m climb in rain, hail and snow. There was no party, unless you count a toast with hot water from Bob in our cramped tent.

We crossed the first range, headed down a valley with 3 river crossings (we were already wet from the rain) and camped in a cave, or rather beneath a large rock overhang. The trail then climbed a 350m loose river cascade – not the sort of trail for the novice walker! Then up over another pass to the Barun river valley, and the Makalu Circuit trail – Hooray we did it! I can’t tell you the relief we all felt, but 3 bottles of Chinese whisky certainly made the crew feel better…

By now the monsoon had broken so things began to dry out and we enjoyed a great trail thru the Makalu region, which is like Yosemite but with glaciers hanging off the mountains (according to Bob). Finding the approach to the Sherpani Col (6,150m) and West Col (6,200m) proved a little problematic, and then I had a fall. While walking in the dark to the Sherpani Col my head torch gave out because of the cold. So relying on dawn light and the peripheral light from torches around me I took it very carefully. But one large boulder had it in for me and I somersaulted thru the air, landing on my back and head. Fortunately, my pack broke my fall although my down jacket was badly ripped beneath. After 20 minutes of checking myself I thanked my lucky stars that nothing was broken, apart from my faith in the rocky trail. So I headed out on to the glacier and plugged steps instead.

What the guidebooks don’t tell you about high passes is that they frequently demand a rock climbing section at the summit. The Sherpani Col is no exception, so at 6100m we fixed a hand line (belaying was not possible due to rock fall), climbed the pass, and saw perhaps the most stunning alpine view I have ever seen. The route then abseils down to the West Barun glacier, crosses it (about 2 hours) and the climbs the West Col, which is followed by a 200m abseil – all fantastic fun! Eleven hours after starting we made camp, but Pemba, Lakpa and Renji were missing. When Pasang came over the pass his load had split and one of our tents fell into a crevasse. We needed that tent. So Pema abseiled 50m in to the slot and prussiked out with the tent – a massive effort that just underlined how much we softie westerners rely on our crew in the hills.

The next pass was the Amphu Labtsa (5,850m), perhaps one of the most notorious passes in Nepal. After only seeing 5 tourists in 7 weeks it was a surprise to see two other trekking groups (who had climbed Mera peak) camped out for the pass. The following morning the largest group got to the summit of the pass first and gummed everything up. For an hour the rest of us sat it out in wild wind blusters that blew snow and fine dust in to mouths, ears, up noses and clogged eyes. At some point I remember thinking, “This is how people die.” But then the jam moved and we were abseiling off the pass and trekking down to Chukhung.

Everyone was excited but exhausted when we arrived at the Everest Region. We met up with Judy who had brought re-supplies and relaxed and ate – I shan’t bore you with the extraordinary menu! The trails were clogged with people who looked like they were wishing they had booked a trip to Ibiza, the average age being well over 50, the average weight being too much. Nearly everyone was tea house trekking, beds were going for over Rs1,000 (AU$20) a night. Bob and I were shocked, amused, and desperate to get out. We quickly pushed on over the Cho La and Renjo La but then I was hit by a bug of some kind, maybe from dodgy water or food, but I lost a few kilos far too quickly! The next, and last, planned pass was the Tashi Labtsa, but with cloudy skies and feeling pathetically weak I really didn’t want to risk it (it’s a dangerous pass at the best of times) so we came back to KTM 12 days ahead of schedule.

So we crossed 9 of 11 passes, found and mapped a definite route from Kanch to Makalu (the last such link that was missing on maps), and now the hard work begins of plotting the routes and writing it all up. It’s the end of festival season in KTM so next week will see me petitioning government departments and explaining the route to the map-makers, oh, and getting well again.

...

Robin

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