The Great Himalaya Trail continues...

Robin Boustead walks the rest 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.

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26 July, 2009, Robin says in a group email:

Hi everyone!

What a trek! After what was an epic of immense proportions, I am back in Kathmandu some 12 kg lighter and with a hunger that would impress any buffet chef. Needless to say, it was a long walk so I’ll try to keep this trip report as brief as possible, and maybe I can add some extra yarns over a glass of vino or two at some point in the future?

It seems a lifetime ago that Pema, Karma and I flew to Lukla and spent 10 days in the Everest region acclimatising.. While on the way to Gokyo I bumped into Andrew Lock, a good friend who climbs 8,000m mountains for fun. After I saw him I counted seeing 5 tourists on the trail in the next 3 and a half months!

We met up with the other 4 members of my crew in Thame before crossing the Trashi Labsta, a notoriously tricky pass at 5,865m high. On the far side you descend glaciers to the Rolwaling valley and on to Bigu Gompa. The new government over here is building dirt roads with gay abandon and it was sometimes a challenge to avoid them. We managed to establish a new route from Bigu to the Last Resort (on the Tibet road) which turned out to be an excellent pit-stop. While the crew played on a high ropes course, I typed manically on the computer Judy had lugged up along with about 40kg of food.

It had become immediately obvious in the Rolwaling that we were going to have food problems. The winter rains had failed and a series of national transport strikes had left poor quality rice and a few potatoes in the hills. Our diet for nearly all the trek was a bowl of instant noodles and a couple of chapatti for brekky, then a few chapatti for lunch followed by a slap-up plate of rice and potato curry for dinner. Meagre rations at best!

We headed up to the surprisingly beautiful Bhairav Kund and then on heinous trails to Panch Pokhari. We had the Tilman pass in front of us and I was surprised at how easy it was after hearing yarns of epic suffering from others who had tried to just find the place.. We then scooted pronto down thru Langtang (2 days) to another pit-stop at Syabru Besi. Again I typed manically while the crew washed and repaired gear, and Judy layered heaps of peanut butter onto bread… yummy!

I decided to keep the GHT as far as possible to main trails as there is more than enough rough stuff to occupy the intrepid. The Ganesh Himal to Manaslu is a good example of where good trails meet bad. We arrived in Jagat a day after a couple of friends from Australia , Sandra and Tim, had pulled up as they wanted to accompany me to the end of the trek. They both hung in for the course and both showed solid determination despite illness during their trip. We soon skitted around the Manaslu Circuit and then the Annapurna Circuit to Jomsom where again Judy was waiting with bags of goodies. But this was to be our last pit-stop, the next 6 weeks to the end of Nepal had to be done on a basic diet. Although, we did have a few bags of spaghetti and tins of tuna which Geoff, another friend had brought up!

Geoff accompanied me, S & T for 3 weeks as we crossed 5 huge passes to Phoksumdo lake, perhaps the most beautiful place in Nepal . He then left, having finished all the tuna, and we headed north to the truly wild passes to Mugu. This was a tough section for everyone, but especially Sandra who was battling illness. We then trudged to Gamgadhi, a sorry group of half-starved trekkers! Rara Lake was stunning as I grappled with route options. I decided to head as directly for the border as possible and we spent a few weeks traversing the southern ridges of the last 2 mountain chains in Nepal, Api and Saipal. It was hot and humid as the monsoon clouds built up and occasionally drowned us in mud and leeches. We reached Chainpur and were told that the trail had been washed out by 2 massive landslides. We had hit a terminal problem and it was time to call it quits after 104 days of walking. To say the least no one complained while I called for the bus to come and collect us, everyone had had enough. Having said that, we all realised what a fantastic trek it had been and my thoughts turned to having to write it all up with the hope that someone might want to publish it.

To my surprise it seems that Trailblazer are excited and ready to produce my guide. A local publisher in Kathmandu also wants to produce a large format coffee table book of my photos. So the last 10 days has seen me back on the computer and dishing up 98,000 words! As I have trekked over 150,000metres of ascent and descent in the last 2 treks along the entire length of Nepal I think the ratio is about right ;)

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Robin