Opening with a family photo atop a snow covered peak surrounded by stunning mountain scenery is an irresistible gimmick.  Sorry.  Getting high into the Himalaya was one of the goals of this trek, but getting there and back made up the bulk of the experience.

Here you are either walking up or walking down, and the ups and downs are massive.  Our 12-day trek started at the end of the road in the town of Syaprubesi (1500m x 3.3 = 4950ft) and took us up the Langtang Valley over the following five days to the settlement of Kyanjin Gompa (3900m) with a day trip to the nearby “hill” of Kyanjin Ri (4600m).  The return trip took us back down the river to Bamboo (1950m) before heading back up through the relatively large (and uniquely electrified) town of Thulo Syaphru (2250m), the tiny two-house Foprang Danda and the beautiful views from Laurebina Yak (3900m).  On our final day we descended from Laurebina Yak to the roadside town of Dunche (1900m) to catch a bumpy, windy, 6-hour jeep ride back to Kathmandu on roads with precipitous drops through switchbacks and landslides.  For those of you doing the math, the last day’s descent was the equivalent of walking down from the peak of our highest east coast mountain, Mt. Mitchell (2037m), to sea level.

This is not a wilderness area, but a place lightly populated mostly by third-generation Tibetans.  Religious objects are everywhere.  Here are a few that we saw along the trail.

But not all of the religious objects were Buddhist.  On the trail to the sacred Hindu lakes of Gosainkund, Shiva images start to appear.

The trails themselves are much-used footpaths that have connected settlements for hundreds of years.  This is a roadless area, so everything that moves here moves along these paths.  That includes not only the people, but the goods.  Pack animals carry cement, rice and other bulk items that are not likely to be broken when bashed against trees or rocks on a narrow trail.  Humans are the pack animals for everything else.  It was a painful and sobering sight to see men (young and old) hiking for three leg-trembling days (Syaprubesi to Kyanjin Gompa), often in flip flops, with the following items across their backs supported by a strap over the forehead.  (Photographing these guys seemed too voyeuristic, so words will have to suffice.)  Five 4×8 foot sheets of 1/4 inch plywood; 2×8 foot rolls of galvanized, corrugated sheet metal roofing material; reams of rebar; several cases of 750ml bottles of beer; solar panels, brackets, and piping for solar hot water systems; and the ubiquitous heavy-ass load of unidentified stuff to be consumed by trekkers somewhere further up the trail.  A three-day haul with 90-150 pounds strapped to the back will bring in approximately $35.  In Nepal this is big money; enough, apparently, to destroy your body getting it.

In addition to the lowly pack-animal porter hauling commodities up the trail, many trekkers hire their own personal porters to carry their gear so they can walk with a small day pack.  The juxtaposition of doughy trekker with day pack against sinewy porter with three large backpacks strapped around his head and back was a tough one to see over and over again.  We are used to carrying our own gear when we hike, and did so on this trek.  But was that the “right” thing to do?  As a result, we left at least one Nepali unemployed who would otherwise have made as much as $15-20 per day carrying our stuff.  The porters we passed were not concerned about this dilemma and instead invariably commented with glee on the size of the boys’ packs.  Some images from the trail.

The day-to-day was what made the trip.  We met great people along the way, both local hosts and international trekkers.  We ate mediocre but filling, carb-heavy meals and drank lots of hot drinks.  We enjoyed good weather almost all of the time.  And we slept well after long days of intense exercise (except when sharing lodging with large groups of loud Koreans . . .).  Here are some images that capture some of those experiences.

Every day on the trek was a good one, but the best one had to be the day that we set out from Thulo Syaphru on the way to Shin Gompa (an 1100m climb).  It had rained the night before, which was an unusual weather event this time of year.  The trails were a bit slick and the sky was still overcast.  After an hour or so thunderheads started rumbling and we sought shelter where we could find it under the eaves of a storage shed.  As we crouched there with the temperatures dropping and the rain increasing we received good information from a passing Nepali of a tea house ten minutes up the trail.  We made a run for it and managed to reach the warmth and shelter just as the skies opened up.  The next four hours were spent on benches around a wood burning stove with an American birder, a Canadian wanderer, two German medical students and their various guides and porters sipping tea, eating various combinations of noodles, rice and potatoes, and watching a pan on the stove fill with water dripping from the ceiling.  It was heaven compared to the outdoor alternative.  When the weather finally cleared we got back on the trail and continued our climb through slushy forests to the ridge top clearing of Foprang Danda.  The two tea houses that usually serve as a lunch stop became our home for the afternoon and night, and Foprang Danda became our favorite trail moment.  Our young host cooked up an excellent dinner and we slept hard and well crammed into a room no bigger than the bed itself oblivious to the rats sharing our space and unconcerned about the frigid outdoor squat toilet with the shower curtain door.  Rising at 5:30AM we caught the clear morning views to the west, north and east as the sun rose to the sound of roosters and nothing else.

Happiness is trekking with your family on the rooftop of the world.