Beaten Track – Where?!
I’ve mentioned the “beaten path” several times in this blog and there is no better place to feel like you are getting off it than Nepal. True, the Everest base camp and Annapurna regions can be heaving, but even they, by comparison with many popular tourists spots are relatively quiet. And just a few hours out of Kathmandu you can find yourself driving down a road to nowhere to start a trek that will lead you through untouched villages and no sign of anyone but locals for nearly three weeks – nothing else we’ve ever done on our travels can come close to this sense of adventure.
We had read about the Rolwaling valley trek with ascents of Parchemo and Ramdung and thought we had a pretty good idea of what we would be facing, having also previously trekked the Everest trail and summited Mera Peak. However we failed to account for moving glaciers and other such dynamic factors! Our first adventure was hiding out in a local house for a day during the national elections, the first for Nepal, as we had been warned that it would be best not to be seen on the trails. Then we had several route issues due to landslides and new roads being built. Once we got to a decent height, we were then faced with a completely different route to the traditional one for Ramdung (much harder, but more fun!) and significant changes in route across the glacier up to the Tashi Lapcha. We really enjoyed it and had an amazing summit day, but it was without a doubt the hardest couple of weeks of our lives! The downsides of summit day were that I was left with a respiratory infection and Steve with the beginnings of frost bite and we were unable to recover quickly enough for an ascent of Parchemo. It looks like a really beautiful mountain so we’ll just have to go back for it!
As always, seeing the incredible scenery of Nepal was but a close second to spending time with the sherpa people. We often see people trekking without guides and they really are missing the point. Don’t get me wrong, for those who are doing serious and dangerous mountaineering, the less sherpas they use the better as far as I’m concerned – I know the sherpas can make more money on these expeditions but at what cost? Pumori is notorious for regular avalanches, yet still Westerners send sherpas up there to fix ropes and many of them are killed – fix your own ropes if the risk is that high or climb easier mountains!! But trekking is safe and for the trekker it is better in every way if undertaken with a sherpa guide.
As an aside related to the sherpas… we think we have a pretty good handle on ethical travelling and responsible giving: we know not to pay the dollar to free the bird from a cage as it just encourages the capture of more birds – give the dollar to an animal welfare centre instead; we know not to give money to children begging as it encourages their families to continue sending them onto the streets – give the money to local schools/child welfare instead; we know to properly research an issue/institution before supporting it. We know to organise our treks through Community Action Treks for many reasons: because ALL the profits go to Community Action Nepal which supports local projects such as school and hospital building, with sustainability as a priority; because they pay a good wage to all their staff; because they provide good equipment and training to all staff; because they enforce a minimum age and maximum load for porters; because they organise insurance for their staff and so on; because they have the best staff and most amazing treks! But when the 16 or so sherpas come storming past you at 5700m with 30kg loads over a crevassed glacier, (and still singing as always) your first thought isn’t, “that’s good, we’re providing well paid, responsible employment for all those people for three weeks” – you just feel guilty! Consequently, our only mistake when in Nepal is that we always tip well over the recommended amounts - yes, we also know the negative issues that can arise from this, but feel having been there several times, we get to know our boys well enough to decide what is appropriate and where misuse might occur.
NB. This and the following entries were effectively written in the places to which they refer, however there is limited access to email in the Himalayas so they were only typed up a week after we got home!
Mandi
We had read about the Rolwaling valley trek with ascents of Parchemo and Ramdung and thought we had a pretty good idea of what we would be facing, having also previously trekked the Everest trail and summited Mera Peak. However we failed to account for moving glaciers and other such dynamic factors! Our first adventure was hiding out in a local house for a day during the national elections, the first for Nepal, as we had been warned that it would be best not to be seen on the trails. Then we had several route issues due to landslides and new roads being built. Once we got to a decent height, we were then faced with a completely different route to the traditional one for Ramdung (much harder, but more fun!) and significant changes in route across the glacier up to the Tashi Lapcha. We really enjoyed it and had an amazing summit day, but it was without a doubt the hardest couple of weeks of our lives! The downsides of summit day were that I was left with a respiratory infection and Steve with the beginnings of frost bite and we were unable to recover quickly enough for an ascent of Parchemo. It looks like a really beautiful mountain so we’ll just have to go back for it!
As always, seeing the incredible scenery of Nepal was but a close second to spending time with the sherpa people. We often see people trekking without guides and they really are missing the point. Don’t get me wrong, for those who are doing serious and dangerous mountaineering, the less sherpas they use the better as far as I’m concerned – I know the sherpas can make more money on these expeditions but at what cost? Pumori is notorious for regular avalanches, yet still Westerners send sherpas up there to fix ropes and many of them are killed – fix your own ropes if the risk is that high or climb easier mountains!! But trekking is safe and for the trekker it is better in every way if undertaken with a sherpa guide.
As an aside related to the sherpas… we think we have a pretty good handle on ethical travelling and responsible giving: we know not to pay the dollar to free the bird from a cage as it just encourages the capture of more birds – give the dollar to an animal welfare centre instead; we know not to give money to children begging as it encourages their families to continue sending them onto the streets – give the money to local schools/child welfare instead; we know to properly research an issue/institution before supporting it. We know to organise our treks through Community Action Treks for many reasons: because ALL the profits go to Community Action Nepal which supports local projects such as school and hospital building, with sustainability as a priority; because they pay a good wage to all their staff; because they provide good equipment and training to all staff; because they enforce a minimum age and maximum load for porters; because they organise insurance for their staff and so on; because they have the best staff and most amazing treks! But when the 16 or so sherpas come storming past you at 5700m with 30kg loads over a crevassed glacier, (and still singing as always) your first thought isn’t, “that’s good, we’re providing well paid, responsible employment for all those people for three weeks” – you just feel guilty! Consequently, our only mistake when in Nepal is that we always tip well over the recommended amounts - yes, we also know the negative issues that can arise from this, but feel having been there several times, we get to know our boys well enough to decide what is appropriate and where misuse might occur.
NB. This and the following entries were effectively written in the places to which they refer, however there is limited access to email in the Himalayas so they were only typed up a week after we got home!
Mandi
posted by MandiB at
02:35
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