The next 5 days (days 12 to 16) see us heading into what looks from Google Earth and the map to be a 40 mile long roller coaster of high passes and river valleys, the Kholas. Following the toughness of the first 5 days as we rapidly gained height out of Jomsom, the second quarter of our trek was predominantly through high-sided valleys. That will end dramatically after Saldang. The picture below hopefully gives you the gist of the terrain. The high points are no fewer than 4 passes of over 5000m, including the highest of the whole trek, Nyingma Gyanzen La at 5563m (over 18,200 ft), and one relative minnow, the 4813m (15,790 ft) Yambur La. This is what the overall section looks like with the map overlay showing the route and planned overnight stops.

On the first of these days (day 12) we traverse the Nengla La (5368m) (see photos below with, and then without, the map and route overlay and with Bhijer in the distance) before stopping shortly after the glacier. This is a relatively short trek in light of the 1600m (5250ft) height gain from Saldang following several days in the Panjyan Khola and the short hop over the Khoma La. The obvious point peak to the south-west of the pass is Nengla at 5747m (18,855ft).

By way of a rest the following day (day 13) we head for Bhijer via the Yamchho Khola. This valley walk should be a relatively straightforward matter before we head back up on the following day (day 14) to Pho, nearly 10 miles distant over another pass, the 4813m Yambur La and via Pho Kharka into Tora Khola.

The perhaps the biggest day of all, day 15, which I expect to be a trek of around 8 hours not including stops, over the massive Nyingma Gyanzen La before heading back down to Pung Kharka via the Swaksa Khola. This is a Google Earth-eye view, again firstly with the map countoured and then without.

The final day of this quadrant, day 16, we head for Takla Khola. This will be another big day of around 8 hrs trekking covering 14 miles including a traverse of Yala La (5414m) before dropping down into the Chyandi Khola and then crossing final ridgeline to Takla Khola. Our intended camp can be seen on the first photograph beyond the glacier and marked by a red wigwam and the height marked as 4830m, a mere c.600m below the pass. We should prepare for a chilly night.

In this post I will run through our plans for communication and for keeping the technology powered up.

I should say ‘up front’ that technology is not an important part of the trek. We are walking after all. We have an experienced leader fluent in Nepali and will be supported by experienced, tried and trusted Sherpa porters. However, accidents do happen and should it be necessary to summon International Rescue we need to be able to do so immediately. We also owe it to our long-suffering and extraordinarily tolerant families to let them know we’re ok from time to time. In my own case I want to be able to communicate more widely with friends through this blog. Not to excess mind you; just from time to time to share my experiences and the joy (or otherwise) of our endeavours.

So, on to the communications of which my principal tool will be a Thuraya XT satellite phone borrowed from Tim but fitted with my own SIM card. The Thuraya XT is a good quality and modern unit capable of sending and receiving text and email in addition to voice calls. However it has no photo capability. To that end, in addition to a ruggedised Ricoh WG-30 ‘point and click’ camera I will have my iPhone with me to grab a few pics. These could, given the occasional smidgeon of connectivity in some of the larger villages (unlikely but I’m an optimist), and having fitted a Nepal Telecom SIM card to avoid eye-watering O2 roaming charges, be uploaded to the blog. I also hope to be able to connect the iPhone to the satellite phone for data (i.e. photo) transfer but can’t test that until I’m in Kathmandu. It is nonetheless something I will look into once I’m there.

Of course, all that communications capability is only any good if it can be powered. The same goes for my 2 GPS units.  To ensure there is always enough juice in the batteries I will be carrying 2 solar charging units; one main unit and a backup.

My main charger is a 26W 12V/1.4A BRUNTON Solaris foldable array that aught be able to recharge a phone or camera battery in 1 to 2 hours of decent sunshine. The backup is also a foldable array but a smaller ANKER 14W 5V/2A unit. Both are fairly light at about 1.7lbs or 0.8kg.

I think it’s well known that the best training for the mountains is to go to the mountains. I guess it follows that the best training for a mountainous trek is to trek in the mountains. Well, that’s all very well if you live in the mountains and it assumes that you start from a reasonable level of fitness. Neither applied to ‘yours truly’.

Following events in Corsica last year it was necessary to ‘eat for recovery’ which I embraced with customary enthusiasm. Despite my wife’s care and attention to diet my delight at eating great food and the enforced rest resulted in a fairly tubby boy weighing-in at 97kg (over 15 stones) by February. In early March the recuperation phase was over. Physio was ended and the repairs were mechanically complete and signed off so it was time to get a grip of diet and restart meaningful exercise.

I had 3 months to effect a change as I had been fortunate to have been accepted onto the first Exodous GR20 trek of 2016, starting mid June. While I know it doesn’t suit everyone I adopted a simple calorie control approach of ‘eat less move more’.

Using the MyFitness Pal app I tracked my intake and limited it to 1400 calories per day while exercising in the gym before work (almost) daily. My preferred exercise was the ‘stepper’ or ‘stairmaster’ as this seemed to work on the right muscles for a mountain trekker and offered the most calories burned per hour. I also maintained some upper body exercise to improve the strength and mobility of my new shoulder, and walked just about everywhere, typically in excess of 5 miles a day or 10,000 steps. 

The result? On the downside – permanent hunger and pining for my old favourites of Cornish pasties, pork pies, sausage rolls and piles of cheese and crackers. All pleasures of the past. The upside was worth it though. The first week of June I met my weight target of losing 15kg to achieve a weight of 82kg. I was under 13 stone for the first time in years and felt ready for Corsica2

The GR20 was awesome. The dragon was slain and I met some amazing fellow trekkers with many of whom I remain in contact.

Returning from Corsica it was necessary to keep the regime of Nepal-readiness exercise going without losing too much more weight. My aim was to get down to 79kg or 12 stone 6 pounds and that was achieved in August before turning my attention to weight bearing. Out came the old exped pack which was weighted with 20kg of water (10x 2 litre plastic bottles) which was used on progressively long walks at home and even one recently in Scotland. Heaven knows what my fellow gym-dwellers thought of the loon with a big pack walking and jogging on the 15% incline treadmill for an hour. Odd for sure but safer than trying to do that on London roads and real hills locally are at a premium.

The result is that with just over 2 weeks until we leave Jomsom I feel good to go. I am trying to bulk up a bit to give myself a bit of lard to burn in lieu of food. The 31 Oct target is to be back to 83kg, just over 13 stones. The BMI index will still tell me I’m overweight but that won’t be the case with fat of around 18%.

So, there are any number of risks to successfully completing this amazing trek, but I am confident in my fitness and the quality of the repair job.

In this post we go to Saldang. This is around 100 miles from Jomson and should take about 11 days. 9 miles a day is below our target overall average mileage as we shall be slower over the first half of the trek due to acclimatisation and height gain. Of course if we can go faster we shall but it will be better to pace ourselves well and this isn’t a race. It’s an indicator of how far off the beaten track we are on this leg that I can find no publicly available photographs to share with you. Therefore I hope you get some idea of our surroundings and route from the screen shots from Google Earth below. They show the planned overnight stops but as those more distant can be hard to spot they are indicated by arrows on the picture that includes the map overlay.

On day 6 (9th Nov) we expect to take around 6 hours to Mola Phedi at 4800m. That settlement isn’t marked on my maps so I assume it is either close to the camp at Kharka or Base Camp. Whether or not it is, I’m sure we shall be glad to arrive as this tough day we see us crossing the Mola La at 5030m. Soon after leaving Mola Phedi (or or somewhere else nearby) on day 7 we will enter the Pazang valley.  Through this valley flows the Panjyan Khola which we will follow to Shimen and maybe beyond depending on our choice of route. Our objective today will be more modest as we head towards Taraka Sumphu at 4200m. 

Day 8, 11 Nov unless we have needed a rest day, will see us at the village of Tinje. This is a more significant settlement than anything we will have passed for several days. As it features a health post and postal services surely there will be a shop?

Next up, on day 9 we should reach Shimen, once more following the Panjyan Khola. At this point we have a route choice shown on the final Google Earth screen shot of this post. We could continue to follow the river to its junction with the Tora Khola then follow that river south to Saldang. Alternatively, if as I suspect we are throughly fed up of valley-bottom walking and long for the views that come with higher ground, we could leave the Great Himalayan Trail (GHT) for the first time. If we went south west from Shimen we could cross the Shimen La (4260m) before stoping for the night at Khoma. The following day we would cross the Khoma La (4469m) before rejoining the GHT at Chagaon and approaching Saldang from the south.

Not only would arrival at Saldang by either route signify around 100 miles completed and about half of our available time elapsed it offers the first of the ‘escape routes’ south to Juphal should we need it. As Saldang is a significant settlement we may elect to take a days rest if we can still afford such luxury.

Hi Everyone,

Today I offer a short line or two on food during the trek.

We will start our journey with around 10 days of food for our main meals. We will leave Jomsom with 80 packs of boil-in-the-bag main meals and 80 individual sachets of rice with some supplementary powdered potato. I expect we will also leave with a couple of days of vegetables and fruit. It is not feasible to leave with more due to issues of weight. If we left with more we would need to employ another person to carry it, who would in turn need to be fed, and so the spiral of increasing numbers continues.

During the trek, even from the beginning we will try to purchase food on the way. While shops, or other similar premises set up for the purpose of enabling food and other goods to be sold, will be few and far between other than in the larger villages we hope to be able to add to our meagre food stocks on the way. Perhaps through buying things grown locally; or maybe we will be able to buy the occasional chicken. Certainly we will need to have some success with this approach as the food with which we will leave Jomsom will not last far beyond Saldang, the start of the first ‘escape’ route. Indeed the large village of Saldang, 100 miles from Jomsom, may turn out to be our best chance of significant resupply and by then we will know whether we are able to continue towards Jumla or whether we need to ‘escape’ south to Juphal.

Wish us luck and ‘bon appetit’!

On Friday 4th November (day 1) I expect we will trek to Dagarjong (3229m/10,594ft) but that is not yet certain. By the time we depart Jomsom we shall need to have decided whether to go via Kagbeni or not. My current understanding from Tim is ‘not’ as this will save us a little distance and by gaining a little height will assist our acclimatisation. Jomson sits at around 2700m and our first intended camp is at Dagarjong (3229m), a modest gain of 600m. As we gain height Jomsom and the Kali Gandaki Nadi valley will become smaller and more distant, as will memories of comfort and lungs full of rich air. We won’t see the target for the night until we crest the ridgeline that stands between Jomsom and Dagarjong at which time the outskirts of Kegbeni will appear down in the valley to our right and we shall be over half way through our first day. Dagarjong and a neighbouring village, Phalyak, lie either side of the Kolungba Khola (Khola is river in Nepali). Should matters be progressing better that we anticipate we could contunue another few miles to the campsite at Yak Kharka, or above it alongside the Rataula Khola (river) at around 3500m, a height gain of 800m, having crossed the second ridge at around 3840m and then descended to the camp. This would be a total distance of around 10miles; quite a lot for our first day at this altitude.This first picture shows a birds-eye view of our route up to the first ridgeline via the yellow waypoints D420b, D421b and D422b. Yak Kharka is beyond the second ridge. Should we elect to head for Kagbeni we will instead follow the red markers to the right of the river valley.

An alternative view is provided with the terrain overlaid with the trekking map which shows our path (the black dashed line) over the first ridge. Should we continue to Yak Kharka the path can be seen heading over the second ridge too.

As for day 2 of the trek, on Saturday 5th November we will head for Sangda (or Santa depending on which map you use) at 3777m/12,392ft. We expect that to be around 6 hrs of trek depending on where we halted for the previous night. The most notable aspect of the trek to Sangda/Santa is that we will cross a pass that isn’t named at 3810m and then one that definitely is, the Bhima Logan La at 4460m, only just short of the summit of Bhima Logan itself at 4465m. No chance that we’ll pop up there of course! The next 2 pictures give you the gist of where we’re headed over the next few days. You may notice that in a few cases the waymarkers are not exactly on the pink/white route on the map. This is because from my examination of the Google Earth arial photographs the map is not exactly right. In many cases it is, but not always, so the waymarkers are true to the ground rather than the map.

On Sunday 6th November (day 3) we will trek to Gyalchen Khola (4247m/13,934ft) for 4 to 5 hrs. After we pass the village of Jhansye at 4195m we will follow the Kyanlunpa Khola valley to Gyalchen Khola (marked on the map as Ghalden Ghulden Khola camp) at 4247m where we spend the night. Then early on day 4, on Monday 7th November, we will cross the Lhanhimak Khola and then scale the massive Jungben La at 5550m. This will be a big challenge so soon after leaving Jomson almost 2km lower and if any trekker is to falter I think they will do so here, or before.

Any of the team still able to continue will then face the relatively easy crossing of the Niwas La (5120m) before descending moderately to the Thasan Khola and follow it to our camp for the night at Nulungsamda Kharka (4987m/16,362ft); a journey of around 7 hrs on Monday 7th November.

On Tuesday 8th November, day 5, we continue down the Thasan Khola valley to Chharka Bhot. At 4302m/14,114ft this is another 7 hours or so of trek. Chharka is a village which, unusually, appears on Wikipedia. Wikipedia shares that at the time of the 2001 Nepal census there were a total of 634 people living in Chharka. Over one third of the population were in the age group of 4–19 years of age while only roughly about 9% of the population were the age of 50 or over. Clearly not a place for longevity – it must be so hard to live let alone thrive at this altitude.

Having covered roughly the first 50 miles of trekking in the first week, in my next blog I’ll bring you up to speed on our plans for feeding ourselves before returning to the trek route in due course.

Hi everyone. In this post I’ll try to paint a picture of the first few days, from arrival in Kathmandu to departure from Jomsom.

These 3 days will begin with frantic last-minute sorting-out, the purpose of which will hopefully become clear in later posts. We then have a 2-stage transfer from the delicious madness and furore of Kathmandu to what I am increasingly coming to think of as ‘the frontier’ at Jomsom via Pokhara. From Jomson we step into the outback.

Tue 1 Nov. Following an overnight flight from London and a short flight-change at Delhi I should arrive at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport at 14:15 Nepal time. By then the clocks at home will have ‘fallen’ back an hour so I think I will land 5hrs 45mins ahead of UK at the time I would otherwise be joining the rush hour on London’s tube network – 08:30. With any luck my bags will appear without too much delay and I will be on my way to Thamel, the most fun and interesting part of Kathmandu in my view. Thamel is the centre of the tourist district and is a commercial area with myriad shops selling everything an ill-prepared trekker might need. Hopefully this particular trekker will not be ill-prepared but there is always something that is remembered just after you leave home on a trip. At least that is my experience. The picture below shows Thamel as I have never seen it. It is normally rammed with colourful people, cars, motorcycles, bicycles and cattle all vying for space in a maelstrom of magnificent bustle and it’s accompanying cacophony. I can only assume this photo was taken very early in the morning. I will join the throng to acquire several known must-have’s. A tent for one – lightweight essential! A local SIM card for my iPhone. A selection of boiled sweets, dried fruit, nuts and chocolate bars with which to keep the digestive fire stoked if rations run low or prove unpalatiable in the depths of altitude sickness. Finally I need a stove and fuel on which to cook – a skill which has largely escaped me hitherto but which I had better learn quickly. Doubtless I will be temped by other goodies such as the socks I should have packed but didn’t or a jacket to replace the wonderful Rab Lite Alpine softshell I left on the plane. Yep – been there! Finally I suspect a burger and chips and a beer or two at the Northfield Cafe and Jesse James Bar might be necessary. It would be churlish to pass it by I am a fan of Pete McCarthy’s edict coined during his excellent and hilarious book ‘A Journey of Discovery in Ireland’: “never pass a pub with your name on it’! Tim also recommends Sam’s Bar in Thamel. While neither of us are called ‘Sam’ I could make an exception…

Good times aside an early night will be required as it will have been a long day and we have an early start the following day when we transfer to Pokhara.

Wed 2 Nov. It is not possible to fly direct from Kathmandu to Jomsom and the overland journey would take too long. Our sherpa support team will travel overland as they will have had longer to prepare and, frankly, are more used to the driving in these parts which may be best described as a bit of a lottery. From the safety of a side alley the fact that drivers use their horns as a kind of ‘language of the road’ seemingly being conducted as a symphony by the smartly turned-out but largely ignored traffic police may be fun to see. Being part of it would require a degree of understanding unlikely to be gained after an afternoon in Thamel. What is more towards Jomsom the road is prone to landslides and flooding, so we Western newbies will fly, via Pokhara. That is a most agreeable option as Pokhara, Nepal’s second city and located 125 miles west of Kathmandu, is a gem. I have never been, but Lonely Planet says of Pokhara: “Far from the earthquake epicenter, and almost unaffected by the disaster, Pokhara ticks all the right boxes, with spectacular scenery, adventure activities, and accommodation and food choices galore. Whether you’ve returned from a three-week trek or endured a bus trip from hell, Lakeside Pokhara is the perfect place to recharge your batteries. The scene is a chilled-out version of Thamel, stretching along the shore of a tranquil lake with bobbing paddle boats. From the lake, and possibly even from your hotel bed, you can enjoy a clear view of the snow-capped mountains, just twenty or so kilometres away.” Well, maybe we won’t have a chance to experience all of that – we’re only there for 1 night. But we can try! The photo montage below from Wikimedia shows Top: View of the Annapurna Range from Pokhara; Center: Panorama of Pokhara; Bottom from left: Pokhara Valley, the Talbarahi Mandir in Phewa Tal, World Peace Pagoda in Pokhara

Wed 3 Nov. Today we say farewell to the glorious Pokhara and head to Jomsom on the one-a-day plane. Also known as Dzong-Sampa or New Fort, Jomsom is a compact small town (some might call it a large village) located at an altitude of about 2700m in the Annapurna mountains. It extends over both the banks of the Kali Gandaki River and is a useful final staging post by air. The picture below is of Jomsom airfield.

In fact Jomsom isn’t actually in the Dolpo region but is in Mustang, but it’s close enough for our purposes and we enter Dolpo almost as soon as we leave Jomsom and start our trek the following day. Maybe from the photo below you can see why I suggested a similarity to ‘the frontier’? On the bright side there are a number of shops selling the items trekkers normally would want from chocolate bars to trekking poles. All hotels have attached restaurants with comprehensive menus and as the food tends to subsidise the room cost we will need to eat where we are staying or they will increase the room rate! I’m sure it will be fine, especially as it will be our last sleep in a bed for nearly 3 weeks.

Thu 4 Nov. Provided everyone is feeling good and our support sherpas arrived safely by road we will ship out on the trek. We will head north out of Jomsom following the Kali Gandaki River valley towards Kagbeni. I mentioned a number of route uncertainties in my blog on Monday and the first appears immediately. At this stage we don’t yet know whether we shall stop the first night around Kagbeni after a relatively short and easy day to allow a little extra time for acclimatisation before heading to the mountains, or whether we should head straight up. The current plan is the latter and I shall work on that basis in my next blog which will cover the first 5 days on the trek itself.

The excitement is building. With 3 weeks to go until I leave for Kathmandu on the evening of Monday 31st October I thought you might be interested to know the route we plan to take on the trek. There are still some details to sort out, caused mainly by the lack of agreement between various mapping sources on the naming of the some of the villages we plan to visit, but the core is agreed.

The pictures below show where the Dolpo region is in Nepal as a whole and where it is in comparison with Kathmandu and other significant places and the countries to the north and south of Nepal. As can be seen, Dolpo is in the northwest part of Nepal, on the border with China (Tibet).

We shall trek from Jomsom in the east to Jumla in the west staying fairly close to the northern border. We plan to depart Jomsom on Friday 4th November and are targeting arrival at Jumla 20 days later on Sun 24th. I calculate the distance as roughly 240 miles meaning we need to average 12 miles a day. In reality some days will be shorter, especially in the first few days as we acclimatise while also seeking to cross our first two 5000m+ (over 16,404ft) passes on day 4. These are the huge Jungben La at 5550m (18,209ft) and the only slightly lower Niwas La at 5120m (16,798ft). ‘La’ means ‘pass’ in Nepali. Given that we shall also need a few rest days to recover from the inevitable strains and injuries, the average distance trekked per day will need to be more than 12 miles. That’s quite a distance with height to gain and, ironically but logistically necessary, the toughest days are in the first week out of Jomsom.

Should it all prove a challenge too far there are options to cut the trek short via an ‘escape’ route. These opportunities arise at about the half-way point. Firstly after around 110 miles at Saldang and again 15 miles later at Bhijer. From both of these villages we can take a route south via Lake Phoksundo to the airports at Dunai, the administrative capital of the Dolpo, or nearby Juphal thus reducing the total distance trekked from 240 miles to around 170. These distances are yet to be verified but are in the right ballpark. I should mention that the distances are calculated based upon the sum of the straight line waypoint-to-waypoint distances, plus 25% to take account of the fact that we won’t be going in straight lines. Using Google Earth in conjunction with the best mapping I can get, from Jomsom to Jumla I have placed 421 waypoints. The total straight line distance from waypoint D421 (Jomsom airfield) to D001 (Jumla airfield) is 192 miles. Adding 25% leads to an estimated total distance of 240 miles. 25% may prove to be too much or too little. We won’t know until we do it and track the distance by GPS (hopefully).

Over the next few blogs I will go into more detail of the places we will visit or pass each day, where we plan to camp at night and the type of terrain we expect to be on. The next instalment will cover getting to Jomsom and the first day or two of the trek. In the meantime I hope the 2 pictures below give an indication of the general direction and key places.

The first is a screenshot of the route against a background of Google Earth in a 3D perspective slant from an imaginary spacecraft 75 miles above the earth. This shows every waypoint planned. The main route waypoint numbers are prefixed ‘D’ while the escape waypoints are prefixed ‘E’. Waypoints of significance have a name associated with the number. Unfortunately the size of the waypoints and their labels obscure much of the interesting satellite photo view but I will show this in smaller sections in a later blog. The point is that you can see the general lay of the land and our route across it.

The second is cleaner, showing the route as presented by Garmin’s BaseCamp application drawing mapping and route data from my GPS. In this view, which shows only the main route without the escape and the mapping relevant to the trek, every waypoint is shown as a black dot without it’s label, on a ribbon of pink. The principal places I mentioned earlier are labeled. The purple line to the top right of the picture is the border with China (Tibet).

Typically around 4000m high but surrounded by mountains over 6000m the Dolpo is inhabited by the toughest of people, the Dolpapa. The ending comes from the Tibetan, pa, meaning people.

The Dolpapa speak Nepali, Dolpo, which is a local dialect of Tibetan, and Kaike, a minority language spoken in just one Dolpo valley.They grow most of the crops they need and keep yaks, sheep and goats. Dolpo is not heavily populated. There are but 30 or so rough stone-built Dolpapa villages in an area of 1300 square kilometres.

Most Dolpapa are Buddhist although the Bon religion of Tibet, which pre-dates Buddhism, is still practised in some villages. The numerous fortified monasteries known as gompas, the frequent chortens (Buddhist shrines) and the animistic wooden dolls placed on buildings to ward off evil spirits serve as a reminder of the Dolpapas’ spirituality.

Lack of contact with the outside world has left the Dolpapas traditional culture and lifestyle largely untouched, but this also means modern development has bypassed the Dolpo and poverty is widespread, at least by Western standards. This adds another dimension to the areas rugged beauty. This is a hard place to live and Dolpapa have had to become self-sufficient and resilient.

The major occupation is agriculture and most households grow potatoes, maize, wheat, millet, buckwheat, Tibetan barley, high altitude rice and native crops such as chino and kagumo. However lack of water and arable land is a problem and many can’t grow enough to feed themselves for the whole year. As a result animal husbandry is an important too with the number of animals owned indicating a family’s wealth and status. Sheep, goats, cattle and yaks are taken up to the high pastures for grazing during the summer months and brought back to the villages for the winter. Usually younger members of the family accompany the herds, living in stone huts. Yaks are well adapted to survival in this harsh environment. Indeed they can only live above 3000m. With their thick bushy tails and heavy wool and hair coats they can live outdoors in temperatures well below freezing. Their hair is woven into blankets and clothing, their skin provides leather and their milk forms an important part of the high altitude diet, both as liquid and as a hard dried cheese. In this barren region dried yak dung replaces wood as fuel for cooking and warmth and walls are often seen adorned with drying yak dung.

Trading is also important, particularly for those in the more remote areas. There are no roads in Dolpo so yaks are used as pack animals. Caravans of yaks go up to the high northern areas and across the border into Tibet or other Nepali mountain areas to collect medicinal plants, salt and other mineral resources, which are exchanged in lower areas for food, grains and other essentials. Finally, the weather is a tremendous challenge. In winter, when conditions in the high mountain areas are too harsh and cold for human survival, many people from the high villages leave their homes and live in yak hair tents in the lowland meadows, typically around the district headquarters of Dunai, where they survive by trading.

But the future may be looking a little better. Yarsagumba, which translates as ‘summer grass, winter insect’ is the mummified body of a Himalayan bat moth caterpillar that has been infected by a fungus. Found in Himalayan alpine areas at around 4000m Yarsagumba is prized for its supposed aphrodisiac properties when dried and eaten mixed with milk or honey. It fetches up to £650 per kilogram in China where it is also believed it to be a medicinal panacea, curing everything from headaches to cancer. Hardly surprising then that increasing numbers of Dolpapa head to the mountains in late spring in search of this fungal good fortune.

Perhaps more sustainable than yarsagumba, a tourism-training project has been underway in the district since 2008 with the aim of developing a number of new skills among the Dolpapa, including conversational English, cooking and hotel management.

This photograph from Wikipedia shows Dolpapa at a meeting outside of their village.

Not all Dolpapa are struggling farmers. Tenzin Norbu Lama was born in 1971 into a line of painters dating back more than 400 years. He began painting and training from a very young age and while he also trained in sculpture and mask making, painting and drawing were his favourites.painting and drawing were his favourites.

Known for its harsh climate his village lies at 4,500m and its dramatic mountain landscapes feature often in his art. Norbu says that for inspiration he draws on his family, historical books, legends, and his own memories of Dolpo, which he often sees in his dreams.

Norbu’s work has appeared in many international publications, including National Geographic magazine as well as the feature film, “Himalaya”, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1999. Norbu exhibits his painting regularly in Nepal and abroad.

Here are some examples of his work.

Over the past few months a common question in the minds of those I have told about this adventure is ‘so why the Dolpo?’. Following the brief introduction in my last post I offer a little more today. My sources are ‘The Great Himalayan Trail’, a book by Robin Boustead who developed the idea for the most challenging alpine trek in the world, and Wikipedia.

In his book, Robin says Dolpo is remote and wild, considered by many to be one of the most magical and mysterious of places in the Himalaya. Linked for hundreds of years to Tibet, this region lies among the high peaks, on top of the roof of the world. Oasis-like villages dot barren landscapes, scarred by deep canyons, and all beneath velvet blue skies. He goes on to say that a combination of ancient animist beliefs, Tibetan Buddhism, and Bon religions predominate throughout the cultivated Lower Dolpo valleys, and up to the high, arid plateau around Saldang. Now that Mustang is losing some off its authenticity following a new road having been built, the Dolpo is perhaps the the last genuine example of traditional Tibetan culture. This picture shows the location of Dolpo to the northwest of Nepal.

To add spice, should that be needed, Robin adds there are a number of trekking options that run through Dolpo and all are magnificent. Most trekkers enter and exit Dolpo via the dirt airstrip at Juphal in Lower Dolpo. Alternatively experienced groups could consider the much more committing access routes from Mustang (east) or Mugu (west) where trail finding and acclimatisation pose additional challenges.

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that we intend intend to trek around 240 miles from Jomsom in Mustang to Jumla in the west. Most of the time we shall be over 4000m with frequent climbs to over 5000m and camping every night. I have seen treks offered from Jomsom to Juphal (or the other way) and from Jumla to Juphal (or the other way) but not all the way from Jomsom to Jumla. We shall be using Juphal as our emergency exit should that be necessary.

I hope this answers the question ‘why Dolpo?’. It is quite simply a breathtaking challenge – in more ways than one!

I will share the detailed main trekking route and the emergency exit route in due course but will close now with a few photos from wikipedia that hopefully bring the text to life. I expect to bring a few photos back that I can share without breaking copyright. Should you want to see more photos in advance then an internet search for ‘Dolpo photos’ might be rewarding!

These are Lower Dolpo from wikipedia. Upper Dolpo is more mountainous.