Nepal – The Mighty and Majestic Himalayas -

Nepal – The Mighty and Majestic Himalayas

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After a few hectic days in Kathmandu, it was time to head for the hills. The Himalayas, that is.

We hopped on a short flight to Pokhara, the second largest city in Nepal and the center of the country’s mountain tourism and trekking industry. From there, we drove into the mountains to begin our trek in the Annapurna Circuit region.

Close up of a section of the Annapurna range.

Another close up of a section of the Annapurna range.

The Himalayas

You very quickly run out of superlatives when you start to talk about the Himalayas. Easily the largest mountain range in the world, it runs over 1500 miles and touches six countries – Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan and China. More impressively, there are more than 100 peaks that are over 23,600′ in elevation. The highest mountain outside this region, Aconcagua, in Argentina, sits at #189 on the list of highest mountains.

It’s one thing to look at a mountain range and see a few prominent peaks poking out. It’s another level entirely when your view out the airplane window is nothing but massive peaks and incredibly deep gorges stretching all the way to the horizon.

In the center of it all is Nepal, where the Himalayas make up the northern third of the country. Eight of the ten highest peaks in the world are in Nepal, including the highest of them all, Mt. Everest, at over 29,000′, In 1950, Annapurna I, the 10th highest, was the first peak over 8000 meters in elevation to have ever been summited.

Mt. Everest, as seen from the window of a Buddha Air scenic flight

Close up of the Himalayas, as seen from the scenic flight

This handy little guide told us what we were looking at on our scenic flight

The Mt. Everest Scenic Flight

We got our first glimpse of the Himalayas by taking a scenic flight from Kathmandu. The flight is one hour long, flying alongside the Himalaya range up to Mt. Everest, and back again to Kathmandu. This assured that everyone on the plane got a good view out their window.

Taking the early morning flight, we enjoyed excellent visibility and got an incredible view of the mountains just outside our window. Flying at 23,000′, we were still below the tops of the mountains! We highly recommend this scenic flight as a great way to see the mountains.

Another alternative is a helicopter scenic flight. Though far more expensive than the airplane flight, it offers a much closer inspection of Mt. Everest, as well as a breakfast stop at the Everest View Hotel.

Now leaving Ghandruk. Next stop, Landruk, on the other side of the gorge

Having crossed the river, now it's back up the other side

At last, we have reached our next destination

The Annapurna Circuit

The Annapurna Circuit is one of the most popular trekking routes in Nepal. It has been voted the world’s best long distance trek, due to the wide variety of climate zones and cultural variety along the way. Hiking the full circuit can take up to 23 days. Not being hard core trekkers (or crazy), we chose to do only a small section of the circuit.

A significant portion of Nepal’s population lives in small, isolated villages in the mountains, still growing crops and herding animals as they have for hundreds of years. Some of the villages we passed are now accessible by car. But for many others, donkeys are still the only way to move goods into and out of these areas.

On some days, hiking to a village only a few miles away involved descending thousands of steps to the bottom of a gorge, then climbing thousands more steps to get to the village on the other side. Those stone steps are still the only “roads” into these villages. We definitely should have added daily Stairmaster workouts to our trip preparations!

When your only option to bring in the hay is to carry it yourself

A Disappearing Way of Life

Between the rugged landscape and harsh climate, life is hard for the people living in the mountains of Nepal. So it’s understandable that many young people growing up there are looking for alternatives to continuing their traditional lifestyle. Sadly, their options are limited. If they stay where they are, a few can become guides or porters. Many more are flocking to Kathmandu and other cities in search of more opportunities.

The greatest number, however, end up going overseas to find work, in places like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Malaysia. It is estimated that 1 in 5 young Nepalese men now work outside their country and their remittances home makes up nearly 30% of Nepal’s GDP. The scene we saw every time we passed through Kathmandu airport, with hundreds of families gathered to send off or greet their loved ones, was a reflection of the impact this has on everyone in the country.