Best hikes, treks, tramps in the world.
Aasmund Godal recently hiked a privately managed region of South America.
Los Nevados (English: snow mountains) is a national park located in the central area of the Colombian Andes.
Less than 150km from Bogotá.
Aasmund drafted a WikiTravel page on Los Nevados to assist those planning for that trip.
Looks great.
Szu-ting Yi, better known online as LittlePo, just hiked Tiger Leaping Gorge in southern China. One of our best hikes in Asia.
By email:
… I’d love to wish you a merry Christmas. I am right now in Lijiang, which is located at northwest of the Yunnan province in China. Two days ago, I hiked the trail overlooking the tiger leaping gorge, it was an amazing hike: sheer cliffs along the river, constant mountain views, and raging water. …
LittlePo is more of a climber than a hiker. But she’s in China doing research:
… My primary objective is to perform reconnaissance for my adventure travel business, LittlePo Adventures (a working title), and therefore I have been actively investigating aesthetic areas in China for active exploration and ultimate adventure. In the meanwhile, I have been making connections with local businesses and proposing collaboration projects with local residents.
I’ll be following this venture. Having trekked in China independently and illegally, I can assure you it’s a PAIN. Much better would be to sign on with a trekking company with guides who speak Mandarin and who have connections.
A dazed climber descending from a failed attempt on K2 got lost, stumbling into a remote village.
This week his story was named by the Outside Adventure Blog the Adventure Story of the Decade.
Kudos to Outside. That’s a gutsy and correct call. What Greg has done was the most inspirational story I’ve heard in recent years.
… Who is Greg Mortenson?
Greg Mortenson is the co-founder of nonprofit Central Asia Institute www.ikat.org , founder of Pennies For Peace www.penniesforpeace.org , and co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Three Cups of Tea www.threecupsoftea.com , and author of the bestsellerStones into Schools www.stonesintoschools.com.
In 2009, Mortenson received Pakistan’s highest civil award, Sitara-e-Pakistan (“Star of Pakistan”) for his dedicated and humanitarian effort to promote education and literacy in rural areas for fifteen years. …
This guy has done more by himself to help Pakistan than all the hundreds of millions spent by the U.S. government. I love the title of this article: He Fights Terror With Books
I highly recommend his first book. Greg Mortenson is my hero.
Never has the failure to climb a mountain led to such success. After Greg Mortenson failed to climb K2 in 1993 to honor his dead sister, he picked a new mountain. He raised enough money so a small village in Pakistan could build their own school.
In 2006 he published Three Cups of Tea, a book chronicling his journey. By 2009 he had supported more than 131 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. At a time when U.S. foreign policy is governed by military might that includes Shock and Awe and a flock of high-altitude drones, Greg Mortenson took a simpler, gentler approach. He traveled on rugged roads to small villages—in the same remote regions where the United States dropped bombs from unseen and unheard planes high in the sky—to deliver cash so locals could build schools from stones and have basic learning supplies for their children. He took the war against violence out of the sky and put it in the hands of young girls on the ground.
(via RickMcCharles.com)
Wouldn’t it be great to take a long hike with one of the great legends of mountaineering, Sir Chris Bonington?
You can …
ANNAPURNA 2010
THE 50th ANNIVERSARY TRIP with SIR CHRIS BONINGTONThis very special trip is the 50th Anniversary of Sir Chris Bonington’s first ascent of Annapurna II and the 40th Anniversary of his assent of the South Face of Annapurna I. Travelling a very special route, Sir Chris will be joining us for the entire trek.
Trek Leader: Joe Bonington
Duration: 23 days (Kathmandu–Kathmandu)
Departing: 5th May 2010 (Very Limited Places – Enquire)
Price: £5,000
Likely the most expensive Annapurna trek ever sold. I’d LOVE to be there.
details on BoningtonTreks.com
(via Wide World and The Adventure Blog)
Annapurna is one of our top 10 hikes in the world.
Ciudad Perdida (Lost City) in Colombia is one of our best hikes in South America.
It’s fantastic. But safety concerns have stopped many over the years from traveling to Colombia. And stopped others from doing the trek.
Bt82 joined a group of 11 hikers to do it in the Fall of 2009. No problema. Everything went great.
… Everything went great until the post-hike celebration. That evening was a disaster.
Tricked into a meal at an expensive restaurant. Porn movies and strippers at the bar. Prostitutes. One hiker caught with Marijuana. Police demanding a $1000 bribe.
Yeesh.
Click through to TravelPod to read the sorry details – Ciudad Perdida
Or our besthike Lost City trek information page.
Last trekking day. Namche to Lukla.
by site editor Rick McCharles
It was a long but comparatively easy descent from Namche to the airport at Lukla.
The highlight was the series of suspension bridges.
I’ll miss the Buddhist culture and monuments.
But I was looking forward to a barber shave, “one of the best travel bargains in Asia”.
Are you interested in doing an independent Everest trek? … Some advice:
- you need a minimum of 14 days. More is better.
- acclimatization to altitude is the most serious danger
- Oct-Dec weather is cold and clear
- Mar-May the weather is warmer, but skies may be overcast
- best hike is the 3 Passes, next best Everest Base Camp, third best Gokyo
- if you fly, buy your flights Kathmandu-Lukla return in Kathmandu. You can change the date of your return, if necessary.
- no need to bring camping gear, but warm clothing and sleeping bag are essential
Step 1 would be getting a book for planning. Both the Trailblazer and Cicerone guidebooks are excellent.
Farewell Lukla. The Everest region has the finest mountain scenery I’ve ever seen.
see all photos from day 17
by site editor Rick McCharles
Gokyo to Namche
Renjo La should have been the last high alpine crossing on my Three Passes of Everest trek. … It starts with a steep climb from Gokyo over the ridge (5345m) at the top right corner of this photo:
A particularly grueling 10hr trek to Thame.
… Instead I turned south, deciding to end my trek as quickly as possible. I could make it to Namche from here in a long but easy walking day.
My 3 Passes route became a 2 Passes route. In the end, I did the lollypop loop in orange, skipping the Renja Pass in red.
Highlights of this day included 2nd Lake, Taujung Tsho …
… and the Brahminy ducks on Longponga Tsho, 1st Lake.
Nobody knows why these birds decided to make their home at such high altitude.
Very quickly I left the snow behind.
The trail got busier and dustier as I descended.
I spotted a colourful male Himalayan Monal (Impeyan Pheasant), much less common than the female, it seemed to me.
Finally, large trees started providing some shade.
That night in Namche I enjoyed “civilization”, staying (I think) in the same room slept in by Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter in 1985.
It felt great to be finishing such a long hike.
see all photos from day 16
by site editor Rick McCharles
I awoke to this gorgeous view from Gokyo village 4790m (15,715ft).
The brown hill off to the right (in shadow) is Gokyo Ri (5360m). Famed for its view of four 8000m peaks, including Everest.
Here’s the world’s highest mountain from the top:
That’s not my photo. Actually I did not make the ascent because a guide had told me that the view en route to Renjo La, was identical. Renjo La would be the last alpine crossing on my Three Passes of Everest trek.
Instead I waited for the sun to come out while chatting with guests at Gokyo Resort.
The most interesting and entertaining was Doug Benn, Professor of Glaciology, teaching at University of St Andrews, UK and The University Centre in Svalbard, Norway.
This was Doug’s 6th trip to Gokyo. He and a number of researchers were taking measurements on the Ngozumpa Glacier, the largest in Nepal.
Diplomatically, Doug answered my questions about “Climate Change”. Al Gore is not measuring glacial retreat, Doug is.
Doug confirmed that all glaciers are retreating aside from 4 areas of the world. Climate is changing, as it has been changing since the beginning of the Earth. He wouldn’t speculate as to why. Or what could be done about it.
Later I found Doug’s Ngozumpa Glacier Project page online:
… Glaciers in many parts of the Himalayas have undergone significant shrinkage in the last century in response to climatic warming, which in some areas is occurring faster than the global average. Some of this warming is part of a natural climatic cycle, although over the last 50 years or so probably about half of the warming is attributable to human sources (greenhouse gases) …
Doug’s research was to get hard data on what is happening. His goal was to help people and nations better prepare for that change. He said that in every climate shift some species in some regions are winners, some are losers.
I took a leisurely off-trail hike along the crumbling moraine ridge north towards Tibet. Up to Thonak Tscho 4870m.
This one way side trip is called The Sacred Lakes of Gokyo. Six lakes are sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists.
The next, Ngozumpa Tscho, was groaning and moaning like some distressed beast. Weird. I tried to capture the sound on video, but it didn’t work. It was the sound of ice freezing.
The highlight of the day wasn’t the lakes, but rather my old friend Cho Oyu, the friendliest 8000+m peak. I got as close as I could.
Eleven years ago we did the same thing, walking towards Cho Oyu from the Tibet side. The summit is on the border. For me it was déjà vu all over again.
Two hikers from the U.K. and I walked as far as possible up the glacier, hoping we might even reach Cho Oyu base camp. That turned out to be impossible. Late in the afternoon, the Brits departed with haste, trying to get back to Gokyo before dark.
I stayed to climb this boulder, the obvious viewpoint at the very end of the normal trail. This was as close as you can get to Tibet without descending down to the glacier.
I left a Summit Stone on top. The next hiker to scramble up would find it.
… All day I’d had a feeling I should end this adventure soon. This seemed a suitable finale.
It was night by the time I got back to Gokyo. But by now I was getting used to stumbling into my lodge in the dark.
see all photos from day 15
… on to day 16
Trip report by site editor Rick McCharles.
Over the Cho La 5420m (17,782ft)
There are no tea houses. No restaurants. The Cho La is seriously dangerous. Often a guide, ice axes and ropes are needed. Yaks can only rarely cross.
I may not have been looking better, but I was feeling better after headache and some diarrhea the day before. (All I could stomach was Pringles, the first time I’d ever bought them.)
Actually, I awoke with a very stiff neck, a condition (cause unknown) that lingered for 2wks!
Departing Dzonghla the mountains look impassible.
High, steep and intensely glaciated.
Here’s the crux. Crossing the Cho La Glacier.
I waltzed across like it was a sidewalk.
The astonishing weather had encouraged many guides to bring their groups to cross the Pass today. There must have been 50 people eating lunch at the Cho La.
The descent is a crappy scree scramble.
Everyone but me stopped in the next village, Tagnag (Dragnag). A charming, clean and well-organized stop.
Having lost a day to illness, I thought I’d push on to Gokyo on the other side of the Ngozumpa Glacier.
… How far could it be?
The torturous and exhausting traverse seemed to take forever. Crossing glaciers is by far the most difficult and dangerous thing hikers do in this region.
It was well after dark when I finally rolled into famed Gokyo 4790m (15,715ft).
see all photos from day 14
… on to day 15
For some time our top 10 links have been “broken”, the result of our web host having been “hacked” in the past.
Those should all be fixed now. Merry Christmas.
This is the best starting point for those planning a future trekking vacation.
#1) West Coast Trail, BC, Canada
#2) John Muir Trail, California, USA
#3) Tongariro Northern Circuit, New Zealand
#4) Ausangate Circuit, Peru
#5) Sunshine to Assiniboine, Alberta, Canada
#6) Glacier North Circle, Montana, USA
#7) Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
#8) Annapurna Circuit, Nepal
#9) TMB (Tour de Mont Blanc), Europe
10) Overland Track, Tasmania
#1 New Zealand – info page
#2 Southwest USA – info page
#3 The Rockies – info page
#4 USA Sierra Nevada – info page
#5 Central Andes – info page
#6 Patagonian Andes – info page
#7 Nepal – info page
#8T Italy, Dolomites – info page
#8T Australia – info page
#9 The Alps – info page
10 Indian Himalaya – info page
Leave a comment if you think we are missing something.
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