Category: alpine

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NEW – Phulara Ridge Trek, India

Best months: March to May, September to mid-November.

This trail starts off from Sankri, which is in western Uttarakhand, almost touching Himachal. If you are familiar with Kedarkantha, it has the same base camp, Sankri. However, the trail to Phulara ridge heads in a different direction.

From Sankri, over two days and two camps, you climb up to the Phulara ridge. That’s when the fun begins. You traverse this ridge for a long time — it’s almost an entire day’s trek. …

India Hikes – Phulara Ridge

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

India Hikes covers over 200 trails. Check out indiahikes.com

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trek Cerro Castillo in Patagonia

Adventure Alan:

Highlights – Iconic view at the base of Cerro Castillo competes with the best in Patagonia (e.g. Torres Del Paine). High mountains, glaciers, rain forest, deep mountain valleys, grasslands and an amazing variety of terrain and ecosystems.

Duration – 3 to 4 Days. Moderately fit hikers can easily do this in 3 days.

Distance – 34 miles (54 km) classic route [with a shorter option for 25 miles (40 km)]

Level of Difficulty – Moderate

Route Finding – Easy. Almost entirely on trail. Well signed. Only a few sections over rock where you need to pay attention.

 

our Cerro Castillo 2004 trek

CERRO CASTILLO TREK GUIDE

related – our Cerro Castillo information page

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INDIA – 13 best treks

India Hikes recommendations:

1. Rupin Pass
2. Roopkund
3. Kashmir Great Lakes
4. Buran Ghati
5. Pin Bhaba Pass
6. Tarsar Marsar
7. Kedarkantha Trek
8. Kuari Pass
… see our Kauri INFO page
9. Gaumukh Tapovan
10. Goechala
11. Hampta Pass
12. Sandakphu Phalut
13. Brahmatal

Brahmatal

The trekking is GREAT in India. But logistics are often troublesome.

Next time I get to the subcontinent I plan to try a guided trip with India Hikes.

However, their list is certainly not definitive. Markha Valley is our favourite trek in India. It’s not included.

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scrambling Crib Goch, Wales

Crib Goch is described as a ‘knife-edged’ arête in the Snowdonia National Park in Gwynedd, Wales. The name means ‘red ridge’ in the Welsh language. …

All routes which tackle Crib Goch are considered mountaineering routes in winter or scramblesin summer—meaning that they must cross ‘graded territory’ as defined in Steve Ashton’s Scrambles in Snowdonia….

Crib Goch is one of the wettest spots in the United Kingdom …

CRIB GOCH – ONE OF BRITAIN’S GREATEST RIDGES

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find a trekking guide for Nepal

Micah Hanson is an expert on independent trekking in the Himalayas (indietrekking.com).

In collaboration with a Sherpa friend from Nepal, Micah launched Sherpana.com.

There hikers who don’t want to go it alone can book trekking guides online and review the guides.

In addition the site allows people to join each others treks, if they choose, so that they can share the cost of the trip with other trekkers. (It reminds me of TrekkingPartners.com, a site I’ve used in the past.)

They’ve tried to make pricing as transparent as possible, and allow people to book only the guide and pay for the food and lodging directly to the lodge owners.

Prices do look competitive. For example, this upcoming trek:

Everest Base Camp Trek (13 days) 

Price for 2 hikers would be $352 (each) for 13 days, but you can add extra days and side trips like the Cho La pass to Gokyo, ect.  Extra days for 2 people, would be an extra $15.50 per person per day.

 


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DRONE in the Drakensberg

A great hiking destination in southern Africa.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

https://vimeo.com/258940152?ref=fb-share&1

The Drakensberg escarpment stretches for over 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) …

The Afrikaans name Drakensberge comes from the name the earliest Dutch settlers to the region gave it. They called them the Drakensbergen, or “Mountains of Dragons”. …

One of the best hikes there is Giant’s Cup Trail.

 

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2006 murder in the Himalayas

Winner of the 2011 Banff Mountain Festival Book Award: Best Book, Mountain and Wilderness Literature.

… in 2006, an impulsive, naïve young Tibetan nun and her best friend, both yearning for religious freedom from Chinese rule, joined a group of fellow Tibetans desperate to escape to India, where the Dalai Lama has lived since the 1950 annexation of Tibet by China.

Kelsang Namtso and Dolma Palkyi embarked on the brutal journey over the Himalayas. Smuggled by illegal guides past Chinese border police, the group braved freezing temperatures and snow, the high altitude, and perilous crevasses.

Green alternates the refugees’ trek with that of Luis Benitez, an American celebrity mountain guide leading a rich group of international clients to the Himalayan peak Cho Oyu. The two groups met on the peak as Chinese guards, alerted to the refugees’ presence, chased after the escapees with machine guns ablaze, and Kelsang was killed in full view of the Westerners. …

Murder in the High Himalaya: Loyalty, Tragedy, and Escape from Tibet by Jonathan Green (2010)

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The author is a good writer. But there are numerous factual errors. He needed a better editor and more expert proof readers.

Green doesn’t sound like a climbing insider to me. I suspected he’d never visited Cho Oyu nor Tibet in writing the book.