Showing posts with label Kali Gandaki. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kali Gandaki. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Kagbeni: Gateway to the Kingdom of Lo (Part 2)

Kagbeni is an ancient trading city perched on a plateau overlooking the Kali Gandaki River in north central Nepal. For centuries, Kagbeni thrived in the salt trade. Caravans of human porters or goats (really) carried salt south from Tibet en route to India. On the return, the caravans brought back rice and other goods from the lowlands. The introduction of manufactured salt containing iodine largely ended the salt trade, but I am not sure of the date. However, black, rose, and white Tibetian salt are now sold in gourmet stores around the world, so some degree of the salt trade has revived (although some of this new salt trade goes through China, therefore not benefiting Kagbeni at all). In the United States, iodine was first added to salt in 1924. Iodine deficiency is a leading preventable cause of intellectual and developmental disabilities, or mental retardation (from Wikipedia). Lack of iodine also caused many people to develop goiters (swelling of the thyroid gland).
The geology here is spectacular. The Kali Gandaki winds its way south across a gravel-filled valley, meandering and crossing over and over. The trail crossed some of the streams on temporary wooden bridges, and in other places follows along the shore above the valley bed. In the second photograph, look at the talus slopes (rock debris) tumbling down the valleys and into the Kali Gandaki's flood plain. These talus slopes are an example of erosion caused by gravity flow, with possibly some assistance during the winter by water transport. This is an arid climate, but even minor rainfall may help lubricate rocks and make the slopes less stable.
Many Nepalis come to the river bed to look for ammonites, called Saligram in Nepali. They are Upper Jurassic age, about the age of the opening of the Atlantic Ocean. These demonstrate that sediments in the Himalaya were once seabed and that the uplift of the Himalaya is younger than Jurassic. The uplift was caused by the collision of the Indian and Asian continental plates, which is ongoing. As long as the himalaya are uplifting, there will be an almost endless supply of sediment to be carried down the rivers, and, eventually, into the Ganges. The Ganges eventually joins the Brahmaputra, which jointly form the massive Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta, which protrudes into the Bay of Bengal.
We rough and tough trekkers (wimps) were tired after a day walking north along the river from the town of Jomsom. This was the Trekkers Inn near the south entrance to town. It was clean, cheerful, and comfortable.
Late afternoon, the wind blows mercilessly across the river valley, carrying clouds of sand and dust. Best to hang out in the inn and drink a tea. The walls around the older houses were a protection against the wind. The wood neatly piled along the rooftop are a traditional demonstration of wealth. In the past, the wood was vital to heating and cooking in winter. Today, many houses use kerosene stoves, so the wood is symbolic or maybe just a decoration. The air is so dry, the wood does not rot.
This little fellow welcomed travelers and was a symbol of good fortune. He apparently needs repair on a regular basis. It is a hard job being out in the weather.
Narrow alleys take you to courtyards and an occasional stupa. Again, note the wood stacked along the roof parapets.
 
The Kag Chode Thupten Samphel Ling Monastery at the edge of town is a fascinating mixture of ancient and 20th century buildings. Some of the books neatly stored in silk wrappers are hundreds of years old. A huge Tibetan Massif protects the grounds. During the day, he is pretty mellow and sleeps in the sun. But at night, he roams the grounds and eats tourists (and possibly goats and cows).
Late afternoon, the goats come marching through. Poop overload, just be sure you are not in the way. This was late October, and the goats were heading south, I presume to markets in south Nepal or India.

After a night in Kagbeni, we proceeded north into Mustang. We had to show our trekking permits to policemen at a guard station at the north end of town. 

Geology note:  This is a satellite image of the Ganges-Bramaputra Delta, from the NASA Earth Observatory, Nov. 9, 2011. Vast quantities of silt, sand, and mud flow into the northern Bay of Bengal.
NASA file https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=77364

Sunday, November 12, 2017

The Deepest Canyon: the Kali Gandaki River, Nepal

Dear readers, I am trying to catch up with some overdue projects. One of these is to summarize my 2011 trip to the Mustang region of Nepal. I listed some of the waypoints of this trip in a 2011 post. This post will be about the fantastic walk down the Kali Gandaki River in west central Nepal.

The Kali Gandaki River makes a great gash through the Himalaya. The river's headwaters are in the Mustang region near the border with Tibet. It then flows south through Mustang (formerly a kingdom and subject of a future post) through gorges and valleys. South of the town of Jomsom, it cuts through the mountains again. "The river then flows southward through a steep gorge known as the Kali Gandaki Gorge, or Andha Galchi, between the mountains Dhaulagiri, elevation 8,167 metres (26,795 ft) to the west and Annapurna I, elevation 8,091 metres (26,545 ft) to the east. If one measures the depth of a canyon by the difference between the river height and the heights of the highest peaks on either side, this gorge is the world's deepest." (from Wikipedia). Eventually, the river flows into the Ganges, after flowing over an immense megafan, comprising sediments eroded from the rapidly uplifting Himalaya.
My 2011 waypoints along the Kali Gandaki valley, with elevations in m above sea level. (Maps drawn with ESRI ArcMap software.)
In decades past, many Europeans and Americans walked down the great gorge when they made the trek around Annapurna (one of the world's great walks). But in the early 2000s, a rough road was cut along the right (west) bank of the Kali Gandaki, and an airport was built in Jomsom. This led to many tourists either flying out or taking a bus. As of 2011, the trekkers' route was becoming underused, and some inns and restaurants had closed.
Jomsom before landing at JMO.
Before my October 2011 walk downstream, I had just completed the trek through Mustang to Lo Manthang, the ancient walled capital of the Kingdom of Lo. My friends flew back to Pokhara from Jomsom Airport (IATA: JMO), which is at elevation of 8,976 feet (2,736 m). The airport often suffers bad weather and has been the site of several crashes. Most of the town is located on a plateau above the river valley.
For my walk down the gorge, I was accompanied by a friendly young Sherpa, Pasang, who had been with us all the way through Mustang. There was also a porter, Rahm, to carry my duffel bag, although we really did not need his services. Regardless, these fellows depend on tourists for income, and I appreciate their hard work.
Day 1. This took us from 2800-m high desert plain into a scrub terrain with juniper and pine that looked like the US southwest or Greece. The first town south of Jomsom was Marpha, which is in an apple-growing region. There is a well-known distillery as well as an ancient monastery.
Approaching Tukuche, the trail hugs the edge of the broad gravel riverbed, occasionally crossing tributaries on rickety wood walkways. One option is to follow a path along the gravel riverbed, but you are exposed to blowing dust. The route along the west side of the valley is better, and, in many areas, the main road.
The High Plains Inn - Dutch Bakery in Tukuche is a great lunch stop, and the hungry trekker is obligated to eat an apple strudel (or two) topped off with an espresso. The route down the Kali Gandaki has  plenty of inns and rest stops like this, so really, this is an easy trek.
We met a lady who was sorting beans that had been drying on a roof. I wonder if they cook red beans and rice? In this area, many villagers stay for the winter, so they carefully stock supplies. But further north in Mustang, the weather is more severe, and villagers migrate to lower altitude areas or to India to find winter work.
Our destination for the night was Larjung, another tidy little town. It is still 2,500 m high, and the villagers were drying corn and other items in preparation for winter.
This was the Riverside Lodge, a nice place with hot water in the shower. Part of the roof was flat, providing a surface to dry corn. The tree had apples. The restaurant was good. Happy chickens lived in a coop and clucked around.
Day 2. The next morning, we continued down stone paths towards the gravel bed of a tributary that enters the Kali Gandaki. The road make a long detour upstream, but the walking path crosses the gravel bed.  In spring, the walking path must be impassable, and pedestrians need to follow the road. As you can see, at this elevation, the flora had changed to alpine forests with pines, much like Austria.
We continued downstream to the village of Kalopani, still at an elevation of 2,500 m.
This is one of these very interesting and somewhat swaying steel suspension bridges that cross the Kali Gandaki.
Looming above you to the east is the might peak of Annapurna, Annapurna I is the tenth highest mountain in the world at 8,091 m above sea level. Annapurna is an especially dangerous peak for climbers, with a death to summit ratio of 32 percent.
I was glad to be well below in the valley. We descended steeply during the afternoon along the river valley to the hamlet of Ghasa at only 1950 m elevation. The Eagle Rest Guest House & Garden Restaurant was really nice, and finally we saw other trekkers. Before this stop, we saw very few Americans or Europeans. My green day pack contained water, camera, and personal items. The porter carried my red duffel, which held clothing, sleeping bag (not needed here), and bulky things.
This fellow with the wet nose wanted a room, also.
Day 3. We continued downhill towards Thalpa, about 1800 m elevation. The valley walls towered above us. Yours truly, of course, looked his dorky best. I had been above 3000 m for two weeks, and here at "low altitude" the air felt so thick.
A tributary, the Rupse Chhahara, plunges down the mountain. The bus trundles through the water. Some of the year, the route must be impassable. It takes a degree of bravery to take one of these busses. My anthropologist friend said every now and then, a bus falls off the mountain. By now, we had dropped to 1590m elevation.
Dana, at 1461m has some old stone buildings with Tibetian-style windows of beautiful craftsmanship. The town has a guest house and a bus stop.
The valley near Dana is bucolic, and the footpath takes you along ancient stone walkways through the farms.

By midday, we reached Tatopani, at 1190 m. We descended steeply into broad leaf forest and finally into jungle.
On recommendation from my friend, I checked into the Dhaulagiri Lodge and Restaurant, near the southern end of Tatopani. Nice place, with an excellent restaurant. They put me into my own little cabin, and right outside my room were bamboo and banana plants and geckoes (no obvious snakes). I paid the porter, Rahm, and he headed back upriver.
Tatopani is famous for the hot spring, and I soaked with chubby Japanese visitors.

All in all, this has been a spectacular trek, a passage through geologic history as well as botanic altitude zones.

Change is coming. The villages here are still poor, but they have electricity and serve hikers who are making the Annapurna loop trek. Most lodges have rooms with private bath, but hot water is still rare. The towns have schools and health clinics. The road is a treacherous dirt and rock trail carved out of the mountain-side. As of 2011, busses and jeeps regularly broke down or fell off, squashing their occupants.
Day 4. Two Germans that we met in the lodge, Pasang, and I chartered a taxi take us to Pokkhara, from where we flew to Kathmandu. The taxi took 5 hours as opposed to 8+ on the public bus (which often breaks down). It was a tiny car, and we were rather squashed. And we had to stop a few times to let the goats move off the road. (Note: this was Oct. 21, 2011, and we learned late in the day that Colonel Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar Gaddafi, the long-term dictator and butcher of Libya, had been killed by Libyan militiamen.)

Photographs taken with a Panasonic G1 digital camera, some RAW files processed with PhotoNinja software,

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Almost the End of the World: Mustang, Nepal (Waypoints)

Dear Readers, this post will be different than others in this blog. The table below lists waypoints for the 12-day hike through the Mustang area of Nepal. Mustang is a province in north central Nepal, near the Tibetian border. A few months ago, I was unable to find any published waypoints, so the list below is intended to serve as a convenience to other hikers. Feel free to copy and then import into ArcMap software, Google Earth Pro, or other mapping tools.
Morning departure from Pokkhara
Most travelers to this remote area fly into Kathmandu, regroup after the exhausting flight from USA or Europe, and then fly to the lakeside town of Pokkhara. Then, early morning, they fly via turboprop to Jomsom, which is the southern gateway to Mustang. From Jomsom they hike north to the town of Lo Manthang, the capital of the Kingdom of Lo.
First of all, you can't just walk to Mustang; you need permits, and they cost a lot! The purpose is to control the number of tourists who enter the fragile ecosystem. This is a high-altitude desert, and water, fuel, and food are scarce. Possibly more important, the Government of Nepal is trying to preserve the unique and ancient Buddhist culture from the ravages of mass tourism. It is best to let an experienced travel outfitter in Kathmandu take care of permits and other logistics.
You also need a permit for the Annapurna Conservation Area. Here, too, the government is trying to monitor tourists who are traveling through the mountains and is funding conservation and preservation efforts.

In the table below, coordinates are in decimal degrees in geodetic datum WGS-84, data collected with a Garmin Geko 201 hand-held GPS receiver. Horizontal accuracy was typically 7-15 m. Elevations are in meters; accuracy unknown. The first waypoint is the Kathmandu Guesthouse (hotel), and the next two are from the town of Pokkhara. The remainder cover the trekking route. They start just north of Tatopani, in the Kali Gandaki River valley, and proceed north. The ancient walled city of Lo Manthang (location of the Mystique Guest House) is the capital of Mustang and the usual northernmost destination for most tourists. A road now goes from Lo Manthang to the Chinese border, which will likely cause profound cultural changes in the years to come. Already, many trade goods and supplies come from China via this road.

NAME
LAT_WGS84
LONG_WGS84
ELEV_M
KATH_GUESTOUSE
27.71623
85.3087 
xxxx
POK_AIRPORT
28.19948
83.97775
804
POK_LAKE
28.21242
83.9552
758
AN-S-R
28.51027
83.65739
1493
DANA
28.54471
83.64541
1461
WATERFALL
28.55553
83.63644
1589
LEKALI_TEA_HOUSE
28.55568
83.63841
1587
ROAD
28.55763
83.63548
1611
BRIDGE05
28.56071
83.63741
1635
KOPCHE_PANI
28.56831
83.63966
1735
CANYON
28.56931
83.64186
1809
BRIDGE04
28.59011
83.64758
1996
EAGLE_NEST
28.59468
83.64328
1952
GHASA
28.60762
83.64402
2097
KAIKU
28.61494
83.63955
2168
GHUMAU
28.61999
83.63192
2237
IETEKH
28.62879
83.61691
2394
KALOPANI
28.64125
83.59901
2531
BRIDGE03
28.64663
83.59444
2506
DHAMPU
28.66067
83.59409
2538
BRIDGE02
28.67192
83.59757
2545
RIVER_CROSS
28.678
83.60389
2537
KHOBANG
28.68963
83.61669
2551
KHANTI
28.69392
83.62081
2560
TUKUCHE
28.71159
83.64914
2603
APPLE_FARM
28.74066
83.68058
2666
MARPHA
28.75391
83.6871
2689
DUMBAR
28.76214
83.69566
2681
JOMSON_SOUTH
28.7813
83.72185
2749
OMS_HOTEL
28.78296
83.72502
2744
EKLE_BHATTI
28.81849
83.77387
2807
KAGBENI
28.83631
83.78319
2861
RIVER_VIEW02
28.85507
83.79071
2896
KALI_GANDAKI02
28.8602
83.79223
2855
KALI_GANDAKI03
28.86385
83.79271
2858
RIVER01
28.86923
83.80091
2077
ORGANIC_FARM
28.88273
83.80907
3105
VIKKAG
28.8889
83.8047
3447
TANGBE
28.88918
83.80639
3045
RIVER_VIEW
28.89874
83.8087
3059
CHHUSANG
28.91457
83.81966
2956
BRIDGE
28.92759
83.82907
2958
CHELE
28.93102
83.82679
3060
CANYON01
28.94239
83.80762
3466
PASS
28.95305
83.80225
3601
SAMAR02
28.96171
83.80115
3643
SAMAR
28.9618
83.80108
3624
SAMAR04
28.96211
83.80223
3612
CHORTEN03
28.96535
83.80413
3595
SAMAR03
28.9683
83.80305
3653
BHENA_LA
28.97347
83.80934
3849
BHENA
28.97348
83.8093
3835
SYAN-LA
28.98425
83.82592
3995
YAMDA_LA
28.98447
83.82561
3982
PASS18
28.98757
83.83095
3889
SYANGBOCHE_LA
28.99048
83.84126
3839
SYANGBOCHE
28.99112
83.83821
3774
PASS03
29.00476
83.84767
3675
TAMAGAON
29.00781
83.84731
3712
CHHUNGGAR
29.01865
83.84861
3794
ZHAITE
29.0275
83.84851
3817
NYI_LA
29.03294
83.85304
3984
NYI_LA02
29.03309
83.85314
4006
NYI_LA03
29.03313
83.85314
4025
CLIFF
29.04717
83.86834
3790
GHAMI_LA
29.05202
83.87067
3768
GHAMI02
29.06112
83.87101
3586
MANI_WALL
29.06227
83.87894
3575
ROYAL_MUSTANG
29.06343
83.8731
3574
STREAM
29.06599
83.87244
3596
PASS15
29.06669
83.89672
3878
PASS05
29.0681
83.87924
3716
PASS14
29.07907
83.92224
3656
DHAKMAR
29.08325
83.8809
3724
CHORTEN02
29.08786
83.92759
3575
TSARANG_S
29.09208
83.93296
3559
TSARANG
29.09544
83.93064
3589
PASS06
29.09864
83.88245
4054
PASS13
29.10398
83.93903
3651
PASS7
29.10798
83.88426
4150
LO-GHY
29.12464
83.88847
3937
SUNGDA_CHORTEN
29.12988
83.94695
3742
STREAM02
29.13408
83.89233
3991
CAVES02
29.14637
83.94495
3818
PASS08
29.14761
83.89861
4259
PASS09
29.14873
83.89885
4265
STREAM03
29.15221
83.89888
4268
CHOGO_LA
29.15661
83.90231
4316
PASS10
29.16189
83.91043
4190
PASS11
29.16436
83.92784
4078
PASS12
29.16799
83.95274
3963
PAS-11
29.17082
83.95087
3904
MYSTIQUE
29.18159
83.95689
3887
SCHOOL
29.1839
83.95725
3820
FORT
29.1868
83.96332
3811
CHOSER
29.21776
83.97433
3852
NYIPHU
29.23467
83.97817
3928
CAVE
29.23624
83.98257
3952

I will post more descriptions and photographs of this fascinating area in the future. I plotted the points in ESRI ArcMap software.