Day 1: Tuesday, November 22
Kathmandu to Syaphru Besi: 100km on another horrible 8 ½ hour bus ride
Altitude: 1460m
I'm off again to do my second trek in Nepal. I kinda have to go trekking again. Not that I am complaining but India won’t let me back in to their country yet due to the rules of my tourist visa and it is too expensive to fly anywhere else. So in a way, I am stuck in Nepal until December 15. The Langtang trek is the third most popular in Nepal but I don’t really have high expectations for it. How can anything compete with the Annapurna Circuit?
But Nepal and the amazing Himalayan mountain range would prove me very wrong! This hike kicked ass and provided even better views, scenery, and photography than Annapurna. Read on…



Day 2: Wed
Syaphru Besi to Lama Hotel: 13km (8 miles)
Altitude: 2470m (8101 feet)
I am hitting the trail alone this time. However, one hour into the hike I ran into Geoff from Belgium. We know each other from the Annapurna Circuit. This is the same Belgian that achieved short-lived trekking fame by sleeping outside after failing to reach their destination in Yak Kharka via the secret shortcut path we never found! See my Annapurna blog entry for details on that one. So Team Jeff and Geoff was born. I think my first words to him after "hey, how the hell are you doing?" were “I am not sleeping outside next to a river with you.”
The trail is dusty and quite technical with constant ups and downs and a lot of ankle breaking rocks waiting to ruin your day. Arriving to Jungle View Hotel provided a great solar powered shower.


Day 3: Thursday
Lama Hotel to Langtang: 11km (6.8 miles)
Altitude: 3430m (11,250 feet)
Skies are perfectly clear and the air temperature is actually quite hot. Views up through the valley are nice but not that impressive...yet. This trekking thing is easy since I am already in shape from the Annapurna trek. In fact, we are trying not to walk too fast so we don’t arrive too early. There aren’t so many trekkers on the trail either. Low season is starting and most tourists have finished their hiking. It should be easy to find good hotel rooms.


Day 4: Friday
Langtang to Kyanjin Gumba: 7km (4.3 miles)
Altitude: 3870m (12,694 feet)
An easy 2 ½ hour walk brings us to the small village of Kyanjin Gumba, the last stop on the Langtang trek with proper accommodation. Only those with guides and porters carrying all food provisions and tents can go further into the mountains from here. The trek is already over! Not quite. Fortunately, there are other things to do. We spent the afternoon getting as close to Langtang Lirung Glacier as possible before we had to turn around and get back to town before dark. The glacier is farther away than it looks. It would take an entire day to hike up to the glacier, touch it, and make it back to the village. We need our energy for tomorrow anyway to climb Tserko Ri.


Day 5: Saturday
Kyanjin Gumba to the top of Tserko Ri and return: Approx 12km roundtrip plus 1114 meters climb (3654 ft.).
Altitude of Tserko Ri: 4984m (16,348 feet)
The friendly looking, neighborhood yak is now my mortal enemy and I wish them all a painful death in a slaughter house somewhere. I want to throw large rocks at each and every one that I see! Last night, I left my two hiking shirts on the laundry line and a yak ate them both overnight. I hate these f&?%**g beasts now. I only have two sets of clothes… the trekking set, which is constantly dirty and sweaty; and non-trekking which is kinda clean and always kept dry for sitting around the lodge at night. The yak munched major holes in my short and long-sleeved trekking shirts and slobbered so much saliva on both while stamping them into the muddy ground that I found them in a twisted, frozen clump in the morning. Now I have to wear my dry set for today’s hike, leaving nothing to wear when I get back.
Today would be a tough challenge; climb over 1000 meters and come back down all in a day. Geoff and I made stops at the local bakery and the cheese factory to pick up our lunch and then hit the trail. The weather was perfect. Clear skies meant the views from the top of Tserko Ri of the surrounding 6000 and 7000 meter mountains should be good. The locals said we are really lucky because it’s often cloudy. It was a tough climb but we made it in 3 hours and 50 minutes which is faster than the published 5 hour time. On the way up, we witnessed a thunderous avalanche across the valley on Langtang Lirung mountain. It was probably enough snow to bury a dozen city blocks. Check out the photo and judge for yourself knowing that the mountain face is at least 6 miles away. The views from the top of Tserko Ri were fantastic. And for being at almost 5000 meters, it wasn’t even that cold. After about an hour to take photos and eat our Yak cheese and chapati bread, it was time to head back down. Knee busting agony is a nice way to describe the descent.


Day 6: Sunday
Kyanjin Gumba to Langtang: 7km (4.3 miles)
The owner of the little hotel washed my wrecked t-shirts yesterday and dried them in the afternoon sun. I had to cut the sleeves off up to the elbow on the long-sleeved one but I can wear them both until I get back to Kathmandu and then throw them in the trash. I continue to hate yaks with a passion. We took the morning off to relax before making the short walk back to Langtang village and my first shower in 3 days. The Langtang trek is not a circle so we have to backtrack on the same path through the same valley.


Day 7: Monday
Langtang to Bamboo Lodge: approx 14km (8.7 miles)
Another nice day descending the same trail we climbed back on day 2. From here, rather than return to Syaphru Besi and our original starting point, we will head south west over the mountain ridge to connect to the Gosaikund lake trek.


Day 8: Tuesday November, 29
Bamboo Lodge to Thulo Syaphru: approx 7km (4.3 miles)
Altitude: 2250m (7,380 feet)
A moderately difficult hike, mostly climbing to the nice village of Thulo Syaphru. From here, we can take the path that connects to the Gosaikund lakes. The sun is gone and clouds limit visibility. My hatred for the yak has fallen to 67% and I no longer wish them an evil, satanic death.


Day 9: Wednesday
Thulo Syaphru to Laurebina: 9km (5.6 miles)
Altitude: 3910m (12,825 feet)
Today required an early start since we had to climb up to Laurebina; an ascent of 1660 meters or 5445 feet. Fortunately, we are well acclimatized and altitude sickness is not a problem. With the low level clouds, there is no visibility of our surroundings and the added moisture in the air is cold!
After hours and hours of a basically uneventful day in the fog, we finally ascended higher than the clouds themselves. The views from here were simply astounding and made for some of the best photos I took in Nepal, far better than anything on the Annapurna Circuit. Arriving to the lodge in Laurebina, we could clearly see… well, everything. To the north were the double peaks of Langtang Lirung at 7227m (23,705 ft) and Langtang 2 at 6596m (21,634 ft); both higher than Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America at 6194m or 20,320 feet. To the west are the mountains separating Nepal from Tibet, then the Ganesh Himal range which stars in many of my photos, and finally, looking down the mountain chain to the west are Manaslu, the 8th highest mountain in the world at 8156m(26,759 ft) and Annapurna 1, the 10th highest mountain at 8091m (26,545 ft).


Day 10: Thursday
Laurebina to Gosaikund Lake: 3km (1.9 miles)
Altitude: 4380m (14,366 ft)
Today was a short easy walk up to Gosaikund Lake. This lake is considered sacred by the Hindus. Every August, 50,000 pilgrims from India and Nepal make their way here for … I don’t what they do really. ???
My hatred for yaks has fallen to 24%. I have to admit I like their cheese.


Day 11: Friday
Gosaikund Lake over Laurebina Pass to Ghopte: Approx 10km (6.2 miles)
Altitude at Laurebina Pass: 4610m (15,120 feet)
Finish Altitude: 3430m (11,250 ft)
Today is another tough day of walking some technical trails and going over the highest part of the Gosaikund Trek at 4610 meters through the Laurebina Pass. We had lunch in a two lodge town called Phedi where the lodge owners will point out where a Thai Airways Airbus crashed into the mountain side in 1992 killing 113 people. A few aircraft pieces remain and are on display. We slept in a well run lodge called Mendo in the nothing of a place called Ghopte.


Day 12: Saturday
Ghopte to Kutumsang: approx 12km (7.4 miles)
Altitude: 2470m (8102 feet)
Today was mostly downhill over challenging, rocky terrain. We also descended back into the cloud cover so the views are gone and it’s colder than the sunny, higher altitudes. We officially left the Gosaikund Trek and connected to the Helambu trail. We’re getting tired now and talk of good coffee and food with meat (this entire trek was vegetarian only) occupies most of our conversations. The fast pace and noise of Kathmandu will actually be a welcome change, but mostly just for the food options.


Day 13: Sunday
Kutumsang to ??????
Altitude: Lower than yesterday
I don’t know where the hell we are. We left too late to make it to the big village of Chisopani so we slept in some rinky-dink lodge along the trail, ate dinner with the local family, and had to share the kitchen space with their four goats… since apparently these goats don’t like to be outdoors in the cold. They made a wicked Mustang Coffee though and after a few of these you don’t care about goats in the kitchen. We are ready to be finished with this trekking thing. I still hate yaks but only a little.


Day 14: Monday, December 5
??? to Sundarijal: approx 8km (5 miles)
Finish Altitude: 1460m (4789 ft)
Today is our last day and we will be eating steak tonight in a nice restaurant. If Karma is on my side, it will be a yak steak! This part of the trek is way more difficult than any map shows thanks to the hundreds (maybe thousands) of steps down to Sundarijal. From here, it’s a simple one hour bus ride to Kathmandu. Done!


PACKING LIST:
Exactly the same as for the Annapurna Circuit except this time I brought my Ipod. See the entry before this one for the list.

DAILY EXPENSES: Averaged US$15 per day over the 14 days of this trek. We never paid for lodging. Always negotiate a free room and agree to eat ALL your meals at the lodge. They always excepted this offer.