What are the Great Himalayas?

September 1st, 2010  | Comments: 1
Posted in: Articles

The Great Himalaya Range (click for a bigger image)

This slightly dry diagram from the UN University gives a lot of insight into what lies under the greenery and snow peaks of the Himalaya. This is the big crunch between the Indian plate and Eurasian plate.

Simply put the Greater Himalaya range is the highest point of the mountains thrusted up from this millions-of-years-old collision. If there is to be a Great Himalaya Trail, then surely it is going to travel as close to the Great(er) Himalaya range as possible? This has partly been the reason why there has been no GHT until recently. Many areas in this region were closed to outsiders. Bhutan, areas of Tibet and Dolpa in Nepal for instance were long closed to tourists. Only in 2002 were several last areas opened up to trekkers meaning that someone would be able to walk the full length of a trans-national GHT.

Many people have previously walked the length of the Himalayas, or close to that distance, but have had to avoid the certain forbidden areas. The lower GHT route, you could argue is also not a GHT route as it runs across the ‘transition belt’ or the ‘middle hills’ (Pahar in Nepali). Luckily there is no rule book, nobody checking and we’re all free to pick and choose the routes we wish to go walking on!

Still this underlines how special the upper route is. It is not only trying to span a geographical A and B, but to keep as close as possible to the Greatest Mountain Range on Earth.

Tags: earthquake, forbidden areas, Greater Himalaya Range, middle hills, nepal, pahar