Who’s walking the Great Himalaya Trail?

Posted in: News on August 27th, 2010  | Comments: 1

The activity surrounding the full GHT is growing. Planned expedition include Sean Burch, Katje Staartjes, Dawa Stephen Sherpa, WWF and Apa Sherpa as well as World Expeditions 2011 Full Traverse.

Sean Burch is renowned in the United States for his extreme endurance activities. He is Mr Hyper-fitness and has quite a number of Guiness World Record’s to his name, including the fastest ascent of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Mt. Fuji in Japan. He is attempting to set the World Record for the Great Himalaya Trail and you can see the route he is taking (and indeed his current location) on his website. Sean is trying to help raise the profile of Nepal Trust and the work they do in Humla in the far north-west of Nepal, the end point of his run. Nepal Trust also managed the 69 day 2003 run of Rosie Swale-Pope. Given that Sean is aiming to complete the run in 60 days, it is possible that the same route is being run which is quite different to the high-route of the GHT.

Read more about Sean’s adventure here at explorer’s web and here at Nepal Traveller magazine.

Dawa Steven Sherpa has rightfully gained recognition as a spokesperson for the environment in Nepal and the Himalaya, particularly on the issue of climate change. In association with WWF, Dawa plans to walk from West to East with a team from Asian Trekking, the family company that he runs in Kathmandu. He plans to begin in January 2011 and spend 135 days to reach his goal.

Dawa Steven Sherpa will walk the GHT lower-route beginning January 2011

His team will follow the lower GHT route which he has termed the cultural route. Many more communities live along the interface of the mid-hills (the Pahar) and the Himalaya than in the high mountains themselves. In an interview with the Himalayan Times, Dawa’s father, Ang Tsering Sherpa said, “a small trekking group in these regions can make a real difference to the lives that are barely above subsistence.”

Katja Staartjes © Gooi en Eemlander

Possibly the most exciting of the Trans-Nepal expeditions (and of course all are very exciting indeed) begins in September 2010, and is that of Katja Staartjes and her husband. Their planning begins over 1.5 years ago when they thought about the ‘three-lands-point’ where the borders of Germany, Netherlands and Belgium meet. They immediately thought of other points like this and, of course, Nepal must have two of these with India and Tibet. They decided then to walk from one to the other.

Starting from Darchula (see map of the Far West of Nepal), they will walk several days north, acclimatising slowly, to the triple-point. This will be the actual start of their adventure. From here, they will turn again south heading towards Ghunsa. Rather than walk to Rara, they will then head north again and try to find a new route towards Yari or Hilsa in Humla between Api and Saipal.

They will then walk through the Limi Valley, on to Mugu and then head north to make the difficult pass over to Upper Dolpa. Rather than head down to Phoksumdo lake, the plan is to stay high, going directly to Dho Tarap before journeying over to Mustang. From there, they will walk via Manaslu and Ganesh Himal to Syabrubesi and then return to Kathmandu by jeep, or if time permits, by walking to Sundarijal in the Kathmandu Valley. That’s part one! The continuation to the eastern ‘three-lands-point’ will wait until another year.

The interesting part of all this is that they will travel as a group of three, with just one Sherpa assistant. While this makes the group fast and flexible, it means carrying heavy loads. For instance from Darchula until their first barrel of fresh supplies in Simikot will be 23 days of walking.

In contrast to this, World Expeditions will be starting their first commercial GHT traverse in February 2011. Their trek will be fully supported and fully guided by veteran Himalayan professionals. They have designed it in such a way that trekkers can join for one, more than one or all sections of the trail.

We’ll follow their progress here, but in the meantime wish them all luck with their preparations.

See this update here about the Trek for a New Nepal.

Get the next blog post by  email or in a reader, join our mailing list or Nepal's Great Himalaya Trail Facebook page for occasional upates.

Tags: 2011, dawa steven sherpa, katje staartjes, lower route, Nepal Tourism Year 2011, sean burch