jenny's sparkle tog: Jenny's trekking attempts in Nepal

I say trekking attempts not because I didn't go but because both of my treks didn't turn out the way they were initially intended. Which didn't turn out to be a bad thing just a note. After Tibet I hung out with the two austrailian guys for a bit in kathmanu then Ryan and I decided to do a trek in the annapurna range. We first decide to do an 8 days trip which after the first day of hiking it quickly got cut in half to 4 days. The reason being that Ryan had never been backpacking before and told me that after the first day that he wasn't down to do a longer trek. Which was fine by me because I figured after we got back I would try and find someone who wanted to do a longer trek. The annapurna range is spectactular. we started at nayapul, then to gandruk, then to ghorepani, then to tatopani, and finished at Beni.

somewhere on the trail in the annapurna range

Sunrise on poon hill above ghorepani

When we arrived back at Kathmandu I ended up meeting this girl who wanted to do a little more difficult off the beaten path partial camping trek. Which was Gangi la pass in the langtang valley. So I said why not, sounds good (which has really been the theme thus far on my trip) It was initially planned as a 17 day trek over the pass with 6 of those days camping. Since the pass is really difficult and its winter, Kerri (austrailian as well, funny that I've been traveling with austrailians for more than half my trip already) contacted a guide service, that was recommended to her by a friend, to take us over the pass.

We left kathmandu on the 15th and traveled north 8 hrs or so to syra besi (by the way I am probably butchering the spellings of towns because I don't have my map with me so you'll have to bear with me). It took us three days to reach Kanjin Gumpa which is the last place with lodges to stay in before we started for the pass. But the first night after we had dinner our guide came up to us and said it was not possible to cross the pass!? As it turns out our guide had never been over the pass in the winter when there was snow on the pass! Both Kerri and I were a bit surprised and irritated that the service had sent a guide with virtually no experience to get us over the pass. Next we went over to the mountianeering association in Kanjin Gumpa and they informed us it was really dangerous to cross in the winter and didn't recommend that we go...

So we were both a little angry that they sent us a guide with no experience and didn't even attempt to check the conditions before they sent us on the trek. All the lodges and the mountianeering association have phones and it would have been easy to check. Anyway we ended up letting our guide go because the only reason we hired a guide was to get us safely over the pass and since that was out of the picture now we didn't need a guide to follow a trail.

Langtang Valley

Langtang valley looking down on Kanjin Gumpa

Kanjin Gumpa

Langtang valley

So after our guide left we went on a couple day hikes out of Kanjin Gumpa then headed back down to another trail system that went to some high mountain lakes. We trekked for 14 days altogether and it was so much fun. The himalayas are just as impressive as I had imagined.

So all in all I've been in Nepal a little over a month and am going to catch a bus in a day or two to India and see what that's all about.