Only a short distance down the road from
Basantapur is the bustling, one-street, hill-village of
Hille - the starting point for the trek to the isolated,
uninhabited Barun Valley and the base camp
beneath Mt.Makalu - the world's fifth highest mountain and one of
the great peaks of the Himalaya.
The route initially follows the course of
the mighty Arun River through small settlements of
thatch-roofed, wickerwork houses surrounded by rice paddies and
fields of tall sugar cane and maize. Smiling children shout
greetings: " Namaste!, Have you a pen? ".
I was accompanied by four trekking staff:-
my Tibetan sirdar 'John' ( a nickname acquired on a visit
to the USA ) Cheddar Lama and three Sherpas: our cook Lakpa and
his two assistants Dorje and Ringi
- both on their first trek and being trained by Lakpa as
kitchenboys. All four came from the same
remote village in the Makalu region.
While we were still unloading the roofrack
of the bus at the trailhead in Hille John managed to
recruit a team of eight local porters - seven Gurungs and one
Tamang - to carry our huge stack of
camping equipment and food supplies.
Leaving the riverside beyond the sprawling
village of Tumlingtar, with its small, grass airstrip,
the trail winds up through terraced hillsides to the substantial
town of Khandbari with its
flagstoned pavements and three-storied, stone-built, shop-houses.
From Khandbari our route led along a
forested ridgetop with occasional views to river valleys far
below. We encamped at the small settlement of Chichira and again
at the larger village of Num
situated in a spectacular location on a promontory high above the
Arun River surrounded by a huge
cirque of rugged mountains cleft by deep gullies and narrow
valleys.
A precipitous 2000ft descent to an airy
suspension bridge across the raging waters of the Arun
River, confined in a rocky defile, was followed by an equally
steep re-ascent to the village of
Sedua - an all-day journey but only a short distance on the map.
The lush sub-tropical vegetation soon gave
way to rhododendron and pine forests as we contoured
round and up the hillside to the remote Sherpa village of
Tashigaon - an eight-days walk from the
nearest roadhead.
Our Gurung porters now wished to return to
their village to celebrate Tihar ( one of the two main
Nepali festivals, the other, only a couple of weeks before, is
Dasain ). They also had no desire or
proper clothing to proceed to the harsher conditions expected in
the route ahead and were replaced,
only after a long search and at higher cost, with four local
Sherpas inured to the altitude and cold
of the high valleys.
Tashigaon is the last permanent settlement
and above lies the crux of the route to Makalu base camp
- a series of three high passes blocking the way to the isolated
Barun Valley. On the long hard slog
up through the densely forested hillside there were occasional
views of the Kasuwa Khola in the
valley floor far below.
Crossing the Keke La, the first of these
passes, we gained our first views of the snow peaks - the
white massif of Chamlang rising at the head of the Iswa Valley
and the summit cone of Makalu
protruding above a high ridgetop. The highest pass, Shipton La at
some 4500metres was soon reached
but had been enveloped in heavy mist. A short drop to a dark,
foreboding, corry lochan and re-ascent
to the third col, Tutu La, was then followed by a long descent
through shrub rhododendron to the
campsite amidst tall pine trees at Mumbuk.
Another knee-jarring plunge down a steep,
rocky gully ended on the banks of the turbulent waters of
the Barun Khola enclosed in its narrow valley beneath towering
mountainsides. Initially rough
boulder fields of savage landslips made progress difficult but
then pleasant, level meadows led on
to a widening of the glaciated valley where sheer rock walls,
reminiscent of those in Yosemite,
marked the gateway to the upper valley and a spectacular range of
himalayan peaks.
Above the tree-line we climbed over open
moorland beneath the imposing but nameless Peak 7 past the
huts at Jark Kharka to a col for a breathtaking view of the
massive Mt.Tutse ( Peak 6 ) and
adjoining Peak 4 looming directly ahead before the trail dropped
to follow the river trapped
beneath a long, lateral moraine and the scree slopes and rocks of
the valley side.
On a clear, crisp morning I scaled the
stony, moss-covered hillside above the campsite at Shershon
to attain a superb 360degree view of the surrounding peaks; most
unnamed and identified only by
their survey numbers. Bounding the glaciated valley to the west
arose the ice-hung aretes of
Peak 6 ( Mt.Tutse ) and Peak 4 while to the south were the
pointed summits of Peaks 3 and 5.
However these were all eclipsed by the majestic Makalu with its
soaring ridges and sheer granite
faces sweeping skywards only a stone's-throw away. Walking
northwards to the edge of the
plateau I looked down to the Barun Pokhari and on up the great
glacier to the two other 8000metre
giants of Lhotse and Everest.
From Shershon it is only a short distance
further to the site, on wide gravel flats, for the base
camps for climbing expeditions to Mt.Makalu.
Beyond base camp we followed a faint trail,
marked by small cairns, over the rough convoluted
moraines of the Barun Glacier to Advanced Base Camp and, next day,
accompanied by Lakpa and Dorje,
I scrambled up a rocky ridge to a height of some 6000 metres
directly beneath the imposing
north-west face of Makalu.
Across the glacier long, crenellated ridges
of rock and snow peaks culminated in the magnificent,
7000 metre Mt.Baruntse. We could see the notches of the East and
West Cols marking the hazardous,
high-level crossing to the secluded and seldom visited Hongu
Valley.
Back at base camp the sirdar of a German
group had commandeered two of our Sherpa porters and John
and Lakpa had to carry dokos ( wickerwork baskets for loads )
back to Tashigaon.
On our return journey down the Barun Valley
it snowed every afternoon giving John some concern for
our re-crossing of Shipton La. However, after an early morning
start from Mumbuk, and a long
arduous plod through deep soft snow, we were fortunate to reach
the col just before the start of
another blizzard.
From Khandbari we took a different route
out through the ridgetop town of Chainpur and, on the
final ridgetop above the roadhead at Basantapur, were rewarded
with a splendid panorama of Chamlang
and the Makalu Himal stretched along the northern horizon some 70
miles afar.
