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THROUGH THE
LAND OF DOLPO
A Trek
In Western Nepal by Chris
Townsend
On the edge of the
Tibetan plateau north of the great mountain
of Dhalaugiri lies the remote and little-known
land of Dolpo; a high, cold, arid region
of bare rocky hills, narrow ravines
and broad sparsely vegetated valleys.
In the rainshadow of the Himalayas Dolpo
is unaffected by the monsoon rains which
makes it very dry and very hot in summer
but, as much of the region is above
4000 metres, it is snowy and bitterly
cold in winter.
Despite its inaccessibility,
high altitude and inhospitable climate
Dolpo is not an empty land. Small villages
dot the valleys and hillsides. Traders
cross the passes with yaks and horses,
carrying goods between Tibet and lowland
Nepal. However in winter most of the
inhabitants of the high villages head
downwards and southwards, some even
travelling as far as Kathmandu. Just
a few people overwinter, staying to
watch over the flocks of goats and sheep.
A centre of Tibetan Buddhism, there
are also many gompas (monasteries) in
Dolpo and the passes and trails abound
with mani (prayer) walls, chortens (Buddhist
monuments) and prayer flags.
 Walking
through this land means walking through
an ancient culture, one that has remained
the same for thousands of years and
which is still almost untouched by the
modern world. Few are the places where
the mountain trails are the highways
of the local people, where there are
no motorised vehicles, or indeed machines
of any kind.
Living a marginal
existence dependent on grain imports
from the south the few inhabitants of
Dolpo cannot feed travellers so trekkers
in the area have to be self-sufficient.
Access to much of the area is restricted
with only a few organised groups, who
must be accompanied by a liaison officer,
being allowed in each year. Strict environmental
rules apply and everything carried in
must be carried out. In this way the
problems of over-use and environmental
damage that have arisen in other areas
of Nepal will hopefully be avoided.
Just getting to
Dolpo is difficult, involving flights
first to Nepalgunj then in a tiny plane
down a dramatic gorge to the tiny mountain
village of Juphal where there is a STOL
airstrip (STOL is an acronym for Short
Take Off and Landing, itself a euphemism
for a sloping field on a mountainside).
Courtesy of TGO
magazine and Karakorum Experience I
visited Dolpo to trek, along with ten
others and a thirty strong support crew,
from Juphal to Jomsom in the Kali Gandaki
valley in the east. For the first few
days our route wandered through the
rich, forested Bheri river valley to
the Tarap Gorge, a narrow steep and
impressive rocky ravine which was our
gateway to the high valleys of Dolpo.
Although it's only
about twenty-five kilometres in length
the Tarap Gorge rises from 3000 to over
4000 metres. (Distances and altitudes
are very approximate as the best maps,
which aren't very good anyway, are at
a scale of 1:250,000 while the heights
were taken from an altimeter which,
with no spot heights available, couldn't
be reset during the trek).
Gaining so much
height quickly isn't a good idea if
you want to avoid altitude sickness
so we spent three days slowly ascending
the gorge. As we did so the trees gradually
dwindled in numbers and height until
the last one was passed and only thorny
brown bushes and sparse yellow grasses
remained.
The narrowness of
the gorge makes for exciting walking
with sections of trail carved straight
up steep cliffs or else traversing skimpy
sloping ledges. In places these airy
rocky walkways vanish altogether, leaving
gaps that the local pathmakers have
bridged with thin poles - some of which
look frighteningly old and rotten -
which are then overlaid with flat slabs
of rock.
The path climbed
repeatedly over steep sided spurs that
ended in cliffs at the rivers edge,
each time descending back to the valley
bottom. Eventually, tired of such ascents
and not liking the exposed look of the
next one, we decided to ford the river.
This proved harder than it looked, the
ice cold water being deep and strong,
and most people, including many of the
porters, needed help to cross safely.
Trek leader Kit Wilkinson spent a long
time out in the middle of the river
helping people across, mainly because
at 6' 3" he towered over nearly
everybody else and was the only person
who could stand up at all easily in
the full force of the water.
Eventually the gorge
began to level off, the steep sides
draw back and we entered the broad flat
upper Tarap valley. A series of small
villages line the river here and we
camped by the first of these, Dho Tarap,
a wild place with the air of a medieval
town. Visiting Dho is like visiting
the past. Out in the tiny terraced fields
villagers were threshing the barley
with wooden flails while others ploughed
the dusty soil with metal tipped crude
wooden ploughs dragged by yaks. Children
with large wicker baskets on their backs
prowled the nearby slopes collecting
yak dung which was then spread out to
dry before being used as fuel for fires.
It's the only fuel available in this
treeless land. At dusk herds of goats,
sheep and yaks came back from distant
grazing grounds. The people, especially
the children, were friendly and curious,
watching everything we did. Trekking
groups visit Dho regularly so foreigners
are not totally unknown. Even so we
were clearly of great interest to many
of the locals.
In order to aid
acclimatisation, we spent a day wandering
round the fascinating villages and gompas
of the upper Tarap before starting the
two day 1300 metre ascent to the first
high pass, 5300 metre Charkula Bhanjyang,
a broad flat saddle decorated with a
large cairn topped with a network of
white prayer flags. The view was unbelievably
vast, the nearby brown semi-desert hills
ringed by distant higher snow-topped
mountains, most of them somewhere between
6 and 7000 metres high.
The colours of Dolpo
are those of the desert; varying shades
of brown and yellow that in places turn
to dark red and black or, in contrast,
a creamy white. The hills are scree-covered
and rimmed by huge eroded half-sand,
half-rock buttresses and shattered,
unstable cliffs. Dust is everywhere
and our belongings were soon covered
with a fine gritty film. There is beauty
here but it is a harsh, savage beauty,
borne out of a searing sun and the rock
shattering bitter winter cold.
A steep path led
down from the pass into the wide Kahajeng
Kohla valley where we camped beside
a wide, well-used track. On leaving
Dho we had entered the restricted part
of Dolpo and for the rest of the trek
we saw no other trekkers. There were
plenty of local people about though
as we found when the first of several
large yak caravans advanced on the camp
which, we soon realised, had been established
on a major trade route. One party camped
near us, the traders setting up a large
canvas tent with an open ridge to let
out the smoke of the fire they lit inside.
The yaks, after their burdens were unloaded,
were turned loose to graze. By morning
they were out of sight. Rounding them
up seemed to be a lengthy task.
By now the trekking
day had an established rhythm. Tea at
around 6.30 am, brought to the tents
by the Sherpas, then an outdoor breakfast
while the tents were struck and the
first porters set off. Three or so hours
of walking would see us at the lunch
spot where the kitchen crew would set
up their big kerosene burners and make
a cooked meal. Lunch lasted a couple
of hours, so that the porters, most
of whom we'd passed earlier, could be
well on their way to the overnight camp
site before we set off for the few hours
afternoon walk. That way we all usually
arrived at the site about the same time.
Camp was normally established by 4pm,
two hours before dark, and we were free
to explore the area around, or collapse
in the tents, until dinner at 6pm after
which most people retired to their sleeping
bags as the temperatures fell quickly.
At all eight camps over 4000 metres
the night time temperatures were well
below freezing and frequently below
-10C. One night it dipped to -16C.
From a minor top
some 100 metres above Mahala or Charkha
Bhanjyang, our second 5000 metre plus
pass and just a days walk beyond the
first one, we had a superb view of the
Dhalaugiri range to the south, the huge
masses of snow and ice on the flanks
of the mountains looking dramatic and
frightening in their immensity even
though they lay far away. Below, the
path wound down the hillside to the
Barbung Khola river and, hidden in a
fold in the hills, remote Charkhabhot
village, in whose fields we were to
camp.
Arriving in Charkhabhot,
a walled village perched fortress-like
on a bluff above the river, was one
of the strangest mountain experiences
I have ever had. It was the height of
the harvest and a frenzy of activity
was taking place. Every field was full
of people threshing and sieving the
barley, great clouds of which were being
blown into the sky by the afternoon
winds, a wild, fantastic sight.
Two days walking
from Charkhabhot up the Thajeng Khola
valley led to the highest point of the
trek, 5450 metre Sangdah pass. Crossing
this took us out of Dolpo and into the
southern part of the Mustang region.
We were also now coming closer to the
high mountains of the Himalayas and
the landscape started to take on a more
typical alpine appearance. Below the
pass we came on some sombre green cypresses,
the first trees we had seen for nine
days. Ahead lay the Kali Gandaki valley
and the views were now dominated by
the great curving cleft of the Thorung
La, the highest pass on the Annapurna
Circuit trek, and the shining peaks
of the Annapurna massif.
Our trek was coming
to an end and three days after crossing
the Sangdah pass we descended the Keha
Lungpa valley to Jomsom in the Kali
Gandaki valley from where we flew back
to Kathmandu. In fifteen days we had
walked around 130 kilometres, not a
great distance, but the world we had
entered was so strange, so different
from that of home, that it felt as though
we had been much further.
The trek was run
and organised by Karakorum Experience.
For details of this and other treks
contact:
Karakorum Experience
32 Lake Road
Keswick
Cumbria
CA12 5DQ
Tel: 017687 73966 / 72267
E-Mail to mailto:keadventure@enterprise.net
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