On to Ghorepani

Our first view of Himalayan Mountains during the first evening in Ulleri. The sky had cleared after the fury of the rainstorm, but then hid among the clouds again by the next morning. 

We awoke the next morning, some of us in the group still bleeding from the leech attack the previous evening, to a very western-style breakfast of toast, eggs, coffee, and juice. The relatively clear view of the sky from the previous evening was now gone but the view of the valley and villages down below was just as stunning in the rays of the early morning sun. After we were all packed, we returned to the village square in hopes that we might be able to play our audio presentation to some locals before their work day started. It seemed as if everyone was busy and couldn't spare the time to listen to a program, which was understandable, so we passed out some tracts to people and then went on our merry way.

A very nice breakfast out on the patio. 

We had met some Christians along the way and while we were passing out tracts. Our Nepali friends found out that there was a church just outside of the town in the direction we were traveling. Being Saturday morning, they were preparing to have a morning service but we couldn't stay long enough to worship with them. We met the pastor and prayed with him over our efforts and the Christians that were gathering there that morning. Some of the kids we had met at the Children's Home the night before were there. Fun to make that connection.

The church building in Ulleri. 

We continued our trek on a well-maintained path, growing tired of stone steps only after the second day of Trekking. The day unfolded very much like the previous (and the days to follow even): hiking, stopped for lunch of dal-baht, more hiking, passing out our tracts, and visiting with people. We arrived at Ghorepani relatively early in the day and had a chance to play some basketball and volleyball with some local teenagers of the village. They let us play one match of friendly volleyball and then kind of ushered us out when they wanted to start playing for money! It wasn't a lot of money either, but threw us off enough that we declined.

A mother and child along the trekking path. The girl repeatedly said the one word she knew of English: "Chocolate?" expecting a treat like she had received in the past from Western travelers. Many young children we met asked for chocolate or candy.

Another group shot, waterfall in the lower right. 

We saw a number of domestic water buffalo along our trip. Since they revere cows so much in the Hindu religion, water buffalo becomes the "beef" in a sense: used to plow fields and other labor as well as provide meat. Shemiah here is quite literally "taking the bull by the horns."

Welcome to Ghorepani!

The basketball court where we played the afternoon we arrived. The long slender blue-roofed building alongside it is the school.

We played basketball until we wheezed from the altitude; it's difficult to wrap your head around being near 10 thousand feet in elevation with a village and large trees everywhere. The idea sprang up to do a program with the teenagers down at the basketball court. So we hustled up to the hotel and got the materials necessary. Our Nepali friend told us we needed to hurry as the basketball players might finish up and leave, getting our supplies and meeting back up in about 5 minutes.  While we were all ready on time and ready to do the program, our Nepali friends were getting in the shower, changing clothes, and otherwise getting "freshened up." Our group loved to give our friends a hard time because they used this phrase over and over: "We'll just freshen up and then meet back for dinner."

This was a healthy dose of "Nepali Time." Everything is a little slower it seemed in Nepal. And if you had a meeting with a Nepali you could expect that they might be a half an hour late and they would think nothing of it. If you wanted it to be on time (at least in our group), you had to clarify whether or not a time was "American", meaning solid and on-time, or "Nepali:" flexible, loose, and usually late.

When we finally met down at the square, some of us started playing music from the Saber player while the rest of us went around and told people about the program. I was blown away by how eager people were to come and listen to the recording. It seemed as though they were excited about Saturday night entertainment, the last day of the week being a day of rest and relaxation. We are really spoiled with our 2 day weekend! The program is about an hour, which I may have mentioned before, and might have been its downfall since the temperature of the evening fell steadily. Some people left for their hotels or homes but many people toughed it out and listened to the whole thing. One of our friends spoke to them at the end and addressed where they could follow up on the story and if anyone had any questions. We had CDs of the recorded material and passed some of them out to interested people.

Then we went back to the tea-house and had dinner. Our friends showed us some card tricks for our evening entertainment and then we ascended the stairs to our beds.

The next morning, we woke up at 4 am to hike to the top of Poon Hill for a sunrise view of the surrounding Himalayas. Our group was the first to reach the top of the hill, evening beating the local Nepali who was carrying thermoses of hot water to sell coffee and hot chocolate. Unfortunately, the clouds had other ideas about our lovely view and it never materialized. But we had fun with some pictures and enjoyed being at an iconic high point.

The lookout tower built at the top of Poon Hill. 

Happy crew despite the lack of mountainous view. 

I have proof that I really was there! 3210 meters or 10,531 feet in elevation. Ghorepani is 2874 m or 9429 ft. 

As we descended we could finally see one of the giant mountains of the Himalayas: Dhaulagiri, the world's seventh highest peak.  

Our attempt at getting a picture in front of the amazing view. Yeah! It was gorgeous! If only I could remove the peak labels from the sky...

We descended down to the tea-house for breakfast and then packed up, hitting the trail relatively early. Our destination was Tadapani and the hike that day turned out to be our longest...

Riding Buses

Our Nepal team didn't have a whole lot of time to rest; we had to keep moving. The day after we arrived we took a bus 6 hours to the next largest city in Nepal, Pokhara. It was intense. Imagine if you will the Going to the Sun Highway in Glacier National park only with all the vehicles that are allowed on the GSH (trucks, buses, etc) bumper to bumper. At least this was how it was descending out of the big city. The majority of the time of the trip was in the first quarter of the distance because of the slow moving traffic.

Enjoying the views of the countryside out the window of the bus. 

Trucks and buses in Nepal were very funny: they all had custom paint jobs and sported English phrases like "Miss You" or "See You". These were painted on the back presumably referring to "I'll see ya later because I just passed you...". I was surprised that I never saw "Eat Dust", but they might be have a little less road angst than we have in the US. There were also many religious symbols. By the way they drive it is easy to understand why drivers would want to believe in something outside themselves to protect them. Most of the vehicles we saw also had custom horns that had multiple tones as if it were going up and down a chromatic scale. Each was unique and got your attention pretty fast. And they used them a lot too, more as a form of communication than in anger or surprise as we do in the States. I wish this culture of driving we have would change. (I've started to use the horn on my scooter in this fashion: using it proactively to let people know I'm there rather than "yelling" at someone who cuts me off.)

Colorful truck we are following and about to pass. The back says "SPORTS".

And that's the front after we passed it. 

Finally, the drivers also had a system of passing: the faster truck or bus would come up behind the slower one and honk, then the front driver would use the turn signal to indicate whether it was safe to pass or not. When passing you used the horn to let the other driver or motorcycle that they were moving back into the left lane. Oh yeah, did I mention that yet? They drive on the left side of the road in Nepal, from the British colonial influence. That didn't help me sit any more still or comfortably in my seat...

My first official plate of dal-baht. I got better at eating it. Notice the fork: I was still a novice at this point. 

We had two major breaks on the trip: one for a bathroom break and one for lunch. And I say major because we also stopped within the first two hours of driving for a pit stop on the side of the road. Guys just piled out and peed off the side of the road. Sorry ladies, modesty meant you had to wait for the "major" stop. Lunch on this day was our first experience with dal-baht. Baht means rice in Nepali (and Hindi I think) and dal is a lentil stew-thing. It was pretty good, thankfully, because we ate it for 2 days straight at the beginning of our trek. People in Nepal eat dal-baht with their hands too! Pretty fun. You should try it sometime...

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We arrived into Pokhara right after a large rainstorm hit and dropped larger than marble-sized hail. Glad we were in the bus and not on the trail. It was the start of the monsoon season, so we expected a little rain. The unfortunate downside was clouds shrouded what was supposed to be our amazing view of the surrounding mountains: the Annapurna group and Manaslu range. Even when we came back from the trek we never saw the famous view. But I bought a poster to remember what it should have been like.

Colorful boats on the lake in Pokhara. Notice the cloudy skies. Darn.

We walked around the town a bit that evening and did some souvenir scouting. There was a beautiful lake and we walked down to the water front. And we found a place that served Illy coffee, a really famous brand in Italy. Several of us ordered espressos and they were amazing! Maybe the best latte I've ever had. (Sorry Larkin) Then it was dinner and off to bed.

The next day we got on a different bus that took us to our trailhead. We drove for an hour and a half on a road similar to the GSH but with only one paved lane in the middle. Our bus passed oncoming traffic and vehicles going the same direction with two wheels on the gravel shoulder. Scary! We dropped Jeff's trekking team off 30 minutes in, prayed for their success and safety, and then continued over the next ridge to our beginning location, Birethanti.  We went through the village passing out tracts and greeting people as we went. Namaste is hello, and that's about as much Nepali as we knew at that point.

Checking in at the beginning of the trek.

Kids running off to school for the day.

We had to check-in and show our trekking permits and then we were off on the trail. The first bit was a two track road that locals use to get supplies into their villages. Tourists have complained because it took away from the original natural beauty that can be found in a trail, but now the villagers can get their goods to market in Pokhara and get a fair price and they are better able to get quick medical help. Past a certain point though supplies and goods were either packed around by people or teams of mules. I was so amazed by the people here. You could say that the trails and roads and villages were literally built on the backs of the people. They are tough.

The start of the trail (or road). 

Team 2 Legit to Quit: (l to r) Thomas, Dustin, Sean, Colter, Andrew, Shemiah

Mules coming down a flight of steps. The village at the top of the stairs is where we ate lunch. 

 We hiked about 2 or 3 hours and then had lunch (dal-baht). Then we climbed up lots of stairs, close to 2000 feet of them, to where we planned to stay the night in Ulleri. On the way we got caught in a rainstorm complemented with hail. We were forced to take shelter in under the roof of a tea house (Nepali version of hotel/restaurant) and wait it out. Then we were treated with the most beautiful rainbow that I have ever seen: very vibrant colors and a complete bow across the sky. What a reminder of God's mercy for us, a promise that he gives us life and life to the full.

At the bottom of the picture is the village where we ate lunch.

"Wel Come to Ulleri" (they couldn't seem to understand that Welcome is one word.)

We arrived and checked into our tea house. The rooms had beds with mattresses and even blankets if you wanted but I used my sleeping bag since I had carried it all that way. That night we were able to play the Saber device recording for a group of kids at a children's home. They loved it! And it was fun to greet them and ask them simple questions like "what is your name?" and "how old are you?" in Nepali. Out team was also attacked by leeches that night! Nasty buggers! Then it was dinner (dal-baht) and off to bed to get ready for the next day.

Squatty-Potty. Gotta love it. 

Hit List 2013

In and among the posts of Nepal you will be seeing updates of life as usual here in beautiful Bozeman, MT. It really feels like summer here and we are getting outside!

Happy family at Lava Lake!

The local outdoor journal Outside Bozeman is sponsoring the Hit List competition for the third year in a row. They have picked 20 outside activities around southwest Montana (this year the distance of activities from Bozeman has a little larger radius than last year). The Bozeman Lanes got an honorable mention last year for completing 14 of the 20 activities together and getting engaged along the way. Well, this year the "love birds" want a little more than a shout-out and we are going for the win!

Climbing at Practice Rock with our mountain hound.

On Sunday afternoon we hiked to Lava Lake in the Gallatin Canyon, just making it back to the car before we were hit by an afternoon rainstorm. Then yesterday under bluebird skies we went with a friend and her pooch to Practice Rock in Hyalite Canyon to rock climb. It was so good to get out on real rock having been in the gym quite a bit this spring. A little early season jitters on the first trad lead of the season melted away to smooth pleasure pulling hard on solid hand-jams and sweeping overhangs. This is going to be a good summer...

Summit the M for Nepal

 It's almost here! Our Summit the M event starts tomorrow at 10 am and goes until 3. Our team of Nepalers will be at the M hiking, running, and otherwise making our way up to the iconic M located at the foot of the Bridger Mountains just north of Bozeman. We're gunning for as many laps as we can get and hoping to raise funds in the process.

The M trail (at least the loop that I will be doing) has about 800 ft elevation gain and covers 2 miles. I'll be trying to do 10 laps. Please consider being a part of this effort. Sponsor me per lap for as little or as much as you like. What about 10 cents? What about 50 cents? Every little bit helps and I might need a little incentive to get that last lap or two tomorrow. I have a spreadsheet for sponsorship here. Thank you so much!

If you're in the Bozeman area come out and brave whatever weather happens tomorrow and hike the M yourself. Come and meet us and see what we're all about. If you're not in the Bozeman area...I'm really sorry. :) Please come and visit some time!

Sunset at the M, Fall 2011.

Recent Adventures

In this post are some photos of my recent adventures in an effort to catch up my blog to my life, not a whole lot of in depth stories or profound writings, but hopefully I'll get back into a rhythm of writing that will foster more creativity.

Climbing at Practice Rock in Hyalite Canyon before the road opened to vehicles. On this spectacular day, Alli and I road our bikes up the road to climb for most of the day. Kyler enjoyed hanging out with us at the rock. 

Later that evening after climbing, Alli and I went to a swing dance sponsored by Bozeman's Senior Center with my roommate and his fiance. This was a 3 wheeled electric car in the parking lot, affectionately named Kermit the Pod. I was super intrigued and actually talked to the electrical engineer who designed the car at the dance.

Group photo after the dance. Two good looking couples if I don't say so myself. 

The next day, Sunday afternoon, I got to hang out with Ryan of Lion's Ridge and some Young Life buddies climbing at Allenspur in the Paradise Valley. Great climbing, wonderful weather, entertaining conversations, and DQ Blizzards to cool off afterwards. Amazing! Reminds me a lot of climbing in Texas actually. 

Another beautiful day in paradise! Alli and I road our bikes up the Hyalite Canyon road to the reservoir two days before the official opening of the road to vehicles. Stupid or not we road from town and racked up a round trip of 35.5 miles in 2 1/2 hours. Mummy Peak in the background. 

Just last weekend, we climbed to the top of Mt. Baldy, the southernmost high point in the Bridger Range. Round trip 9 miles with about 4000 ft elevation gain and lost. Jon and Alli shown with Baldy in the background. 

At the Summit! We were tired puppies by the time we got back to the pickup. 

Life is good here in Bozeman and I feel really blessed to be living and working and playing in the Gallatin Valley this summer. This will be the first summer since High School where I haven't had to move from one town to the next for school.  I am doing Civil Engineering research for the university through a group called Western Transportation Institute. Research has been both physically and mentally demanding, but I'm having a blast! Look for a future post of my lab. 

Cousin Visit and Home for Easter

My cousin Luke flew in from California this Spring to check out MSU. I tried to do my best to show him all that Bozeman had to offer in an effort to convince him that he needs to come to Montana to go to school. We'll see if my efforts pay off.

Luke throwing down on the Gallagator Boulder, a 5 minute walk from my house. 

We went skiing on Saturday down in Big Sky, and it was raining. Poo! I think we were soaked before we even got out of the truck. And the snow conditions were icy, visibility was poor...yuk. So we went inside, ate some snacks and had some hot cocoa, before venturing out again when the rain seemed to abate a bit. 

All smiles and excitement in the lodge at Big Sky.

And wouldn't you know: it turned out to be an amazing day! Great spring snow conditions and we ran into a friendly Big Sky local, Karen, who gave us a ripping tour of the upper mountain. We wound up skiing until 5 in the evening. Not bad for such a crummy start.

Luke hanging out on the chair with our new-found friend Karen. We met her on a ride up a triple chair and she was willing to ski with us most of the day, giving us a tour of a lot of highlights of the mountain. Lucky to run into her. 

At the top of our last run. It got washed out but Lone Peak was finally shining through the clouds.  Such a good day: after leaving the truck in a rain shower, it only got better and turned out to be difficult to leave.

After skiing at Big Sky the night before we ate stacked enchiladas and watched A River Runs Through It that night. So the next day I had to take Luke to some of the scene locations from the movie. Luke is here messing around on the steps of the "Missoula Police Department."

Easter means a three-day weekend for us college students at Montana State, and I took the opportunity to travel home for the Parental visit. I was hoping to ski at Big Mountain, catch up with good friends, tour the sites of the Flathead Valley, and share them with someone special. 

This might be breaking news for some of you that I haven't had the chance to talk to recently, but I am dating the coolest gal I have ever met. You might be thinking, "Colter has a girlfriend?! I thought he'd never find a girl." Well, you're not alone, I thought that for a long time too. I've had pretty high criteria, high standards, that no one seemed to be able to attain. Then Alli came along and knocked me off my feet and my life will never be the same again. She came home with me to meet Mom and Dad and find out more about my past. Luckily it seems like she likes what she found.

Viewing the Flathead Valley from Lone Pine State Park. 

Skiing while it was snowing at Big Mountain. It's hard not to smile on a day like that.

Dying Easter eggs Saturday night.

Alli and I heated our ski boot liners for a better fit. Cinderella can have her glass slippers, my gal would rather have perfect fitting ski boots. Does that give you a picture of why I've fallen for her?

We got to see my sister Larkin while on our way back to Bozeman. Wow, aren't I lucky? Flanked by two gorgeous gals, smiles all around!

The Spring Semester of school wrapped up well, with vacations and trips like Spring Break in DC and then Easter in Kalispell as highlights. The final push juggling teaching, research, and coursework was pretty rough, but I passed everything with flying colors and transitioned into full-time work for the summer. Who'd have thought that working 40 hours a week would feel like a vacation! Now it's on to climbing, fishing, running, biking, hiking, and paddling. The problem will forever be deciding which activity to do...

End of Summer Hiking in Glacier

Since this is really the only place that I post pictures (unless specifically requested by friends...) I feel the need to do some "back-posting" now that I have some free time away from school work. 

Eagle Ribs and Mt. Despair
After the weekend of my Lookout to Lookout run, Dad and I drove over to the Two Medicine area of Glacier National Park to climb with fellow members of the Glacier Mountaineering Society. The climb, led by our good friend Dell, was to summit both Eagle Ribs and Mt. Despair. Both names led to puns aplenty, let me assure you. 

Fellow climbers in the foreground, Eagle Ribs in the
background on the right. 

We set off early from the Two Medicine parking area, with high hopes of summitting two peaks by the end of the day. About a third of the trip was on maintained trail with the rest following goat trails, not trail, or snow. Our first objective was soon in sight and the summit gained easily. Then we faced a difficult route-finding mission between the two peaks, scrambling among several cliff bands and avoiding steep patches of snow as much as possible. Making our way around the summit block of Eagle Ribs was likely the "crux" of the day and many times we thought we'd have to turn around. Thankfully the feelings of the group was always "try one more approach", "go around the next corner", and "let's see how far we can get".

Scrambling around while route-finding. 

We finally made it through the saddle and onto the snow field our group which had been cause for concern since we had first seen it earlier that morning. The route turned out to be fairly straight forward and the snow not nearly as steep as initially anticipated. We summitted the peak with ease, despairing no more that we would not achieve our two mountain objective.

Summit photo on Despair, our crew no longer despairing
yet still mindful of the long trek back to the vehicles.

We merely reversed our tracks out the way we had come, moving much faster through the saddle and around the summit block of Eagle Ribs than we had that morning. The weather held wonderfully and we made it back to our vehicles right as it got dark to be welcomed back to civilization with chips and salsa! Our leader, Dell, was keeping track of vertical and mileage and it was over 7000 feet gained over 20+ miles if I remember correctly; the second weekend in a row of big miles and lots of vert for me.

Descending the largest snowfield on the return from
Despair. Remember this is July 30th, and we're using
crampons and ice axes.

Mad Wolf Circuit
Gordan Edwards book A Climbers Guide to Glacier National Park has several descriptions of traverses, circuits, and peak link-ups that are worthy challenges for the aspiring mountaineer. In the Cut Bank drainage on the East side of Glacier Park, the Mad Wolf circuit summits three peaks within view of the campground starting point: Mad Wolf, Eagle Plume, and Bad Marriage. The climb begins along the Triple Divide pass trail before jumping off and crossing the Cut Bank Creek along an old Park trail that is no longer maintained (it does happen to be on most topo maps of the area however). We left our sandals in a tree to avoid varmints using them for some mid-morning munchies and bucked the brush periodically while following the old trail. We were rewarded as we left the treeline with a sighting of a group of wild horses mentioned in Edwards climbing guide and a small bull moose! The route to the summit of Mad Wolf was a straight forward scramble and beautiful ridge walk. Though the sun was shining it didn't take long for everyone to pull out their jackets due to the strong winds as can be seen in the summit photo below.

Summit photo with climbing crew on Mad Wolf. 

Our climbing crew, then walked the ridge toward Eagle Plume, ascending the class three scramble to the top in short order. It always amazes me how much ground you can cover by keeping a solid pace, putting one foot in front of the other; particularly surprising on a gorgeous day where you can see for miles and miles. Dropping off the back side of Eagle Plume was not the most enjoyable decent I've ever experienced: a shallow layer of scree on rocks isn't conducive to speed or comfort. We followed a sort of climber's/goat trail once reaching the rock field below that led us to the summit of Bad Marriage. We relaxed on the top for a while enjoying the sunshine and the success of the trip thus far.

Third peak of the day! Lounging in the sunshine on
Bad Marriage. 

The crux of this circuit follows the enjoyable views of ridge walking and peak bagging. We traversed along the cliffs and scree fields on the east face of Bad Marriage and made our way to the stream at the bottom of the cirque. Topographic maps indicate a water fall at the edge of the cirque, thus we knew we'd have to negotiate some cliffs to get back to the trail we came in on. We stopped at a picturesque pool between between some of the falls to filter some water for the rest of the trip.

Filtering water near a beautiful water fall, Eagle Plume
in the distance. 

There is really only one way through the cliff band and down to the valley below. If you cross the stream at a narrow point right above the biggest falls, angle up and to the right heading toward what appears to be the only way around the steep cliffs. If I remember correctly we had to skirt some small trees and scramble down some wet rocks and soil. Don't split up your group without being able to contact each other via radio or cell phone. We got separated and one member of our group did a lot more climbing and walking than necessary. It was also very helpful to have a GPS to log the route on the way in: we followed it's direction and hit the trail again fairly easily.

Ever seen a sandal tree?

We found our sandals again, waded across the creek, and stumbled back to the truck tired from the day but feeling elated and fortunate. The trek was beautiful and a challenge worth facing. The Summit Post article on the climb discourages climbers from attempting the whole three peak circuit because the views from Bad Marriage are the same as Eagle Plume and the trip off Bad Marriage was hairy enough for him not to get back to his vehicle until 1:30 in the morning. Thankfully this was not our experience. I feel like the third peak was well worth the extra effort and with the help of maps and a GPS, route finding back to the campground wasn't extremely difficult.

Alpenglow on the completed circuit.