Aug
21
2007
I’m still intrigued by the possibility of going rafting. I’d get to see a different part of the country — not just the river itself but the countryside enroute. And the rivers pass through remote villages so I’d get a fleeting glimpse of life in other parts of Nepal, in addition to the Sherpa region where we’re trekking.
On our Upper Klamath trip this summer I realized I don’t like nonstop, big rapids. It’s such hard work that you can’t enjoy what’s around you. An ideal for me is a river that’s relatively wild but punctuated with quieter rapids.
And I don’t want to go for a single-day trip, because (depending on where I’d go) it would be a hunk of bus travel (possibly a flight too) just for one day. And spending a few nights under the stars in such country sounds idyllic.
October and November seem to be the the time for rafting. Water levels get low after that: less volume but more rock. So I called my travel agent to see if I could still get good reservations for different dates. I can.
I hope I stop changing my mind. I’m really bad at making travel plans well in advance. You never know what’ll inspire you in the meantime. I appreciate the idea of being organized and settled, but it’s more fun to stay flexible, like Gumby.
Aug
19
2007
I thought it might be fun to do a river-rafting trip too … probably not enough time, may be too late in the season, likely costs too much, but worth considering.
Here are rafting company possibilities, hacked down from dozens I checked out. Hard to know which are reputable. Cheryl’s been sending out queries for me. And when Greg gets back from the Magpie, maybe I’ll see if he has ideas. I’ve asterisked the ones that seem best.
All companies seem to agree on which are the rivers to raft. What they don’t agree on is the ranking of each. Is it really a Class 3, or should I believe the people who say it’s 5? There are some clues in the rivers’ names: Kali Gandaki is, of course, named after the goddess of destruction. And the translation of Marsyangdi is “Raging River.” I’m looking for one that means “The Amazing but Not Seriously Life-Threatening River.” Of the ten commercially runnable rivers in Nepal, I’ve narrowed my choices to three: Kali Gandaki, Bhote Koshi and Marsyangdi.
[map adapted from Nepal Visitors Web site]
Aug
15
2007
Since Cheryl got back from Nepal in June we’ve had a couple chances to get together for yacking and planning. She told me what I might encounter with respect to food, lodging, sanitation, culture, religion, topography, climate. She looked over my heap of camping and river rafting supplies and made the welcome pronouncement that I’ve got what I need, except for my Holy Grail: painless boots.
We made preliminary plans for a route through the Khumbu region, the most strenuous of the three popular trekking areas. I always knew that trekking would be a stretch; now I know that it’s a stretch past the point of snapping: by far the biggest physical challenge I’ve ever faced. Okay, so that’s not saying much. But there was that whitewater expedition in eastern Canada, and the ill-fated backcountry ski-camping trip, and a lot of Irish leaping. Beyond those, a walk around the block is at the limit of what I do without griping.
Our thought is to fly into the Lukla airport (such as it is; see above) from Kathmandu and head toward Gokyo (el. 4750 m.) by way of Phakding > Namche Bazaar > Phortse Thanga > Dole > Machhermo. Once there, Cheryl suggested, we may want to … oh … pop over to the Everest Base Camp (5545 m.) only a ridge away. Did you know that 5545 m = 18,192 feet? The whole trip should take 2.5 to 3 weeks.
Two weeks ago Cheryl and I took a little hike up Marin Avenue which climbs 800 feet in less than a mile. Cheryl hinted that she might surreptitiously evaluate my performance. As we started up the hill I took heart in her assurance that she is a very slow hiker. Slow, my butt. She left me in the dust half a block later as I gasped like a large-mouth bass. It wasn’t a pretty sight, and less pretty a feeling, but I finally dragged my carcass up to where a perky Cheryl stood absorbing the panorama of the SF Bay. “If you can get so you can make it up this hill without any effort,” she encouraged, “you’ll have no trouble in Nepal.”
To my amazement, the poor performance of my teeny lungs and wobbly muscles didn’t provoke her to rescind her invitation to Nepal. “Why not?” I asked. “Because you didn’t whine.”
I’ve tried that same hike twice since then: two near-death experiences that made me decide I had to bite the bullet and … argh … join a gym. Today I did my first workout. The iPod Nano I won two years ago has finally come into its own. I get to listen to my old hippie stoner music as large machines fling my unwilling limbs in all directions.
