| notes : photos : GPS tracks : general info : ride stats Fri Oct 3: Arrival Transfer to the Yak and Yeti, crash out. We had booked into the hotel because it has a swimming pool, but storms were forecast. Sat 4: Prep day Storms. National holiday. Attempts at shopping beaten back by the rain and lack of open shops. Ajay (our guide) and Aayman (his brother, our driver) turned up in the evening to discuss the following day. Ajay had a pedal spanner and a decent pump. He eyed our bikes keeping his thoughts to himself. With further storms forecast for the Sunday, we heard that all traffic out of the Kathmandu valley has been banned for 3 days. Sun 5: Kathmandu–Dhading Besi Dry; no further rain expected. Ajay suggested we get into the jeep and try our luck with the roads out of Kathmandu. We were turned back on our first attempt and let through on our second, a road which Ajay thought was less likely to be open but in fact was considered safe. It was attractive and very hilly. We think it was the road through Thansing, and that it is used by cyclists riding the back roads from Kathmandu to Pokhara. Our hotel for the night, the Dhading Creek Resort, had a pool and a festive atmosphere due to groups of Nepalese holidaymakers. Two French cyclists, heading in the opposite direction, turned up after us. Sun 5 (afternoon): Dhading Besi–Shoraghara–Dhading Besi (650m): (10km, 330m ascent) [GPS track] We rode from the hotel straight up the evenly graded 7% tarmac climb to the village of Shoraghara, where there are a few nice traditional houses. Ajay offered us to go further, but to Colin’s relief Tracey was as happy as he was to call it a day. [We had a bit of an obsession, early on, with traditional houses. In our previous vist (1997) they were common. Apparently many were destroyed by the 2015 earthquake, and the Younger Generation prefer concrete.] This was our first hard day. A nice tarmac road took us down to the valley below Dhading, and from then on until 5km from Gorkha we were on dirt roads. We started with a relatively gentle 500m climb onto a ridge. We contoured along it, enjoying the scenery and the occasional traditional houses. Eventually it descended rather more steeply to the Budhi Gandaki at Bungkot Ghat, where there were a couple of bridges to cross. The whole area will be flooded before long, since the river will be dammed for HEP. Apparently the landowners have already been bought out, although many of them continue to live there. We had lunch at a tea house. Straight after lunch came a steep but blissfully short climb over a hillock, descending to a wide stream which we had to ford. This was the cue for the main climb of the day: 650m on a surface of dry mud at persistently steep gradients (often 15%). It was blisteringly hot (though Ajay said that it was cooler than he had ever known it). Colin pushed a bit; he may have taken occasional rests; but he got to the top. Tracey stormed up. We stopped for a snack in the Bungkot football field, and Aayman, taking a stroll, found a striking viewpoint looking onto the valley below. The rest of the ride was uneventful, undulating along and regaining tarmac. It was after sunset that we reached Gorkha, a town which has grown since 1997. We stayed at the comfortable (if somewhat international) Gorkha Garden Hotel. There’s a nice dirt road descending from Gorkha to the valley. We then climbed gently up a valley to cross a modest pass and descended to the undulating land around Palungtar, where we met a heavily laden Polish cyclist coming the other way. He was planning to do the Manaslu/Annapurna circuit with no support besides the obligatory guide for a few days in the Manaslu region. Some people are made of sterner stuff than we are. The road undulates a bit more and drops slightly to the Marsyangdi valley near a group of towns including Paundi where we had lunch. It now takes to undulating upwards towards Besisahar; good tarmac but a little busy. We stay in the Gateway Himalaya Resort, which is again comfortable and has a pool. Ajay warned us that it would be a hard day if we rode all the way, offering us two ways of using the jeep to abridge the ride: we could chop off the start by getting a lift back down to Paundi, and we could chop off the end by taking the jeep for the final stretch to Pokhara. We agreed to do both (which seemed to be what he expected), but the ride wasn’t as hard as we’d feared and we could probably have ridden the first part (which would have given us another 250m climbing along a predominantly downhill road). It was tarmac all the way. The route gave us 3 climbs. At first we climbed gently up a valley, crossed a low pass, and dropped more steeply to another valley where we had lunch at Karputar. The afternoon started similarly. We rode along a valley offering good views backwards, but the gradients became progressively steeper, reaching 16% as we approached the high point of Sagrabas, where there is a tea stop. The following descent loses only part of the height gained, and takes us to the lake system surrounding Pokhara. The third climb of the day takes us onto a ridge with occasional views of Begnas Lake on one side and Rupa Lake on the other. We drop down to Lekhnath, which is part of Pokhara’s urban sprawl. The road from here to Pokhara is horrible: noisy, congested, and dusty; we were glad to be spared the worst of it. At Pokhara we stayed in the comfortable Hotel Karuna, which has a laundry service if no pool. Thurs 9: Rest day at Pokhara Pokhara is a lively town, buzzing with (mostly Nepali) tourists, but with some gringo hangouts. Having failed in our shopping attempts at Kathmandu, we bought some snacks for consumption on the coming rides. We had a meal at the Spanish restaurant El Bocaíto Español, including real Spanish wine. We took the jeep to Kalopani. The first part of the route is a hilly and scenic road, and would make good cycling if it wasn’t so busy. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a reasonable back road alternative. We rode much of the second part in descent later on. The ride from Kalopani to Kagbeni is unexciting but gives good views of the mountains, especially the three peaks of Nilgiri. Kagbeni is a lovely village in the stark Tibetan way. A superb, relatively short, climb on a jeep road whose surface is better than we soon got used to. The gradient is moderate and fairly consistent, though the initial zigzag reaches more than 15%. The traffic leaves you in peace, preferring the tarmac road on the other side of the Jhong Khola. You ride against a backdrop of the marvellous mountains to the south and east. Along the way are two unspoilt and attractive Tibetan villages: Putak, which you see from the road, and Dzong/Jhong, where you can stop for lunch and visit the gompa. There’s a sharp brief climb after Dzong, and then the trail contours along until it comes to a suspension bridge, which is the first of two bridges. From this point the route is quite pleasant non-technical singletrack. (The jeep has to cross the streams higher up.) We stayed at the Lo Mustang Himalayan Resort. Ajay found somewhere in town which does laundry. Officially the town seems to be known as Ranipauwa, with Muktinath the name of the temple, but everyone calls the place Muktinath. There is another (tarmac) road to Muktinath. It gets all the traffic and is probably not much fun to climb. If you can time a descent when the traffic is least, it might be good fun. You begin by retracing the singletrack across the suspension bridge. You reach the jeep road (which is closed to unauthorised motor vehicles) and begin the unremittingly steep climb. After a while we were reduced to climbing 10m for every rest. You get to Phedi (4105m) where there are tea houses and you may take a proper break. Descend on the trekking trail, which is pleasant non-technical singletrack. We continued past Muktinath to Jharkot, a fascinating old Tibetan village where we’d have liked to spend more time. We had lunch there and wimped out by calling for the jeep to take us back to Mukti. Besides being an enjoyable ride this is good acclimatisation for the Gyu La day. We visited the temple. A ride in two parts. The climb (in part a push) to the Gyu La is enjoyable and attractive. The initial part of the descent follows singletrack and is equally good. But a new jeep road is being built over the former trekking route, and while descending is always a relief, it is somewhat uninspiring. Part of the road had been washed away, and we were dependent on Ajay to get us and our bikes past the difficult section. Near the bottom we rode through the attractive village of Tetang and had lunch at Chussang. The second part is the climb to Samar. This verges on being a chore. There are good views at times, but the road is stony, dusty, and heavily trafficked. Most of the time we followed the road, Tracey abridging the route with a slightly exposed short cut. Shortly after the Nyu La a trekking trail diverges to the left.
It parallels the road a little above it, and was our first encounter with a sort
of trail common in these parts, roughly contouring across a slope. The rock is
not very solid and the slopes therefore not unreasonably steep; nonetheless,
neither of us is in our element on paths which fall away to the side, and it
took us a while to get used to these airy traverses (which are occasionally
steeper than the photos suggest).
A varied and enjoyable stage. Ajay warned us that it would be hard, and advised us to take advantage of the jeep to skip a climb. He said that we could either get a lift directly to the top of the steep ascent or ride to the foot of it and take the jeep to the top. Tracey rode all the way (the 1170m are hers); Colin took the jeep directly to the top, but (if he had known better he’d have ridden as far as Dhakmar). The ride to Dhakmar is relatively gentle (6%); there are chortens, and as you approach the village the views open out onto the weird fluted cliffs above the village, dyed red with the blood of a sorceress slain by a guru from Ghar Gompa. The road now zigzags more steeply up to a plateau (11%). Colin started cycling here. The plateau isn’t really flat, and it soon steepens (12%) to the Mui La. The road then descends to Ghar Gompa, which is attractive and whose canteen serves a simple lunch. The second half of the ride is off road. The trail drops down to a valley, crossing a stream on a footbridge, and climbing the steep side opposite on a rock staircase. After a relatively gentle section it begins a steep and rocky climb which has to be pushed and eases off again for pleasant riding to the Chogo La (4290m), the highest point of the trip. From here it’s flowing singletrack to Lo Monthang. We stayed at the Mustang Mystique Guest House. This was an excursion to see the caves and gompas at Chhoser. The riding is not too hard, except for the steep climb out of the valley formed by the Chhorak Dopko Khola on the outskirts of Lo Monthang. Very pleasant riding, all off road. The route begins with a gentle – and often entertaining – singletrack climb. As it approaches the summit of Dadunkha it becomes more serious. It follows a ridge, crossing an unnamed pass (3990m) as a low point. From here a footpath contours to the left of the summit, but is unsafe for transit with bikes. Instead you have to follow the ridge along its crest. It is somewhat airy but perfectly safe (nonetheless Colin let Ajay take his bike for him), before easing off as it crosses the Borries La in descent. Some more enjoyable riding ensues. Another pass – the Dhi La (3915m) – is crossed in descent, and the trail enters a steep and spectacular rocky canyon. Ajay told us that we’d walk this bit. Some of it is certainly very difficult, but if we’d been feeling more confident perhaps we’d have ridden some. The gradient eases off to allow a brief spell in the saddle before another steep rocky descent, this time less enclosed, takes us down to the valley. Lunch at Dhi at the foot of the descent. The original trekking trail ascends to Yara along the right bank of the Kali Gandaki, but this is now impassable to bikes, so we crossed to the left bank and rode along the jeep road. The fluted cliffs on the south side, some with caves dug into them, are striking. The ride to Tange is in two parts, with the settlement of Dhye and its valley marking the mid-point. (Strictly this is New Dhye, the inhabitants of the old village having decided to relocate to a safer and more prosperous location.) Ajay warned us that the trekking route to Dhye descended a steep, loose and dangerous scree slope, and gave us the option of omitting it by following the road along the Kali Gandaki. We both felt that this was the better option, but we didn’t communicate our wish to Ajay, with the result that the jeep was sent along the road and we set off along footpaths which, we eventually realised, would takes us where we didn’t want to go. We then beat about trying to find a way back to the descent to the Kali Gandaki without losing height, were unsuccessful, and had to climb back to Yara. (We deleted this detour from our GPS track, retaining a photo we took on it. Our actual ride was 26km, 950m.) The road along the Kali Gandaki valley was actually quite pleasant. When it came to crossing the river (which at this point had split into two main streams), we were unable to make use of the jeep. A tractor carried us across the first stream (for payment), which was the more difficult; we waded the second. The second part of the ride takes us from Dhye to Tange. It starts on a jeep road which climbs a ramp up the hillside. Starting at 15% it cranks up to 17%. Colin pushed. We met the jeep at the top of the climb and ate snacks. We had no proper lunch, though there is a tea house at Dhye. Where we met the jeep is where the gradient eases off, but it soon bucks up again: there’s more height to be gained. It finds a spur which narrows to a sharp ridge and peters out leading to the high point (3900m). A little later the trekking route diverges from the road. It descends to Tange in 6 stages. (i) Easy riding along a gently descending trail. (ii) A series of washed out gullies necessitating pushing and occasional carrying. (iii) Blobby rocks, a strange and beautiful section along ledges cut into soft rounded rocks. (iv) A flowing trail along flatter terrain. (v) A rock chute between curious vertical blades of rubble. (vi) A path across a scree slope. And then you’re at Tange, village of chortens and mani walls. Ajay again gave us options. Our destination was Chhusang, and there was a trekking trail leading right there, but... it was a push up, a push down, with some pedalling on the top. He didn’t say that it was dangerous or exposed, but it was a long day. But the alternative wasn’t much better, relying on the jeep to reverse much of our previous progress. We chose the jeep. We heard later that Andy, Mandy and Simon had taken the direct route, and that a washout had caused considerable difficulties, requiring help from both their guides to find a way through. We didn’t get a very complete story. The first stage of the return was a good ride. We took the jeep most of the way to yesterday’s high point, rode the rest, and a little way down the descent turned off the road onto the trekking trail. This was enjoyable singletrack all the way back to Dhye. We drove on to Syanboche for lunch.
At Syanboche we got back on our bikes, freewheeling down to Samar. At the Dajori La soon afterwards a minor road heads off to the right. Ajay suggested we consider taking it; the drawback was that it plummets down a ravine and climbs steeply on the opposite side. We were enthusiastic: it had been too easy a day. The ride lived up to Ajay’s billing. The gorge was indeed striking: a 100m descent followed by a 13% climb of 55m. After the gorge came the village of Ghyakar. A gate at its exit indicated the end of the road but the trekking route continued. We came to a junction: a right turn gives onto a road under construction to Chhusang, but we kept left. The trail narrowed from double to singletrack and dropped down to the most spectacular suspension bridge of the trip (Colin pushed). The brief continuation as far as Chhusang was dusty but
uneventful.
The jeep took us up to Muktinath car park. The climb to the pass is steep and not entirely ridable. (In fact the trail leads to a shoulder and then descends a ridge to the true pass.) Some of the initial descent is narrow and loose, and we pushed a bit. Then it opens out to a fast flowing descent with nothing to hesitate over except the final exposed stretch above the road. There is in fact an alternative descent – the “jeep road” (which is impassable to jeeps beyond Lupra village). We think that the first part of it is easier than the trekking trail and the second part harder, requiring some pushing. A connection between the two routes is possible. We descended along the road as far as Jomsom where we had lunch (and met two French female gravelistes). From Jomsom we rode on to Marpha, our hotel for the night. Marpha is a pretty but overtouristed village whose main business is renting out traditional costumes for selfies. This was a better ride than we’d expected, having seen the road on the way up. Ajay knew a lot of singletrack detours, often on the left bank of the Kali Gandaki. They were attractively bucolic, and – the rock being of better quality than heretofore – occasional outcrops offered minor technical challenges. We had lunch at the “Eagle Nest” tea house at Ghasa, and nearly all of the remaining distance was on road. We stayed at the plush Hotel Natural Spring, which is a little international. Thurs 23: Tatopani–Baglung–Pokhara: (35km, 270m ascent)
A slightly anticlimactic road ride to Baglung. There was no traffic owing to Divali, otherwise it might have been unpleasant. We got into the jeep and drove to Pokhara (Hotel Karuna, laundry) where we had lunch, lazed around, and had pizza in the evening (from a limited choice of restaurants because of Divali). All the traffic which had stayed off the roads yesterday made its journeys today. There was a 3-hour hold-up on the drive back to Kathmandu, where we arrived in the evening. This time we stayed at The Inn at Patan, an attractive and restful boutique hotel, where we spent 4 nights. We sightseed (sightsaw?) at Patan and Bhaktapur and mostly lazed around. Both towns had been badly damaged in the 2015 earthquake; the main monuments are returning to something like their original form. At Bhaktapur we made a discovery. In 1999 we had photographed an attractive door there; we hoped to see it again. We found the exact same house. The door had been repainted; the interior, alas, was full of uncleared rubble from the earthquake. We dined at several places. Dwarika’s Krishnarpan restaurant was
a slight disappointment: more theatrical than delicious. The best food we had
was at Taza, a Syrian café/restaurant in Patan’s middle-class enclave some
distance from Durbar Square.
| notes : photos : GPS tracks : general info : ride stats |