Treks , hikes

polystyle

Well-known member
Enjoying the memories the 'walks' thread brought up,

My group mate MD and I hop in his car and drive upstate NY for an hour
about 5-7 times a year for day hikes / walks in Harriman National Park.
The rituals of filling the day pack with lunch , smokeables , essentials
leaving the car and getting out there on the trails to
tromp up and down the hills and through the forests till exhausted, sunburnt, windburnt always works wonders - you know , everyone's quiet on the way back home , knackered' but satisfied .

But 2 trips to Himalayas blew out all my systems , being 'out' for weeks at a time .
In '98 I did the Annapurna Circuit 'trek' for around 2 weeks ,
i dunno exactly but more than 100 miles overall.
Hired a great young Sherpa Guide (could speak English) and a porter (jus try it without a porter) from a Kathmandu Co. vetted beforehand and off we went to trail in Dumre .
Carefully crossing landslide areas , trying to getting used to the food.
In the first days along the trail we picked enough ripe green mari j to fill a small pillow sized sack .
At Syange we made after dinner run to nearby hot spring and a group of about 5 of us
(almost all chilled out N Europeans) soaked and passed around joints
('you Americans don't mix tabac in your joints' , 'true, true ... now pass it over ' ) ,
getting ripped under full moon light above the high Himal snow and ice .
3 Scandanavian woman arrived at the edge of the steaming pool ,
we all look up from the fat j , they strip and climb in .
After 2 more days we are getting much higher up all stones and gravel now ,
panting hard , stopping all the time.
20,000 ft. Himal wall always on the left ...
We round a rock corner and suddenly there's the 'stone age' Tibetan style village of Ghyaru .
Just stunned to see it , all the cliches - 'hasn't changed since (fill in the blank) ... century'
Actually being there - amid the ruins of stone houses bursting with snow pack ,
Gyalzen sticking his head around a corner as an arrow whizzed by
(village archers practicing in warm afternoon light) ,
sitting up on the roof of the house we stayed in and smoking gazing at the rock and ice of the Annapurna's towering above (talk about 'ripped backsides'), a few big black birds cruising by at eye level ,
prayer flags flapping in the night ...
Fantastic (and a big grubby, natch') . About halfway through at that point .

in 2000 I went back and did the trek to Everest Base Camp . also excellent

Glad I went then
 

Woebot

Well-known member
i slightly regret never taking the opportunity to trek in the himalayas. i spent about a month in katmandhu once, which is just the greatest city in the world. and just hung out doing drawings while many many travellers came and went up the mountains and returned. but katmandhu was so great i was loathe to leave it.
 

polystyle

Well-known member
that KTM vibe

I hear you on Kathmandu M

It's status as the 60's/70's hangout was both a plus and a minus ,
but it was a blast and I look forward to going back -when things settle (if that ever happens in our time).
Last night we were there in '00 the Maoists staged a blackout , driving back from Bhaktapur in a friend's cab t'was exciting , strange (don't hit that giant cow in the road) and a bit scary (wot are those Maoists gonna do if they catch us out? ) .

Fire And Ice Pizza on one of the mian streets in Thamel is such a great place .
The owner is this strong charismatic Italian lady who had a pizza oven shipped over ,
now she's got THE place for hikers to hit when they come off the mountains.
Damn that was great food after weeks of noodles with yak cheese , potatoes with um yak cheese ,
eggs scrambled with yak ,yak yak 'cuz it's all done in the same tasting grease (gee , at least I hope it was).
All worth it anyway ... in one end and out the other

Currently looking deeply at next trek up into Gokyo above Namche Bazaar -
a used - to - be wild mind blowing place .
Since l was there last , they made a curfew and closed some of the party spots (this is above 10,000 Ft. as i remember)
Last time we were there we took over a pool hall bar with our Sherpa guys and had a little party.
Popped a mix tape with DMX , Leftfield with Afrika B, Dre and Snoop into the system and got it popping.
Cue - in comes this British lady dressed to the nines for Namche /10,000 Ft. up , everyone stops and looks up - she looks around and asks 'where's the party in this town ?'

Outside , 16,000 ft. Kwande loomed silent in ice cold spring wind,
Yeti's migrating from lowerlands to high ,
mad dogs running the black night streets of Namche Bazaar
 

polystyle

Well-known member
out in the woods

Through a combination of luck , timing and good weather i have been able to get in a couple walks recently
my groupmate and i drove in his car upstate to our friend's studio in Delhi NY , did 3 great sessions and
then after we left his house and drove back down past long wide lakes and forests.
We had seen a trail crossing on the way through the previous day , found it again , checked guidebook and confirmed this trail was not in it . And took off up it
We didn't really go far , only about 20 minutes up but it was far enough to catch some stillness up away from the road . Found a place to sit on top of these piles of rock shapes and could see the lake shimmering between the hills

Then last Friday we went up to Harriman State Park again as we have for 20 years , driving up about 1 hour from the city into the State Park's forests and hills .
We hiked in to two large clearwater lakes , crossed stone bridges with beaverdam in bk ground and made it to the second lake where we had lunch and Michael drew the group of trees across the lake.
I lay flat on my back n the high rock , a bit of out the breeze and watched blueish clouds start to form in the sky ...
The trees have started filling in
 
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