Where the Hell is Santosh?

July 15, 2004 on 2:28 pm | In Mountain |

I look back into howling wind and darkening gloom, and I think he turned around for the last tea house we passed two hours ago; Thorung La pass, at 5600m above sea level, is a lonely place to be right now. My buddy was moving slow all morning, and I could not stop to wait in this bitter
weather. At this altitude, everyone struggles, but he has never been this high, and he is young.

I sit down and try to catch my breath again, eat some food for the next stage, try to pry some liquid from the ice in my water bottle. I am alone at the crux of the Annapurna Circuit in central Nepal, and before me is a skiers worst nightmare: crusty snow, frozen gravel, zero visibility, very little oxygen. Survival turns in the backcountry lexicon.

But I am on a bicycle.

Bike touring in rural Nepal is a unique experience. Be ready to carry your ride more than you ever imagined; you may have to hitch it on to your back and portage up hills the size of Mt. Mitchell to launch into the next valley. But also prepare for the best singletrack on the planet through trails as old as the mountains and villages that are still in the iron age, against a backdrop of the tallest mountains on earth. You will find gracious people in every town, and children chanting “cycle-cycle-cycle” as you roll through rice fields and over hanging bridges.

An hour later, after several crashes over the bars into deep snow and countless stops to scrape ice off the brakes, I cruise into Lower Mustang, the fabled kingdom of antiquity, into the sun and flowers and wheat fields of Muktinath, beneath the looming silhouette of Mt. Dhaulagiri.

Santosh emerges the next morning, with a dog he found at the tea house and stories of gracious Iranian mountaineers with tasty soup, and we mount up again for high speed double track down the valley to Kagbeni and the Kali Gandaki River. Racing down this wide desert trail beneath the Himalya, I know I found the best mountain biking in the world.

Namaste, Nepal, like no place on earth.

Enjoy these great shots!

-Chris Rollins