|
Thursday 20th March -
Trekking in the Himalayas (part two)
Our March meeting
heralded the welcome return of Dr Ian Clarke who gave us
further insight into his adventures nearly a decade ago
in Nepal.
He began by amazing us
with the quantity of equipment one has to take on an
expedition. Not only specialist clothing and trekking
gear for extremes of weather, but also medical and other
supplies not readily available when you are twenty
thousand feet or so above sea level. In total he
estimated this weighed about eighty pounds and luckily a
band of willing Sherpas carried it.
His aim was to trek in
the high plateaus of the mountains and be able to
photograph the array of spring flowers. This second
expedition began in April which was particularly dry in
the year he went. On the photographs we saw even the
terraced rice paddies were without water. For the
Nepalese people this is quite crucial as it is their
staple diet in a world of subsistence farming, which
sees very little in the way of mechanisation.
There are no real roads
and most trips are made on rough tracks between the
sparsely populated and dispersed villages.
Dr Clarke held our
attention with his stunning slides showing the more
picturesque side of Nepal. He did however enlighten us
to the dangers of trekking in such a remote area.
Avalanches are a common hazard, as are landslides and
one has to be ever vigilant and keep an eye out for
these.
One must also be careful
and not stray and fall from the ill defined tracks for
fear of falling onto recently harvested bamboo stalks
which can quite easily penetrate a leg or arm. This Dr
Clarke told us had happened to a friend of his on a
previous trip. He explained leeches were yet another
problem when crossing water and then of course was the
odd stray bullet from the Maoist insurgents who were in
the area at the time!
Unfortunately Dr Clarke
informed us he had to cut short his expedition as he
fell foul to yet another hazard of this sort of
experience – altitude sickness. He never made it to the
high plateaus to see the spring flowers and had to
return to the lower slopes where he soon recovered.
Once again we were
grateful to Dr Clarke for sharing his experiences with
us.
Next meeting we will be
hearing from Deborah Preston on the subject of
‘Britain’s Top Mrs Mop’.
Paul Weeks
◄ Back to the Old
Catton Society main page.
|
