Fewer than 200 people have walked across the Great Himalaya Trail, the world’s longest and hardest alpine walking track.
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Armidale local Ken Harris, 57, is one of that select few.
Earlier this year, he set out on the five-month, 152-day, 1700 km trek across Nepal.
“I am so happy I’ve done it,” he said. “I still can’t believe I’ve done it!”
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Ken's journey took him from Kanchenjunga, the world’s third highest mountain, in the east, to Rara Lake and Yari Valley in the west.
“The eastern areas are the mountains, and the western areas are people,” Ken said. “Every day was something new – and I think that’s the joy I had with Nepal.”
This trip, he travelled with World Expeditions, an Australian active adventure holiday company that is the only one – globally – to offer the Great Himalaya Trail.
“I’ve done a fair few treks with them,” Ken said, “and they kept saying: ‘One of these days, you’re going to have to do the GHT. Then I retired. I thought: ‘Well, I’m up for a challenge – and I think the greatest challenge you’re going to have is the GHT. Well, I’m still OK to walk. So, let’s go and do it!’”
Ken worked for 30-odd years with the state government’s water resources agency, then took early retirement to follow his love of travel and trekking.
He has walked about eight hours a day for the last seven years, or 50 kilometres a week, and climbed to the top of Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. This, though, was the first time he went mountaineering.
“It’s not a bad spot to learn, with Everest looking down!”
Ken set out at the start of March with two companions, a local guide, and a team of porters and cooks. He celebrated his 57th birthday on the second day of walking.
In the east, a remote region where only 20 Westerners a year might visit, they trudged through snow two feet deep; climbed through 6000 metre-high passes; abseiled down rock faces; and slept in tents in -16 degree cold.
They walked through forests of rhododendrons, and crossed arid deserts high up in the mountains.
They were lucky enough to see a rare red panda – an endangered species, with fewer than 10,000 mature individuals in the wild.
They climbed a high pass, and saw birds flapping right next to them.
“That’s how high we were!” Ken said. “We had a 360-degree view of the Himalayas. You think: ‘My God! The only way someone's going to see this is either flying a plane or walking – and to walk in and actually experience it is just something special...”
Local lamas blessed them to go over the mountains in safety – a wise precaution.
“Nepal’s not a country for the faint-hearted,” Ken said.
One of Ken’s companions on this trip had to turn back, suffering altitude sickness, while Ken himself ended up in hospital for a fortnight, with a fever of 39.5 and septicaemia of the blood.
A porter in a group behind them was killed in a rockfall doing the same area. On a previous visit to Nepal, Ken was up in the Everest region when the Annapurna snowstorm hit in 2014, killing 43 people.
This was Ken’s third trip to Nepal. The first time, he’d worked out how he would do the treks; the second time, he did the Annapurna circuit and the Everest circuit back to back.
“There’s a saying there,” he said, “which goes: the first time to Nepal, you go for the mountains. All the other trips, you come for the people.”
Many of the village children – even in remote areas – were learning English, to escape from poverty and get a better job.
“They might only see 10 Westerners a year, so you took the time to make it special for them. Sometimes you’d kneel down to their level, and ‘Namaste’ to them. The smile on their faces really reinforced that it was special for them. You know, it was special for me – but they’ll have a story of this crazy Westerner walking across Nepal, who stopped and took the time to say hello!”
He also had wonderful encounters with the locals where there wasn’t a word spoken. An old lady cutting trees came down the slope, and fell down, getting sawdust all over her from her bamboo holder.
“I just walked over, and brushed off the stuff,” Ken said. “She smiled at me, and I smiled back at her. We walked together for a little further on the trail, and then she went down to her house. We communicated without talking, but we just helped out each other.”
Above all, Ken was full of admiration for the porters and cookstaff that accompanied them.
“These guys carried 40 kilograms on their backs; they’d cook us three hot meals a day – and they’d beat us into camp. The last day, I walked with them, just to say I walked with them.
“I have absolute respect for those guys, and was honoured to walk with them. In my book, they are the greatest people.”
Already, he said, he’s planning his next trip to Nepal. In 2020, he hopes to do the Mustang trail, up on the Tibetan plateau – and the porters, cook staff, and guides want to join him.
“To me, that’s a wonderful sign!” Ken said. “You spent five months with these guys, and they still want to be with you again.”
Ken encourages others to go to Nepal, but to know what they’re getting into.
“It’s one of those treks that you would have to seriously think about doing,” he said. “Do your homework; really got to know yourself and the trail before you do it. If you want, if you think you can do it, then do it – because you’ll never experience anything like it in your life!”
Ken Harris’s team kept a blog of their adventure: http://www.trekthegreathimalayatrail.com/blog
More information about the Great Himalaya Trail trek is available on World Expeditions’ website: https://worldexpeditions.com/Nepal/Trekking-Hiking/GHT-Nepal-The-Full-Traverse