Peggy and Dave's Top Ten Alpine Day Hikes

Several summers in the 1990s and June 26, 2022 — Is this the most dramatic landscape in the U.S. not in a national park?  Perhaps.  Is it the most jarring, striking, spectacular amphitheatre of granite spires rising up to 3745m in the U.S.?  Likely.  Seeing grizzly or moose?  Possible.  A helluva long round trip single day hike?  Surely.  Worth it?  Absolutely.

  A heavily used trail gently climbs from the Big Sandy Trailhead parking lot (2775m) for about 8km to the lovely, often buggy Big Sandy Lake camping area at 2970m where the “real” world-class hike starts.  Beyond here, there are many fewer pure hikers, though rock climbers are ever-present.  The now rougher, rockier, steeper trail turns north.  One should stay east of Arrowhead Lake when that appears about 1.25 km north of the north end of Big Sandy Lake.  Even though the hard-to-follow trail beyond there gains and then immediately loses altitude, it’s far better than the (shorter but jumbled) boulder field route on that lake’s southwest side.  At that lake’s north end, turn left (northwest) onto the “Climbers’ Route”, not north to Jackass Pass.

  The well-defined Climbers’ Route trail quickly reaches the ridge (and Continental Divide) at 3240m.  This first Cirque of the Towers view is a decision point for many:

     1)  job well done; awesome view; turn around and head back, or,

     2)  if camping, head north-northwest, downhill 150m in elevation to Lonesome Lake, or,

     3)  our clear choice, assuming it’s July or later and most of the snow on the trails has melted, is to slant gently downhill on a faint climber or game trail and then off-trail over rocks west-northwest just 3/4 of a km total to little Hidden Lake (3205m).  Here, views are all the more superb, and the dozen granite peaks towering over you are closer than anywhere else this easy to access.

   Choice “3” above, then returning the way you came, results in a long 30.5 km day (& 55,000 steps on Peggy’s Fitbit); it took us 11 hours on a 68° sunny, bug-free day.  This long day could easily be broken up, camping at Big Sandy Lake.  This way into the Cirque is shorter and less problematic than anything else; Texas Pass to the north is notorious for steepness and scree (loose gravel) and it takes longer to get there.

June 28, 2009 — The northern Himalchal Pradesh Miyar Valley is off the beaten trekking circuit but shouldn’t be.  The ~7 hour, ~15 km summit day with 12 km on snow or ice is simply inspiring, as you rise up from the upper Miyar Valley’s Camp II at 4870m over Kang La (Pass) at 5450m, then all the way down to the Tema River at 4410m.   

  There’s mostly glacier-walking this day over the pass, roped up with ice axes for some of it, and with a little scrambling over lateral moraine boulders too (yay!)  Getting to this day requires much of the latter, unfortunately, but is a fascinating northward and upward progression, first through areas with primarily Hindu culture.  Then the landscape trappings of Buddhism start to appear (chortens, mani walls, etc.)  The progression continues as human settlements give way to summer pastures with countless wildflowers, then the endless rocks of glacial moraines appear which, inevitably, give way to (retreating) glacial ice and snow.

   One morning clear, fresh snow leopard tracks were visible near our camp in the snow.  Their rarity reflects the fact (World Wildlife Fund study) that, during the adult life span of an average human, our planet has lost 73% of its wild animals (1970 to 2020).  That bears repeating:  73%.

   The glacial walking was largely smooth and gradual when we did this in 2009, and all large crevasses were circumvented.  A knowledgeable guide (and good porters) are de rigueur.  The temperature swing on our summit day was from -4°C to 20°C.  After exiting the glaciers, one enters on foot the “Hidden Kingdom”, a haven of Tibetan Buddhist culture, Ladkkh’s Zanskar, near a couple classic gompas… a fitting cap to a gorgeous and interesting route.

August 5, 2005.  Most Andes “experts” place this and Bolivia’s Cordillera Real’s rugged southwest side as the best big South American treks.  The Huayhuash Circuit is one very big loop circumnavigating this cluster of gorgeous high peaks, glaciers, and lakes.  In 2005 and today, the ultimate mountain cartography resource here is the beautiful, carefully field-surveyed, detailed topographic map by Martin Gamache (long before his days as head of cartography at National Geographic.)

  On most Huayhuash clockwise treks, one is nearly already shattered by seven or so days of hiking to over 4700m every day (except dipping down one night to beautiful Laguna Quesillococha just 5km horizontally and 2.35km vertically from the highest peak here, Yarupuja (6635m)).  Then comes the option of the toughest but most beautiful day.

  This day is a route scouted in 2004 by Andes trekking author Val Pitkethly and Melchi or Salchi, long-time guides with Val from the old leading trek-guiding family in the region’s main town of Chiquian.  While a lower, longer, easier river valley route is an option, this lightly-used high route up to this trek’s high point of 5050m (twice, with a 450m “dip” between them) is the vastly more scenic option to get from the Punta Cuyoc/ Laguna Vicuna (Viconga) vicinity camping area (4585m) northwest to the Rio Calinca (Catinca) camping area (4060m).

   The second pass on this 7 hour, 975m climb day is the highlight:  the eastern San Antonio Pass.  Before the startlingly steep (pictured; safe, with a good guide, like we had with Val on two different Peru trips) descent off the north side of this pass, one gets nice distant views of Siula Grande, the mountain made famous by the 1988 book and 2003 movie mountaineering survival story, Touching the Void.

   BTW, Val has a school named after her in a village where we contributed a tiny bit to her work by helping with health centre construction, meeting the dedicated teacher, and leaving him with a map of their schoolyard and neighbouring stream (5,555 km from the Atlantic!) after we did a really fun, interesting map game with his students.

November 10, 2022.  At the head of a big side valley off of the popular Laya-Gasa trek, Phue Dong (4370m) is at the confluence of two smaller grassy valleys, where an often-windy campsite provides stunningly dramatic views to the Tibetan border.

  The only residence at Phue Dong is Bhutan’s northernmost and likely its highest elevation family.  Views to the southeast include snowy Tsende Gang (7100m).  Peaks and glaciers to the west are near Masa Gang (peak), the valley’s namesake.  Hiking east from Phue Dong, a grassy, gentle valley meadow on the north (true right) side increasingly reveals true grandeur, especially after reaching (2.5 hours round trip with just 425 m climb to ~4550m) the end moraine damming pretty Sethag Burgi Tso (or Rapthreng Tso) (tso = lake.)   Steeply ascending the end moraine is best as an easy rocky scramble (no clear trail) on the river’s true right (north.)  You’re within 5km of Tibet.

  Also heading north up Wagye Valley from Phue Dong on the east (true left) side on poorly defined yak trails for ~2 hours round trip puts you at ~4700m and ~2.5 km from the Tibet border, about as close as is legally allowable, at a single tall flag (2022.)  We saw plenty of Bhutanese border guards and no Westerners for a dozen days trekking here. Bhutan and China are two rare neighbours without a land boundary treaty; time may some day allow for this hike to be longer and more spectacular, reaching Wagye La on the Tibet border, the old trade route crossing.   

   Getting here first takes trekking to the bottom of the Masa Gang valley at the Take Hankar border patrol/ army camp, a three hour trek upstream from the end of the road at Kaino (2022).  Take Hankar is 1.5 hours downstream from the big Laya village (superb archery competitions!) which is the way one would be coming if doing the 8 day Paro Valley (Shana) to Lingshi to Chebasa to Laya trek, we think one of the world’s best.

   From Take Hankar (3475m), one can do the entire 19.5 km, 7 hour trek up Masa Gang valley in one day, though two are usual and recommended.  One finds the well-defined trail to be steep at first, high up above the river, including a campsite with good water 2.25 hours up.

  A further 2.25 hours is where the trail leaves sporadic forest (of junipers up to 600 years old) and all-too-familiar rock-filled ditches masquerading as a trail, and instead crosses a lovely, flattish broad meadow below the first big side valley on river true right, one that reveals nice views of Masa Gang peak (at 7194m just 142m shy of being Bhutan’s 2nd highest peak.)

  Here on river true left is a hanging glacier above Nulithang (4050m) where, if one wished, one could probably stop at a good campsite just below or just upstream from the cell tower.  By a further 0.75 hour upstream from the cell tower (~5.25 hours up the whole valley,) hikers must have crossed (a single plank, 2022) the river onto river true left (east side) for ~0.5 km.  (Until here the hike has been on the sunnier, drier, grassier river true right (west side in this case.))  This single plank crossing is just below where a prominent ridge of glacial moraine juts out into the valley from river true left (east) with the ruins of an old fort on top that had guarded against invading Tibetans.

   Just above that, one should cross back over onto river true river right on a tiny footbridge (2022) for a lovely 1.5 hour hike on that side with gradual climb, largely in open meadows, following any of half a dozen yak trails, some a bit overgrown (2022) until reaching Phue Dong.                

   A close second place for views of beautiful peaks in Bhutan is earlier on the trek leaving the Paro Valley from Shana, usually Day 2, hiking on a detour excursion northwest up a side valley from Jangothang (campsite and stone huts), off the main trekking route, to glacial lakes at 4450m.  Here, you are less than 3 km from the top of Jolmolhari (7526m), the iconic 2nd-highest Bhutanese peak, on the Tibet border, and you’re even closer to its primary glacier.  The next trekking day, reaching Ngile La at 4890m, one is within 6.5 km of the most beautiful peak in Bhutan, Jichu (Bjichu) Drake (6794m.)

July 30, 2016.  It’s an overused mountain adjective, but there’s truly something magical about the joining of glaciers on the upper Baltoro, a place known as Concordia.  It’s a rare case (like #2  below) of a T-shaped confluence of two nearly equal-sized, massive rivers of moving ice (Godwin-Austen Glacier from the north, the uppermost Baltoro from the south.)  This is the heart of Galen Rowell’s “Throne Room of the Mountain Gods.“

   Two of our Top Five are here.  From Concordia (4500m), southward on the Upper Baltoro, one has little climb and usually a safe, smooth glacier walk.  Then curving westward, with more climb but still smooth, the hike up Vigne Glacier typically presents no dangers until some crevasses on the north side just before that side’s “Ali Camp” (4800m), often the base camp for a midnight roped-up assault on Gondogoro La (5585m).  A whole day’s walk in the heart of the Karakoram with just 300m of total climb… Wow!

   It’s a good thing that this five hour glacier walk is mostly danger-free, as it’s nearly impossible to stop looking in every direction at the spectacular snow, ice, and granite spires, most notably the otherwise hard-to-access Gasherbrun peaks to the southeast.  Needless to say, a day like this doesn’t come easy, requiring a five or so day trek with a commercial company up the Baltoro from Askole.  On the way up, you’ll pass a couple Pakistani military encampments and their recent (2025) road-building attempts, and the historic (1929 Italian base camp) terraced Urdukos camp (4030m) on the glacier’s south side, an enchanting place marred by the tragic death of three Baltit porters there by rock fall on Aug. 16, 2011.

October 15, 2019.  Like all of the Top Ten, you’re not hiking hours to get to one or two amazing views.  You’re instead immersed in alpine splendour from the moment you stick your head out of your tent and start hiking.  And what splendour it is:  the north face of the world’s third highest peak just 10kms away.  A five hour round trip hike like this to get to the closest view at Pangpema (5150m, the north base camp), you might expect, could require rock scrambling, scree, a thousand meters of climb, and more of that sort.

   Instead, this well-defined valley trail instead heads eastward with just 675 meters of total climb, with no rock scrambles, scree, or the like.  Of course, getting to the start of this day (Lhonak camp (4780m)) does involve a significant 5 day or so trek from Taplethok (or longer if combining with #9 above) with a guide and support or more likely a commercial trekking company.  That commitment of at least ten days (and ~4000m of climb!) means that you might go the whole day seeing no other humans, just blue sheep and stunning vistas.

   And the valley leading to here, the Ghunsa Khola, contains a fascinating and forward-thinking community that has banded together to maintain the integrity and traditions of their culture and environment.  The happy result is no bulldozers slicing road scars the length of the beautiful Ghunsa Khola, dynamiting its imposing cliffs.  Yes, roads into the uppermost Himalayan valleys can bring economic gain, health gains, convenience, and more.  But they can also fall into the category of “life and our economy and our culture was better and healthier before that damn road started introducing problems.

July 29, 2016.  K2, Broad Peak, Concordia, Trango, Godwin-Austen Glacier… the names alone can stir mountaineering emotions.  For us, all the more so, after we ran into a team of five Nepalese Sherpa climbers reporting that on the morning of July 23, sitting in Camp 2 on K2’s Abruzzi Spur, they looked up to see all the gear and tents and fixed ropes they had placed up to and at the (now unoccupied) Camp 3 (and Camp 4) wiped off the mountain by a big avalanche.  “Now nobody climbing to the top this year” they had (correctly) said to Dave.  It was first summited in 1954 by the Italians; their 1954 map is pictured here, also showing the route of hike #5 above.

  They knew that this is the land where it’s often Mother Nature 112, Humans 0 (a record 112 permits were issued in 2016 for K2.)  Only 2 people summited adjacent Broad Peak out of 79 permits in 2016.  At Broad Peak Base Camp, we talked at length with a disappointed but pragmatic Spanish climber who turned out to be Oscar Cadiach, age 63.  He told us that Broad Peak in 2016 was the last peak he needed in order to have scaled all (14) 8,000m peaks.  He added that the day before he and his climbing partner (missing several toes) had made it to 200m shy of the top, then decided (with a nasty assist from the weather) to wisely to go back down and try again in 2017 (when he made it successfully, becoming the 39th person, the 19th without oxygen, and still the oldest person to complete all 14.)  Through 2024, only a probable total of 73 have done all 14.  Summiting Nanga Parbat first (!) among the 14 in 1984, he still holds the record for the longest interval between the first and last of the 14 summits.  Even at age 63, he told Dave that his bet on having another chance in 2017 overtook any bad risk decision in 2016 for himself and his climbing partner.

   For those “just” trekking and hiking, the climb with mostly smooth glacier footing from Concordia (4500m) up to Broad Peak Base Camp (4970m) and beyond a bit is, again, “magical”.  Everything from the imposing south-southwest ridge (the “Magic Line”) eastward to the standard Abruzzi Spur is in view in front of you most of the time you’re heading north on the Godwin-Austen Glacier (roughly 4 hours to a bit beyond Broad Creek Base Camp, thus about a 7.5 hour round trip.)  Imposing Broad Peak is always to your right (east) as you hike up.  And so much more.  This is as good as it gets.  See #5 above for more.

August 12, 2015 — Kyrgyzstan, really?  One of the world’s two best and most beautiful alpine day hikes.  Yes, really.

  Unlike with many other 7000 or 8000m peaks, here you can walk on smooth glacial footing (ok, rough at first, and a few crevasses, all jumpable or avoidable, towards the end) on a ~6 hour 17 km round trip to 4345m, within 4km of the top of dramatically beautiful “King Heaven”, Khan Tengri, climbing only about 350 meters total.  Stunning in so many ways.  Really “cool” exploration through glacial ice caves is often possible near the Concordia-like base camp location as well.

  The South Inylchek Base Camp here (~4050m) is a busy summer complex with even a “sauna” and food tent “restaurant,” supporting climbers on Khan Tengri and Jengish Chokusu (Pik Pobedy, 7439m, 12 km to the south.)  Getting there is nearly always done by helicopter.

  A 2009 shift of the border here of the Kyrgyz-China border meant that the last few hundred meters of this hike (depending on where you decide to turn around after your fill of superb views from the foot of Khan Tengri) is actually across the unmarked border into China…. And no, by 2010 at least, there was no little man at a desk on the glacier with papers and a rubber stamp demanding permits.  

July 30, 2006  — This one is different.

   Aldo Leopold:  “To those devoid of imagination, a blank space on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.”

  This is not just stunningly gorgeous and breathtakingly stark, but actually other-worldly.  Visited by merely 50 or so humans in ’06, perhaps not that much more now, you’re a very rugged four day hike from any road or human settlement.  Jaw-dropping granite walls and spires soar to the heavens in all directions.

  What was (or wasn’t) here in the Karakoram near the Tibet border was unknown for so long into the 20th (not 19^th!) century that in the 1930s Eric Shipton himself gave it the “Last Blank on the Map” moniker (some polar areas of course excluded.)  Snow “Lake” itself is actually a ~15km-wide glacial basin, an amphitheatre of white as far as the eye can see, connected to the head of the Hispar Glacier at Hispar La (a 5130m all-ice pass.) The big upper Hispar Glacier crevasses just west of Hispar La have worsened over recent decades making some years problematic for the few trekking groups that attempt this world’s longest non-polar glacial traverse of 117 km, including most of the 3rd longest glacier in that category, the Biafo.

  The magnificent 5 hour, 640m total climb, roped-up, all-glacier day on Snow Lake to Hispar La usually starts at the last Biafo camp, a skinny, rocky, lateral moraine ridge site called Karpogoro (4595m).  That camp comes after a multi-day trek starting at the famous medieval village of Askole (3065m) in the Baltoro Valley, then up the Biafo Glacier, with tough days of rock scrambling on glacial moraine along its lower reaches before hiking on the glacier itself becomes advantageous.

  And the toughest is yet to come, once beyond the big crevasses of the Upper Hispar Glacier, descending (but with at least 300m total climb each day) on really, really tough and exhausting lateral moraine rock scrambles for 3 days and some of the 4th day (before arriving at the first human settlement in 10 days, Hispar village (3025m)).  This tiring stretch includes a particularly tough 2km crossing of the north-side tributary Yatmaru Glacier.  But the dramatic scenery continues throughout, with one of the worlds 20 highest peaks, Kunyang Chhish (7823m) looming just to the north.  You don’t have to, but we did camp right on Hispar La, “highlighted” by a loud boom and a narrow crevasse opening up directly under one of our group’s (occupied) tents.

“Now There is Danger”       

   Crossing Snow Lake, we were fortunate to have as our guide legendary Himalayan mountaineer and U.S. expedition organizer Gary Pfisterer.  The day before being the first group that year to go over the uppermost part of the Biafo and Hispar La, he and our senior Baltit guide (who looked about 80) asked Dave to go out reconnoitring on the glacier with them, mainly because he had something “new”, a GPS unit that could provide direction on the glacier even with very low visibility.  Our Baltit guide said the ice looked good and there was no need to rope up, but 30 seconds later stuck his pole through the snow into a crevasse and said in broken English, “now there is danger.”

*The glacier walk requires being roped, and guides are highly recommended if not required, this is still a hike.  Technical rock climbing/ technical mountaineering is not required.

1)  While we were helping for a week in October 2001 to build a school building in Chhulemu, near Taksindu Gompa, Solukhumbu, Nepal, we were so lucky to be invited to a potato lunch in the one room stone house there with Pasi, 61, the solidly-built mother of Babu Chhiri Sherpa (1965-2001) just six months after the tragic death of her son on Everest.  We could clearly see from where he “inherited” his determination.  As a previous Everest ascent record-holder (under 17 hours from Base Camp), his 1999 record still stands of 21 hours awake with no oxygen on the very summit of Everest, “… simply the greatest Mount Everest climber of this or any age” by 2001 (Outside magazine, published 29 days before his death.)

   Because of our week’s stay and work in Chhulemu, our outstanding guide Dawa Sherpa hosted a night of celebration, highlighted by a wonderful dancing performance by the women of the village of all ages.  After the applause at the end, Dave, trying but failing, said “Shim’pu-no”.  He would have done far better with “Leem’u-no”, meaning good in Sherpa.  After an awkward silence, Dawa repeated incredulously, “Shim’pu-no?!)” and a red-faced Dave realized that the laughter meant he had instead said “Tastes good” about all the women of the village.  The Colorado-based organizers, just starting the wonderful Dzi Foundation then, Jim Novak and Kim Reynolds, named that the #1 cultural train wreck of our 2001 Solu Khumbu back-country trek.

   2)  In 2010 we visited with the king of Mustang and also the Chode (Chhyode) Gompa (monastery) head (khenpo) lama, and also other denizens of the 13th century walled city, Lo Manthang.  The well-read and travelled, impressive lama had asked to see us again on our fourth day there, and after awhile, really opened up about the demanding expectations that the people of the village had of him:  “to be the senior guide for Buddhist beliefs, a political coordinator, to provide vision care, to be both a dentist and a doctor, & more.”  He added, “I’ve lost two mothers to child birth in the past year and we’ve now made great strides so that no longer happens.  But I’m at a loss at dentistry and really need help there.”

   From Lo Manthang, it was a very long hike to Sam Dzong, 5 km from the Tibetan border.  Within a few years, their location became, “You can’t get there from here… because it no longer exists.”  The NY Times reported Sam Dzong as the first complete village to be a casualty of global climate change.  A few years after our visit, the entire village was abandoned after ice fields and snowfields that were their sole late summer source of water disappeared.

   The very nice, resourceful Sam Dzong villagers, proud of their new water retention system for drinking and irrigation in 2010, had also asked us via a double-translation if we “wanted to see the bodies.”  They actually meant the skeletons rescued from eroding caves by technical climbing/ archaeology experts a few weeks before we arrived.  The villagers were starting work toward a museum there featuring these 1,000 year-old cave burials.  Before that could happen, their water and their village simply disappeared.    

Bad weather can really cloud one’s perception as to whether a hike was great or not.  We really tried our best to picture every hike and view under ideal weather.  But sometimes we didn’t expect it:  our Japanese Alps hike at over 2400m from the top of the Shinhotaka gondola (Chubu Sangaku National Park) in 1994 still had meter-deep snow the whole way, even though it was April.

   Our most uncomfortable, coldest night ever was camping at over 5,700m inside Kili’s crater after climbing the Lemosho Route and then the Western Breach in Nov. 2003.  Our biggest dump of snow altering our route was ~45 km SW of Everest when Solu Khumbu was almost totally devoid of other Westerners (Oct.-Nov. 2001).  However,….

   …the latter was a magical trek, with Dawa and Kim-Jim going well off 2001 (and current) popular trek routes.  One detour due to the weather was as the first Westerners to visit Mera, the home village of Lama Renzi, administering much of the operations of the famous Taksindu Gompa (monastery).  There, at the lama’s parents’ home, no less, too much rakshi (local grain alcohol) resulted in one of our members overdoing it.  Tossing her cookies, she just missed the revered lama’s shoes.   

   But by a long shot, that was not the worst.  A few days after we flew out of adjacent Phaphlu, that airstrip’s buildings were blown up and ~200 headless corpses (to hide their identity and thus possible reprisals against family members) of Maoist rebels were scattered about the hillsides where we had been hiking near the Salleri Nepalese army base.  The body was found of our gracious host, the “mayor” of the community there.  Tragic and sobering, during the tumultuous year of the Nepal royal family massacre.

   Our worst visibility (at nearly zero) at a key pass or peak with (supposedly) great views was at Parang La, 5595m, Himalchal Pradesh, India, followed closely by Stok Kangri, 6137m (20,135 feet), Ladakh, India where there were at least a few breaks in the clouds… The latter was where our Rimo Expeditions staff both “adopted” a young Polish woman with an ill-equipped “guide” and got her to the summit and back, on ice or snow nearly all the way, and also “rescued” a British hiker (no guide) who had been lost and hypothermic in deep fresh thundersnow above our base camp at 5000m for so long he could no longer speak.

   Equally bad if not worse, a few days earlier at the pass at the head of Ladakh’s Markha Valley at 5300m, we saw blood drops scattered on the snow.  Catching up, we learned that one of the horses carrying gear in a rectangular aluminium box had, while passing another horse, clobbered the left occipital of that horse with a sharp corner of his box.  The eye was out of the socket, “hanging on by threads.”  Nothing was happening other than various levels of fluctuating human panic; the horse was seemingly out of pain and settled, with his wrangler on his sited side.

   Always calm under pressure, Peggy got the staff to boil water and used our long, wide white medical tape, also digging into our first aid kit for gauze pads and anti-biotic cream.  Within hours the horse was getting extra feed (out of sight of the other horses) and within days we saw him across a massive gorge leading (with one eye) his herd.  Later, up close, we noticed a scar on his back, several days old, and then learned how tough a Ladakhi horse’s life can be.  Getting jumped on his back by an adult snow leopard was only the 2nd worst thing to happen to our now-one-eyed horse that week.

   On the other hike mentioned above (Parang La), we lost 1.5 days after a nocturnal wolf pack attack chased off our donkeys.  We then carried extra gear on a 32 kilometre day, all above 4500m, to where our off-the-charts Rimo Expeditions super-guide, KE Adventures worldwide guide of the year Uden Sherpa (from Darjeeling) negotiated to buy a yak (not cheap!) from a nomadic group as we handed out to parents, some in tears, the first photos of their kids that they had ever had (Peggy had one of those last Polaroid instant-print cameras.)  So yes, we “came for the scenery, but left treasuring our encounters with the culture.”

We were scheduled to do this in April 2024 before our trip got cancelled. By all accounts, one of South America’s two best treks, on par with the Huayhuash, both exceeding even Peru’s Cordillera Blanca (we’ve done both of those Peru treks, but nothing in Bolivia).  Our asst. guide from Snow Lake, Paul Burditt, once said his favorite in Bolivia was Cordillera Apolobamba.

Part One:  The Day the Mountains Fell

Over June 16-21, 2013, in Garwhal’s Himalayan Mountains near the sources of the Ganges Chardham pilgrimage sites of Badrinath, Kedarnath, and Gangotri, 5,500 pilgrims died.  We did not.  We were there with Leh/ Delhi (Gurgaon)-based Rimo Expeditions.  It may not be overreaching to suggest that the two facts were connected.

On the 16th, absolutely torrential rain turned to thunder-snow, which after about 15 cm of accumulation eventually changed back to rain.  For Dave’s birthday two days and one camp earlier, Rimo had baked a cake, using eggs (a possible religious violation here?); some suspected a clear link.

It was not just rain, but the heaviest monsoon in this region of Uttarakhand in 88 years of records.  It didn’t stop.  We halted short of the “Cow’s Mouth” pilgrimage site of Gomukh at a raging tributary across the trail where we and our Rimo staff (Uden, Raj Kumar, Santabir, Sonam) decided to turn around and head back to our tents at Bhujbasa (Bhojbasa.)

That decision was wise.  The mountainsides all around us began falling at about noon.  They kept falling, landslide after landslide.  It was impossible to distinguish between the loud bolts of thunder and the sharp cracks of yet another landslide, several each minute.  This was the first and only time in our lives that we considered the mountains around us to be moving objects.

Rimo had safely located our tents the day before, but the landslides were so huge that car-sized boulders would take “a bad bounce” and hurtle sideways to within a couple hundred meters of our tent.  Time to move, Uden said, and the whole Rimo staff and porters ran uphill to help us move the gear and tents.

June 18 – The rain finally stopped.  Time to try to move.  But just below our Bhujbasa camp, Rimo staff, out scouting first, reported that there was no trail left; a landslide cliff now had an escarpment (with a waterfall) (pictured) to cross where one slip meant certain death in the Bhagiwati River hundreds of meters below (as pictured).  The Rimo staff set a fixed rope (a local guide team had just arrived from Gangotri downstream to help but their rope was only ¼ of the length of what Rimo had.)  Uden and Sonam cut steps with an ice axe, and not just Peggy and Dave but 100 or so pilgrims behind us now crossed safely.

A porter (not with a Rimo group) who got off-track in the deep snow a few kilometres up the valley from us that day was not so lucky, and didn’t make it.  He was a friend of a number of our porters, and all of our porters were worried about their family and friends downriver, upstream from devastated Uttarkashi, but they continued to help us and others in impressive fashion.

Part Two:  Voices Under Our Feet

June 19, 2013 – At the 27 km point of our scramble downriver that day, Dave heard voices under his feet.  It was a young man from Gujarat (pictured) with a shovel trying to dig the mud, almost up to the roof of his rental car that got buried in Dharali.  He and his friends wanted to talk, and posed with smiles.  Dharali was again buried, suddenly, and with great loss of life and buildings, on August 5, 2025.

That night, and the next, we waited in Harsil near the air force base there along with thousands of others as the Indian Army came in helicopter after helicopter, with each soldier disembarking carrying bags of potatoes or other food.  Very impressive.  With many kilometres of roads washed away, the Indian army started airlifting elderly and injured or ailing out.  On June 21 they airlifted Uden, Peggy (both pictured on the Hindustan Times front page here), Dave, and others to Dharasu and then Dera Dun.  Pictured, it was terribly painful to see the faces of family and friends hold up pictures to us as we left the air force base there, asking if we could remember seeing their loved ones.

The Rimo staff did far more than help just us.  We knew we would be ok, what with Rimo co-owner Motup’s unmatched years of mountaineering experience and training and with his wife and co-owner Yangdu and others making phone calls including even contacting the US Embassy…  The senior Indian commanding officer brought in for search and rescue and relief operations called together us and the other 17 foreigners in Harsil and said, “I can get out all 2,000 refugees here except you 19. “  First we would need embassy approval to legally get onto an Indian Army rescue helicopter.

Within 20 hours of getting off the rescue helicopter in Dehra Dun, Uden and Alka and Dorje and Thinless (all with Rimo) had us in Leh on June 22 to do another (shorter, drier!) trek.  At the old bookstore there, the clerk remembered Dave from two years earlier and said, “Where you been?”  Dave replied, “Yesterday, on a trek from Gangotri to Badrinath” and immediately the dozen customers glued to the TV coverage in the bookstore of this “Himalayan Tsunami” came over to Dave for a first-hand account.

What Rimo did to help pilgrims from all over India can’t be over-stated.  Fixing ropes and finding routes, Rimo may have saved dozens and helped thousands, not just us.  In fact, Motup and Yangdu had quickly constructed a different seven-person Rimo team with Kunsang leading it that laboriously worked their way up from Uttarkashi toward us at Harsil.  They worked dawn to dusk helping pilgrims across kilometres of cliffs and landslides (where, a week before, we had driven on the now non-existent road.)

Kedarnath and Badrinath were far worse than where we were.  Yangdu fielded many phone calls regarding a group of western trekkers on our Kalindi Khal intended route, a few days ahead of us and now buried in several meters of snow.  In past years they had used Rimo.  Not this year.  Not good.  Last we heard, having dinner with Motup in Delhi June 21, was that they had made it to Badrinath somehow, but were still stranded there.  It needs to be said that sometimes you can “get by” a bit cheaper and you might not need the equipment and training and experience of a big company like Motup and Yangdu’s Rimo.  Sometimes.  But June 16-21, 2013 was not one of those “sometimes.”  Rimo was critical to our survival and that of many others.

In a perfect Himalayan world, the impressive Indian army and ITBP (Indo-Tibetan Border Patrol) will be right there to help.  But the Himalayan world is rarely “perfect”, and we were very glad that we had Rimo with us, the second-best thing to the Indian army!

We listed Biafo Glacier (Pakistan), Baltoro Glacier (Pakistan) , and South Inylchek (China and Kyrgyzstan) as ones we hiked.  However, they are the 3rd, 5th, & 6th longest non-polar glaciers in the world according to the List of Glaciers. Tajikistan’s Fedchenko/Vanch-Yakh Glacier is the longest in the world. Unfortunately, our chances of reaching it got derailed by the short war there. The Siachen Glacier between India and Pakistan is the second longest. This is a volatile area that had continuous war from 1984 to 2003.  We had committed to and paid for a trip there, but permits were denied.  For the best mapping and geography overview on the Siachen, see veteran mountaineer and mountaineering author Freddie Wilkinson’s article in the March 2021 National Geographic magazine, and also search for National Geographic’s podcast:  “Overheard Podcast Siachen.”

February 11, 2025, ~21 km, ~750m climb, little natural surface (~50% dumped gravel, ~30% plastic waffle tread), Mangatepopo to Ketetahi (south to north), Ketetahi Hot Springs & hut no longer accessible.

  Local boosters claim this as “the world’s best day hike.”  Not even close.  Overhyped, massively overcrowded.  “Km 12 to 18 an absolute slog.”

  There are two big strikes against this hike now:  the insane-sized Lord of the Rings-induced crowds coming here to  “Mordor“, and trail re-location and addition of many hundreds of needless stairs that was still ongoing in 2025.  The trail changes are as unfortunate as any we’ve seen on thousands of trails on six continents (especially considering the huge taxpayer expense.)

   The trail crews with their “baby bulldozers”, helicopters, kms of gravel, a thousand trees-worth of wood (lining both sides for kilometres and forming countless needless stairs), and many kms of mud-reducing “waffle” plastic trail tread have now eliminated most of the natural trail.  We’re all in favour of mud-reduction; we know mud (having backpacked 90 kilometres of Tasmania’s stunning South Coast Track along the Indian (Southern if you’re Aussie) and Pacific Ocean shorelines.)  But….

    …the addition of most of the hundreds and hundreds of stairs is both needless and painfully jarring (even, we were told, on young knees!).  A count a few years back totalled 199 flights of stairs, & that’s since been greatly increased.  Long stretches of quite fine, reasonably inclined trail segments have and are being converted into little serial “ski jumps”, only instead of jumping there’s 3 or 4 wooden stairs.

    That’s right; the very gently declining trail bed is actually deliberately raised up above a perfectly fine grade to create an elongated terrace ending at a previously non-existent “ski jump”/ drop-off where a pre-fab set of stairs is inserted.  (Worse, these are stairs with a too-close horizontal distance for a normal stride).  This is already so hated by many hikers that they are creating and using paralleling “normal” trail treads on one or both sides of the stairs.

    Perversely, seeing their needless stairs circumvented by furious hikers (we talked to many), the trail crews are now blocking these bypasses with boulders.  On top of awesome Isthmus Peak north of Wanaka (1100m climb in 8 km with zero stairs) we ran into a couple that was still seething about those needless stairs a week after having done the hike.  At another recent “stupid stairs” addition on the bottom part of the short Blue Lakes-Tasman Glacier Trail at Mt. Cook National Park, where every flight has been circumvented by hikers, we sadly watched small children doing fine on the normal trail grade, but where it had been wiped out by steps, unable to handle them for long.

    Or one has only to visit the enchanting Victoria Park trails in Wellington hiked for many decades by families of all abilities to find trails sloping at twice or thrice that of the Tongariro Crossing, but without the innumerable needless stairs.  Dave has maintained (and built) trails for 40 years for different hiking organizations; this insertion of superfluous stairs (raising the trail bed just to “require” stairs) is not normal behaviour.

    And that’s only half of it.  To reduce climb, about 90% of hikers go south to north and many (on AllTrails at least) find the latter half of the hike with its 1250 meter drop to be, and we quote, “endlessly mind-numbing,” worsened by the loss (to private property) of the only big highlight of that half (the Ketetahi Hut and hot springs that for decades soothed many a tired hikers’ feet).  Some extremely poorly-routed switchbacks share the blame.

   Perhaps the recent trail designers were paid by the km, as the re-routes traverse 1/3 km one way across the hillside, then 1/3 km back across the same hill, then repeat, needlessly adding distance.  Instead of proper switchbacks that actually incline at an acceptable grade, these are often nearly level, at times even climbing the wrong way back up, mostly just creating needless horizontal bulldozed trail scars across the Lord of the Rings‘ “Plains of Gorgoroth” vicinity (all to allegedly “save alpine vegetation“?)

   BTW, the ever-increasing hectares of alpine vegetation being buried by some of the tons and tons of gravel dumped on the trail washing into the adjacent brush is, we suppose, also “saving the alpine“?  And topping out at 1856m, this hike is marginally “alpine” anyway; 1/3 of it was naturally forested prior to logging/clearing.

   Yes, the Red Crater near the top is dramatic, in a small gravel-pit sorta way.  And yes, the Emerald Pools are cool, near the hike’s few, minor thermal steam vents that are at a level about 1/10 of what one finds in the nearby Rotorua area (with the world’s fourth biggest geyser, world’s largest boiling lakes and hot springs, an ancient Maori village on top of thermal features, etc.  The best sites in that area are 1) Whakarewarewa Thermal Village, 2) Waimangu Volcanic Valley, 3) Waiotapu Thermal Area, 4) The Buried Village (1886 volcano), not to forget 5) the Kiwi Hatchery/ 6) Agrodome.)

   Skip the Tongariro Crossing hike and hit those six instead.  Then get to where the really good alpine hikes are, the South Island.  In ten hours you can be in Nelson Lakes National Park; do the popular Mt. Roberts circuit anti-clockwise. Oh yes… that trail, supposedly by the same park service as at Tongariro, is wonderfully designed… all perfectly graded, with well-designed switchbacks, and for the whole 8.5km hike with ~650m of climb (and 650m of descent), despite the steeper grades, zero stairs!

   Dismiss our diatribe above at your own risk (until you too have needlessly suffered though Kilometres 12 to 18).  Excluding the km road walk to the main car parking, the last 3 km and the first 12 km are an above average hike, but this hike is nowhere near the “world’s best day hike.