Archive for November 2020
Road to Everest: Tourists can breakfast in Kathmandu and drive to Khumbu for dinner
With a new bridge, Khumbu region has become accessible by land, an alternative to flying to the precarious Lukla airport.
Road to Everest: Tourists can breakfast in Kathmandu and drive to Khumbu for dinner
The newly constructed bridge over Dudh Koshi river at Orlang Ghat, Solukhumbu.
Photo Courtesy: Khumbu Pasang lhamu Rural Municipality
Pasang Tshering Sherpa of the village of Khumjung in the Everest region was thrilled to hear that a motorable bridge over Dudh Koshi river to complete a road link to the Everest region was inaugurated on Saturday.
“Friends, if you are buying cars, please consider buying one that can roll on the roads of Solukhumbu. The time when we will be able to have breakfast in Kathmandu and dine in the Everest region is not far,” Sherpa posted on his Facebook page.
Khumbu, also known as Everest region, the dream destination for many over the world, will soon become more accessible. As of now, the popular way to get to the top of the world is to take a 25-minute flight to Lukla’s Tenzing-Hillary airport and then trek towards Everest.
But the construction of the bridge over the Dudh Koshi river at Orlang Ghat of Solukhumbu is a landmark for connectivity.
With access only by air, the Everest region is perhaps one of the most expensive places in the world to visit because all supplies have to be flown in or carried on people’s backs, deterring potential tourists, especially domestic ones.
A single cooking gas cylinder costs around Rs15,000, as it is ferried by porters and mules. A trekker has to shell out around Rs300 for a cup of tea. Air freight charges from Kathmandu to Lukla stand at around $1.50 or about Rs180 per kg.
Locals from the region had long been calling on the government to construct the road, citing high costs of commodities, flight service unpredictability and dangerous flights to Lukla Airport, which is considered one of the most dangerous airports in the world.
“Now, vehicles can roll up to Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality ward number 1,” said Binod Bhattarai, chief administrative officer of Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality.
Although Lukla, 2,860 metres, lies at ward 2, motorcars will not go directly up to the airport.
“We have planned to extend the road up to ward number 2 by the end of this fiscal year, and up to Chaurikharka in the next fiscal year,” said Bhattarai.
The road will end in Chaurikharka, at about 2,800 metres after going as high as 3,000 metres.
Chaurikharka is about a day’s walk from Lukla and a day away from Chaurikharka lies Namche Bazaar, the largest town in the Khumbu region. From Namche it’s five days’ walk to Everest Base Camp.
The government had first decided to open a track to the Everest region after more than 3,000 tourists were stranded in Lukla in November 2011 after adverse weather conditions halted flights from Kathmandu for six consecutive days.
Flight cancellation due to adverse weather is a recurring problem and in the monsoon season, there are no flights to Lukla.
During the tourist season in spring and autumn, hundreds of tourists are often stranded at Lukla airport as no flights can land due to bad weather and high winds. Tourists are forced to return to Kathmandu by helicopter paying up to $500 per person, again weather permitting, as against $180 for an aircraft ticket.
In case of bad weather, the other option for trekkers now is to walk up to Jiri, retracing the footsteps of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa during their historic ascent to the top of the world on May 29, 1953. Jiri to Surkhe, an hour’s walk from Lukla, is a nine-day walk.
It was the Himalayan Trust, the charity Hillary set up, that built the airport in Lukla in 1964.
Dubbed the Highway to Everest, the project started in 2014, but it hit a roadblock after the 2015 earthquakes.
After the 2017 elections that installed local governments under a federal dispensation, Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality took the initiative to take the road project forward.
According to Dip Kumar Basnet, the municipal overseer for the road project, of the 77-km Salleri-Surkhe-Chaurikharka two-lane asphalt road, track opening works of 58 km have been completed so far.
Salleri is the headquarters of Solukhumbu district. The Kathmandu-Khurkot-Ghurmi-Salleri road section is around 270 km.
If things go as planned, people will be able to drive to the Everest region, crossing highlands and in view of panoramic mountain ranges within a day from Kathmandu, according to Basnet.
“If there is no shortage of budget, the project can be completed within one and a half years,” he told the Post. “The black-topping works will also begin soon.”
Chief administrative officer Bhattarai said they would require another around Rs100 million for the remaining track opening works.
Once the road is completed, said Basnet, the region is likely to receive domestic tourists and trekkers in droves, as the road facility will make commodities and travel cheaper.
“The road will bring tens of thousands of people to the Everest region,” said Basnet.
At present, annually over 57,000 foreign trekkers and mountaineers visit the region, and tourism entrepreneurs believe the road access could take that number close to 500,000, including domestic and international tourists.
The numbers, however, could be damaging for the fragile environment of the Khumbu region.
But Bhattarai said they are conscious about the degradation of the Khumbu environment.
“As part of the local government initiative, petrol and diesel vehicles will be allowed only up to Khari Khola,” said Bhattarai.
Khari Khola, at an altitude of 2,140 metres, is two days’ walk before Lukla.
“From there, only electric vehicles will be allowed to Chaurikharka,” he said. “It’s part of the government’s initiative to keep the Everest region emission-free.”
Road to Everest: Tourists can breakfast in Kathmandu and drive to Khumbu for dinner
Nepal building a highway to Everest
A new road linking Lukla to the rest of the country will transform the region, not all of it for the better
November 4, 2020
Excavators at work on Thamdada, 24km south of Lukla, despite the fact that the Khumbu Municipality has run out of money to complete the Phaplu-Chaurikharka road. All photos: SURENDRA PHUYAL
Excavators are clawing through sheer cliff faces, rocks tumble down to the Dudh Kosi below, and once in a while the sound of dynamite echoes in the gorge.
A new road linking the town of Chaurikharka just below Lukla to the rest of the country is due to open by December 2022, and work is going on despite the pandemic.
Although the road will not enter the Sagarmatha National Park which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it will make trekking and climbing in the Everest region more accessible. But it will turn Lukla airfield largely redundant, while locals fear an erosion of the region’s Sherpa culture, architecture and lifestyle.
On the Chinese side of Mt Everest, there is a highway from Lhasa right up to North Base Camp below the Rongbuk Glacier at 5,200m. Since 2016, it has become vital to transport goods and people for expeditions to the world’s highest mountain from the north.
Kathmandu is already linked through a 277km highway to Phaplu of Solukhumbu district, which is a two-day trek below Lukla. Work started on the 77km road linking Phaplu to Chaurikharka six years ago, but progress has been slow due to difficult terrain, delays due to the 2015 earthquake and Blockade, and lack of money.
This means that for at least the next two years, trekkers, climbers, and local people will either have to trek from the nearest road-head near Phaplu or Jiri-Shivalaya-Bamti Bhandar in Ramechhap district or as many do, take a 30-minute flight to Lukla from Kathmandu.
Sunkoshi Bridge at Harkapur on the highway from Kathmandu to Phaplu.
Like all infrastructure projects in Nepal, completion of this road is delayed. Khumbu municipality has run out of money for the remaining 24km dirt track to Chaurikharka from Thamdada.
The completion of the road was the pet project of the former Chair of Khumbu Rural Municipality, late Nim Dorje Sherpa who died in June. He believed that connecting Phaplu to Lukla would further lift living standards, bring down prices, and reduce the drudgery of his Sherpa people.
“It’s still our top priority project,” says Lhakpa Tsheri Sherpa of Khumbu Municpality, adding that the construction has been delayed somewhat by the Covid-19 crisis which has also devastated the region’s trekking and climbing income this year.
Khumbu used to earn Rs200 million a year just from trekking and climbing fees, not counting the what visitors paid for lodging, food and portering. This year, the income is down to Rs60 million.
“It is because of this loss of income that the construction of this last 24km stretch slowed down,” explained Binod Bhattarai, Chief Administrative Officer of Khumbu Municipality. “Now there is hardly any money to complete the project. We are struggling.”
The Municipality has decided to open Khumbu for trekking and climbing even though nine Covid-19 cases were detected in Namche Bazar last month, and it could have spread. Local people have stopped trekkers from going above Pangboche on the Everest Trail.
South of Lukla on Thamdada, bulldozers are at work on the track, while flights to and from Lukla buzz overhead all morning. The road alignment then drops precipitously to the river and Surke helipad below Lukla, before a final ascent to Chaurikharka.
Bhattarai is not giving up, he says: “The Province 1 government has assured financial support for this project, and other officials and MPs, too, have said that the work need not stop. So, we are hoping that we can make up for a lost time.”
Not everyone in Khumbu is happy with the road. They think it will spoil the region’s pristine beauty and fragile culture, as has happened when roads have reached other parts of remote Nepal in recent years.
Sonam Gyalzen Sherpa from Namche, who is chair of the Sagarmatha National Park Buffer Zone Management Committee, says the economy has to be balanced with ecology.
“The Road will enter the boundary of the national park from Surke and it will surely have some adverse impact on local culture and nature,” he said. “But since the Khumbu is remote and needs a road we are trying to ensure that the EIA is carefully done and its recommendations are strictly adhered to. It will be a big challenge for sure. We are currently discussing how we can mitigate damage.”
However, there are also strong voices in support of the road. A cylinder of cooking gas that costs Rs1,500 in Kathmandu is Rs15,000 in Gokyo or Lobuje in Upper Khumbu. The cylinders have to be taken on a 12 hour truck ride to Phaplu, then transferred to mule trains that take several days to get up to Namche. Sugar, salt and other food items cost several times more than in Kathmandu.
Zopkyo trains carrying gas cylinders from Phaplu to Lukla. Higher up on the Everest trail, the cylinders cost ten times more than in Kathmandu.
“The road will surely make our life easier,” says Ang Jangmu Sherpa who runs a lodge in Debuje on the Everest Trail. “It will encourage more Nepalis to come trekking, and make certain goods such as cooking gas more affordable.”
Says Ang Rita Sherpa of Lukla’s Nunbur Hotel: “Even if there is a road, most foreign trekkers are not going to travel to Lukla on a rough 14-hour road, but it will raise living standards in Khumbu.”
“With careful planning to reduce environmental impact and maintain the quality of the trekking experience, tourism in Upper Khumbu can benefit from the new vehicular road access to Chaurikharka,” says Sonia Miyahara, Managing Director of Hotel Everest View.
Yaks and zopkyos carry goods up the Everest Trail near Namche Bazar. Locals hope the road to Lukla will make essential items cheaper.
Besides the lack of money, the road has several other terrain-related hurdles. A dozen bridges need to be built across the Dudh Kosi gorge with a big one in Orlang Ghat that will cost Rs80 million.
Locals lament that despite the central government bragging about Mt Everest and Khumbu as an adventure destination and collecting revenue from fees, it has not chipped in for the road project.
“The federal government has done very little to help despite us knocking on doors of various ministries,” said the Municipality’s Lhakpa Tsheri Sherpa.
Locals are hoping that even if the 10m wide highway is not fully completed, the track will allow trucks and jeeps to negotiate the final stretch by 2022.
Mules descend from Lukla to Phaplu at Paiya village along the partially completed track.
In Kathmandu, Infrastructure Minister Basata Kumar Nembang told Nepali Times that the federal government was committed to the project: “The Phaplu-Lukla road is one of the plans we have given high priority even in this pandemic situation. That road project will go ahead as demanded by local representatives.”
Whatever the arguments for and against the road, one thing it will do is remove the need for travelers to be stuck, sometimes for weeks in Lukla, due to bad weather.
Nepal building a highway to Everest
04th Oct 2020
The world's second-highest bungee and swing have come into operation. The adventure activities have been operated from 500 meters long suspension bridge over the Kaligandaki river joining Parbat and Baglung districts of Nepal. The bungee, swing, and ski-cycling are constructed by The Cliff Pvt. Ltd.
The ski-cycling is first in Nepal and swing is in catapult style. The adventure activities are constructed at a cost of around 280 million. The adventure activities have been opened for visitors from Monday. The opening price of Bungee and swing is NRs. 7,000 for Nepali nationals and USD 210 for foreigners.
The bungee has been installed in the middle of a 525m long bridge above the Kaligandaki River. The distance from the river to the bungee is 228m or 748 feet. This bungee is the second tallest in the world after 764 feet tall bungee in Macau.
World's second-highest bungee comes into operation
Ghandruk Restricted to Visit until 21 November.
Ghandruk Restricted to Visit until 21 November.
New Height of Mt. Everest soon to be Announced
The new height of Mt. Everest is now soon to be announced by both Nepal and China. In 2019 when the Chinese President visited Nepal, both countries had signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” agreement to announce the new height of Mt. Everest.
For the first time in 1955, the Indian team surveys the height of Mt. Everett to be 8848m (29,029ft) above sea level which is still the official height of Everest till this date. Also in 1975, the Chinese survey had also confirmed the same height. Similarly, some unofficial survey was also done after that. In 1992, the Italian Survey lopped seven feet off the standard height, measuring it at 29,022 feet above sea level. But again in 1999, American scientists pushed the height a little higher, saying the mountain reached up to 29,035 feet above sea level. But on these all surveys, Nepal had almost no any role.
So, due to this confusion and not having a role in any of those surveys, Nepal Government announces to measure the new height of Everest in collaboration with China. It is also believed that after the massive earthquake in 2015, Mt. Everest may have been shrunk which made more compulsion to measure the height again.
By taking the Bay of Bengal as its Sea level, the Nepalese side had already measured the height of Everest. But due to covid and some other reasons, the Chinese survey was delayed. Now with recent news, we knew that the measurement from the Chinese side had also been completed by taking the Yellow sea as its sea level. So within a few days, both the Nepalese & Chinese Government will announce the new height of Mt. Everest.
