Royal Mountain Travel Magazine Royal Mountain Travel Magazine Issue 3 | Page 31

Roads and trails
in Solukhumbu

By Marianne Heredge

Crossing an unfordable river. Photo: M. Heredge.

There has been an explosion of road building. Roads are
springing up everywhere. Not only are they reaching villages
that were only connected by rough and narrow trails, but for
the past few years, the road from China that ended ten years
ago at Lo Manthang in Upper Mustang now goes all the way to
Pokhara.
Purists and trekking companies throw up their hands in horror
at the idea of so many roads. Making trekking trails in some
places dusty and no longer the quiet, scenic routes that they
used to be, certainly you might tend to agree. However, much
has been done to find alternative routes and to preserve rural
byways for trekkers. Especially in the Annapurnas, much work
has been done by ACAP to mark out new trails and there is a
useful map now that shows these routes.
Most important however, the new roads have revolutionized life
for local people. Cutting down the time it takes to get to markets,
making transportation of produce easier and cheaper, all these
things have made what is otherwise a very hard existence that
little bit easier.
It’s still early days, and many of the ‘roads’ are little more
than dirt tracks. In the mountain areas, especially during
the monsoon months, they are susceptible to be buried in
landslides or vehicles sink axle-deep in soft mud. However, they

make a world of difference for the people who have long lived
almost cut off from the outside world, scraping an existence with
subsistence farming.
Road to Solukhumbu
For some years, while trekking in the lower Solukhumbu area,
it was possible to see short stretches of road being gouged
out from the hillsides. Until very recently, Salleri, the district
headquarters of Solukhumbu, was only connected to the outside
by a trekking trails to Jiri and down through Okaldhunga. The
former approach route to the Everest area before Lukla Airport
was built in the early 1970s, it took about four days to reach Jiri,
or about two days to walk up to Lukla from Salleri. The small
airport at Phaplu has flights that mainly come in the morning,
before the wind gets up. Especially in the rainy season, these
are often cancelled for days at a time.
Reporting time for the jeep that was to leave Chabhil on the
outskirts of Kathmandu was at 4am. Nepali time (which is rather
elastic) meant that it wasn’t until 4am that our taxi rolled up in
front of the hotel in Thamel where I was waiting with a volunteer
nurse, Dougie, who was coming along with me to visit a village
near to Salleri. However, driving through the deserted streets of
Kathmandu at that time in the morning took no time at all, and
soon we arrived at an obscure ticket counter by the Ring Road
to wait for another hour or so.

ROYAL

www.royalmt.com.np

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