The leeches were bad. The detour around the nasty avalanche chute outside Syabul forced us to push through 100 meters of thick grass and low bushes. The gaiters the Spousal Unit and I were wearing over our pants provided little protection for our legs. How the little bloodsuckers got inside the waistband of my underwear I do not know. Maybe they landed on my backpack and crawled to the nearest exposed flesh. Back on the trail we stopped, pulled shirts and trousers up and down, and removed the slippery devils. What I did not realize is that the leeches, which were quite small - about the size of inchworms, had also burrowed south in my socks where they settled on my moist, sweaty feet.

The bad thing about leeches is that, unlike mosquitoes, you can't feel them when they attach their suckers to your skin. In fact, unless you specifically look for them, you won't know they are there until one becomes "full" and moves its bloated body. The good thing about leeches is that they are easy to pull off. No need for matches, tweezers, or other paraphernalia. Simple grasp and tug (gently if the leech is full).

Further down the trail I called another halt when I felt wriggling sensations in my boots. It was then that I learned the most annoying aspect of leeches - they inject an anti-coagulant to help their victim's blood flow. Even though only capillaries just beneath the skin are tapped, bright-red trickles of blood result long after the leech has fed. In short order my white-turned-gray socks looked like I had been walking in a vat of strawberries.

Getting the blood to clot was a problem. Band-Aids just filled up and then dripped. Bits of toilet paper and the socks themselves worked well but every time I walked through a stream or pulled down my socks to check for more leeches, the bleeding would start again. The Spousal Unit eventually came up with a novel solution, which I will reveal later. Until then we scheduled hourly stops to inspect vulnerable locations on our bodies and plaster on more toilet paper. For unknown reasons the leeches preferred my type O+ blood ten times as often as the Unit's blood.

Trekking in the mountainous terrain of Nepal involves hiking along the trails that interconnect villages not served by roads. You can hire a guide and porters to take your gear high into the Himalayas or simply carry a sleeping bag and a toothbrush between local lodges. The latter method is often referred to as "teahouse trekking." The Unit and I prefer teahouse trekking because it is cheap and maximizes contact with local people. Undertaking either method during the monsoons is not a good idea but our Exodus overland expedition rolled into Nepal from Tibet at the beginning of September. Waiting another month for the weather to clear was not an option.

The Unit and I didn't plan to go high. We had already cleared several 17,000-foot passes in Tibet. Besides, the Himalayan summits and alpine meadows were shrouded in clouds and deluged by rain every day. The only way to get a decent look at the snowy peaks was to book a tourist flight on a small plane at the Kathmandu airport. Previous trips to Nepal covered the more spectacular destinations like the Annapurna and Everest regions during the winter when the air was cold, dry, and clear. What the Unit and I had never seen was the countryside when it is lush and green. In addition, after a year on the road with virtually zero exercise, neither one of us felt capable of 2,000-meter elevation gains and losses on a daily basis.

So we thought a week going up the main valley of the Langtang National Park would give us a wonderful look at verdant greenery and isolated villages. The area lies in the heart of the Himalayan range north of Kathmandu and west of the Friendship Highway from China. Our overland group had come south on that road and, despite the heavy rain and resulting landslides, the vertical scenery with its crashing waterfalls had been most impressive. What we failed to notice was the following warning buried in the rafting section of the Lonely Planet guide for Nepal: "From June to August the monsoon rains arrive and rivers carry 10 times their low-water flows, and can flood with 60 to 80 times as much."

The bumpy, semi-white knuckle bus ride to Dhunche where the trailhead is located took nine hours but was not particularly difficult. One major washout held us up for awhile but the passengers solved the problem by bunching together over the rear axle to give the wheels more traction. Upon our arrival, the Unit and I learned that our bus was the first to get through in several days. It was somewhat of an auspicious sign, we hoped.

The next day was spent hiking to Syabul, a small village of Tibetan character with a single row of lodges and homes straddling a sharp ridge with terraced rice paddies on either side. One narrow stone path zigzags its way between the buildings down the ridge. Just as there is no such thing as a flat walk in Nepal, Syabul was all up and down.

To see the real Nepal, you must abandon the steak sizzlers and happy-hour specials of the restaurants and bars in the capital city of Kathmandu. You should leave the roads, few as they are, behind and walk to the hilltop villages where there is no electricity and only natural plumbing. To get there you must follow the footsteps of the porters - short men (usually less than five feet tall) with wiry calves (like the twisted cables holding up suspension bridges) who typically wear ragged shorts and rubber flip-flops. These remarkable men carry loads that I cannot even pick up on their backs, secured by a tump line stretched across their forehead. When you get to the village, you may see, depending on the resident ethnic minority, Hindu women in scarlet saris or Buddhist ladies with their striped aprons. Always there are many children, often carrying the babies of their families on their backs. Syabul was such a place.

The weather pattern of the monsoons revealed itself that day. High clouds greeted us at dawn, brightened to a thin overcast around 9 AM and then thickened to heavy overcast by noon. The early morning fog in the valleys rose in layers to join the clouds for an afternoon party of intermittent precipitation. At night it rained heavily so that the trails remained muddy and slippery the next morning. Nevertheless it felt good to leave camera and journal behind and let my curiosity roam irresponsibly. I felt good about the large umbrella I purchased in Dhunche. Bargaining for one-third off while standing in the rain is not easy.

In Syabul the Unit and I learned that a portion of the usual lowland route to Bamboo, the next stop on our trek up the valley, had recently washed into the Langtang River. In fact, two of Bamboo's four lodges had disappeared at the same time. Our lodge owner carefully pointed out a new temporary trail on the far side of the valley that climbed up to join an old highland route to Bamboo.

As we walked past the last lodge in Syabul the next morning, its owner confronted us.

"You have guide?" He asked.

"No, we don't need one." I replied.

"I think you will have trouble."

Trouble found us 15 minutes later in the form of an ugly washout directly across the trail. It was not big - maybe 20 meters across but it was steep - probably 45 degrees in the middle but at least 60 degrees on either end with a long drop to the bottom. The earth had slid away, leaving a smooth slab of rock ten feet below the edge of the trail. The center of the chute was still in flux with thin slurry flowing downhill. Occasionally pebbles and small stones would come rattling down as well. If you dropped down into the chute and moved quickly and, if none of the meager clumps of muck gave way underfoot, you could probably get across but it was definitely dicey.

The Unit said NO so we scouted the vegetation for a way around. This is where I met the leeches I described earlier. Their presence became more problematic when we joined the new trail because it was only a thin line through a waist-high meadow of green. Despite this we enjoyed the wildflowers, especially the small lavender orchids which were quite common, and the panoramic views of near and far valleys and ridges.

Note: after we detoured around the avalanche chute, I returned to photograph it with the Unit's underwater point-and-shoot camera. As I stood on the lip, a beachball-sized boulder hurtled down unexpectedly. As it passed by me, it bounced chest high. Had I been crossing the chute (which I would likely had done if I had been on my own), I would surely have been killed. Thanks to the Unit's reticence, my life was saved. I am not joking.

The old trekking route high on the shoulder of the ridge passed through forests of pine, rhododendron, and alder. Since Nepali trails often prefer going straight up instead of using switchbacks, there were also steps of rough-cut stone. The ubiquitous moisture created an environment that reminded the Unit and I of the cloud forest we admired so much on the Inca Trail in Peru. Going uphill was very slow because the Unit gets paranoid on slippery surfaces.

By noon we reached the nose of the ridge, marked by a prayer pole and small stupa, and began our descent down the south wall of the Langtang River gorge. The going was even rougher so our progress became slower. Several times the trail traversed a vertical cliff on rough steps only a couple feet wide. At other times water ran down the trail from numerous small streams that had overflowed. Complicating everything was overhanging foliage that hid footing because, until recently, the trail had been rarely used. Never have I appreciated a ski pole at full extension more fully.

Being on a trail not shown on my map presented worries. Would there be a turnoff to Bamboo? Or would we wander off high in the fog and rain? At 1 PM we reached the point of no return. The Unit and I had been hiking since 7 AM and committed ourselves to finding Bamboo.

The valley wall was concave, which meant it got steeper as we went lower. Pockets of bright green bamboo alternated with dark stands of moss-draped trees. Long, slender waterfalls dotted the other side of the valley. On our side the streams became more vigorous as well with one mini-waterfall soaking us to the crotch as we crossed. By 2 PM we reached a signed trail junction, which indicated that we had joined the original riverside trail to Bamboo. The Unit and I felt good.

Fifteen minutes later the smooth wide trail disappeared into the foaming whitewater of the Langtang River. The Unit and I felt bad. The clouds, which had been congregating on the upper slopes, immediately descended and began raining on us. The Unit and I felt worse.

I walked down to where the trail had been swallowed by the river to take a picture. As I lined up the shot in the viewfinder, I spotted a building upstream. It was Bamboo! However, between it and me lay a hundred meters of huge boulders and extremely tangled riverbottom foliage. We bushwhacked in the rain and scrambled precariously over the boulders with the turbulent river by our shoulders. Someone had laid a few poles and boards in strategic points but it was ugly. By the time I reached the lodge, I was swearing in a loud voice.

"This trail is too dangerous for tourists!" I hollered at the Nepalese workers cleaning up the debris from a destroyed lodge.

Finally out of the rain in the remaining lodge by the river, we stripped off our wet clothes, ate hot noodle soup, and worked on our leech situation. The Langtang River roared past - a powerful mass of Class 6+ whitewater. I saw standing waves equal to my height. The soggy, misty surroundings reminded me of a Tarzan movie set.

The Unit and I elected not to stay in the lodge by the river because its beds had no mattresses. A second lodge on slightly higher ground behind the first did have mattresses so we moved our packs there. Then we ordered food: dull baht for dinner from the lodge where we were staying and Tibetan bread for breakfast from the lodge by the river. We always try to spread out our contribution to the local economy.

Bamboo is - make that was - a cluster of four lodges at the junction of the Langtang River and a significant tributary from the Gosinkind lakes high in the park. The lodges were located on a rare section of flat ground just below the point where the tributary flowed into the river at a right angle. The bank of the tributary on the lodge side sloped down toward the lodges and was anchored by several huge boulders the size of small houses. Three lodges had originally been located alongside the river. Only one remained by the time the Unit and I arrived. There is a reason why I am going into such detail. Read on.

I was concerned about the tributaries we would have to cross upstream from Bamboo. When you travel in the valley as opposed to high on the ridges, the nature of water crossings becomes more unpredictable. My map showed three big ones before we reached the bridge over the Langtang River itself. The workers at Bamboo said that bridge was intact but that the tributary behind our lodge had recently gone berserk. I decided to have a look.

Instead of a bubbling stream maybe five to ten meters across with strategically-placed rocks for crossing it, I found a gaping chasm at least 50 feet deep and a hundred feet wide. Sitting squarely in the middle was a huge boulder the size of an automobile garage. Obviously a very large volume of water had recently passed through, carving away the banks and ripping down trees. Muddy brown water continued to spill down the middle, too swift and deep for wading. Debris was strewn everywhere and the carnage did not appear to be over.

"End of this hike." I told the Unit. "We'll have to do a 180 tomorrow."

Backtracking the tricky overgrown trail that had taken us eight hours to cover was not a pleasant thought. At least we had seen the route, however, and knew we could do it if we went slowly and carefully. This is always a prerequisite for a woman who broke an ankle in Zaire on our last trip abroad, had to be evacuated in an ambulance with a severely twisted ankle on this trip in Turkey, and underwent major knee reconstruction in between the two trips. What we didn't know at that point was that the undesirable could turn into the unthinkable. Keep reading.

As I lay in our room awaiting dinner, I suddenly noticed a substantial increase in the ambient noise level. It sounded like a jumbo jet was taxiing nearby. The noise from the river roared before but did not impair conversation. Now you had to shout to be heard above it. Looking out the window I observed that the Nepalese workman had all walked over to the mouth of the tributary. Nervously I began to collect my gear. When I looked out again, the Nepalese were pointing excitedly at the big boulders on the bank of the tributary directly uphill behind my lodge.

I told the Unit to pack up and went outside. Suddenly everyone began running away from the tributary toward some big rocks near my lodge. I shouted back into the lodge:

"Let's go, Sue! We have to get out of here!"

She ran out in a state of confusion, half-dressed.

"Where are your boots and sleeping bag?"

She ran back in. As I watched the local people spill out of the lodge by the river and sprint for high ground, I freaked and let adrenaline take over.

"Now, Sue, now! Get out now!"

The Unit emerged in a panic and we scrambled onto a large rock maybe ten feet high. A dozen Nepalese huddled there, mesmerized by the scene in front of us.

The river was now brown instead of white and had risen five feet so that it was lapping at the door of the nearest lodge. Standing waves, whirlpools, and a small island in the middle were gone, replaced by raging waters that flowed fast and straight. My mouth was dry, my elbows felt weak and my stomach went hollow. Everyone was shocked by what was happening so quickly.

After 15 minutes a few people ran back to their lodge, myself included, to gather forgotten possessions. Too afraid to use the toilet, I squatted behind the lodge. Suddenly the trees along the near bank of the tributary began to shudder and disappear. I stood up immediately and ran for the rock where the others had taken refuge.

The Unit and I decided our rock wasn't safe enough so we hacked out a path up the hill behind it. Then we sat down to see what was going to happen. What happened is that the Nepalese workers gathered their packs and began crawling across the boulders leading down the river. I slid down and asked the last two men why they leaving.

"Something terrible is about to happen!" He yelled.

(to be continued...)

Copyright © 2001-2005 Jet City Jimbo. All rights reserved.