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Theme: Exploring The Heights - III Hiking Route: Kanakot to Chitlang Bhanjyang to Thankot Date: Sunday, November 23, 2008 Hike Coordinator: SirisB Participants: BhaskarB, BhaskarS, MaheshR, NirajS, PrajwalS, SirisB, RudraP; LavaK Photos: PrajwalS, BhaskarS Caption: BhaskarB, SirisB Report: Team (See Below) Creative Support:Dijup Tuladhar / Ganesh Thapa Mystic Rhythms And The Morning Light – SirisB "Hike the grooves of mountains and get their good tidings and notice nature's peace flowing into you as sunshine flows into trees, the winds blowing their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares of morning water drops skid on the winter leaves". Yes, this hiking was indeed a good experience to getting close to nature. One cannot explain that you need to know why the trees are still there, and the hills and the sky? Anyway and anyone knows they are. On the other end, how can you say it is time your pulse responded to anther rhythm of the day and the season instead of the hour and the minute? No-one can explain. So you walk, hike and feel the rhythm of the day. Five hours of climb and three hours of descend definitely felt really well after its completion. This was one of the toughest hikes of all! Although at first a thought of discouragement tended to reside over me, but the achievement and the fun to breath the air of attainment made my day. Brief Recollections - BhaskarB This was one of the most enjoyable climbs and I would surely recommend this route to some of my foreign friends living in the valley who head out regularly. It never ceases to amaze me that despite how many places we’ve been to (around the valley), there are these gems lying around. The valley below Bahune Kanakot was a surprise. You would never think such a valley exists on the right side when driving to Noubise from Kathmandu. It was very interesting to hear Rudra’s past-times while growing up in the area. The tea at Masine was horrible, could not take more than a sip (even that I spit it out). The twenty minutes of nap at the Thali was just too good – something that I love doing – walk up non-stop and sleep in the sun. After getting to Chitlang Bhanjyang, the route to Kulekhani was enticing and personally was ready to take on that challenge if collective agreement had prevailed. The descent seemed way too shorter than the last trip. Time well managed – eight hours of non-stop hiking and back to cozy comfort of home before six. Decoy – NirajS I knew that this hike is not going to be an easy one as Rudra explained to me. Two weeks back I did a trek to Gosaikunda, so I thought I can handle this hike and agreed to be part of this hike. Our good friend Mr. Bhaskar Shrestha - who never had more than 4 hours hike in his entire life was quite reluctant to be part of this hike. But Siris and I somehow managed to convince him that this is going to be just-like-that hike and agreed to join us. It was a decoy :-). When we started to climb the mountain he was really mad at us but eventually he did pretty well. It’s not easy to catch up with pro-hikers like Bhaskar B and Rudra. The hike was really very tough and after 8 hours of ups and downs we completed the hike. Especially when going down it really took our nerves. But after a final descent we gave a look at the huge mountain that we climbed, we thought it was quite an achievement and fulfilling experience. And at the end of the day it was yet another beeeeeeessssssssst (copyright: Kapil Pandey) hike. Ghosts of Kanakot laid to rest - PrajwalS Challenge Some of the hikes are easy and some are difficult ones. Well, when we measure the difficulty level of any hiking route, we probably measure the steepness and the time taken to complete the route. Another reason if we miss the actual trail, and get lost in the jungle, then we will definitely end up taking more time. When it comes to tough hiking, Kanakot to Thankot is the hike that pops out from our circle of friends. I have heard many stories ( Dead Man's story)of this challenging route and today is the day, I am on the mark to take off this challenging trail. Refer: http://www.everestuncensored.org/822/2006/12/18/dead-mans-voice/ The Steep Beginning After reaching Kanakot, we started hiking from the base of Mahendra Highway. The hiking was not easy from the beginning. The hike just inclined at 75 degrees or more and we had to move on jumping across the fields. Some times I needed a helping hand to pull me up. As the group consisted of regular and non-regular hikers, the team slowly began to form two groups. I was moving with the leading group. The sun was low and weather was good; so the steep hiking didn't do much damage for us. Rudra dai showed us his village, and described stories about the place. As we hiked higher, the buses plying on the highway were becoming smaller and the himalayan range and the valley were becoming clearer. To the Neupane Chaur This hike was some of a kind different to other hikes. With no trail moving downwards, we were hiking higher and higher. Having kind of gossips on the way, we talked about topic ranging from 'increasing human life span' to 'next technological revolution' . Bhaskar Dai was eager to see the new era of Magnetism replacing the current Electrical age. Definitely, alternative energy remains the emerging topic of todays technological revolution. We reached Neupane Chaur after a three and half hours of continuous hike. There we waited for our friends patiently and enjoyed different fancy junk foods to quench our hunger. The other group arrived after 45 minutes. The Descend Descending was quite tough compared to the ascending hike. With leaf thorns hurting our bare hands and legs, we walked through the jungle trail in search of the main trail. Fighting thorny bushes, we finally found the main highway that leads to Kulekhani and Thankot. We followed the main trail to Thankot taking some shortcuts on the way. At five, we reached Rani pauwa. Hiking is a team effort, and with wonderful and able hiking partners, the notion of Kanakot tough hiking subsided and turned out to be a memorable and exuberant hike. Multifaceted Experience - MaheshR Hiking with Rudra Dai was of course supposed to be tough, and the route to Kanakot Hike, to be even tougher. So, we were all prepared to complete the mission kanakot with all the enthusiasm. Just the following day of NovaFest-2008, eight enthusiastic hikers including myself started our mission exactly at 8:30 am. The place where we started from, was one of the place on the Mahendra Highway near by Naubise. As per expectation, the initial moments of hike were really tough and with very less trails.But all of we were amazed when we reached a peak.Oh! that was the moment of total complacency. Jackets and trousers were totally caught by the thrones of the shrubs (i.e Kuros) on the way but we can never forget the moment when we succeeded despite of those things. Leaving behind those Kuros, we reached a place, just about starting with the jungle, from where the beauty of small village 'Kanakot' could be explored. After a little rest there, we enjoyed the natural beauty of mountain ranges and the zig-zag highway towards Naubise. Lava's humour, Bhaskars’ philosophy, Siris's politeness ,Niraj's smile,BhaskarS’s excitement ,Rudra's experience, Prajwal's silence were the varieties among us and that didn't let us feel bored or tired throughout the jaunt. Finally, we reached a small tea shop and after a cup of black tea there, we again started to walk discussing, lets not say discussing, listening the story of Lava. The place is named 'Masine', and later we came to know that this was the place from where Late king Prithivi Narayan shah used to observe Kathmandu Valley before conquering it. Might be because we were comprised of regular hikers or non hikers, in a short time, we had two groups each comprised of four.The first group (Rudra,Bhaskar,myself and Prajwal) were quite ahead than the others. We then reached the place called Nenupane's Chautari, where we chatted a little bit, listened the to Rudra's family chronology (i.e his foregrandfather was an army, his childhood over there and so on), and had a short photo session. Others finally reached to us and commented that the hiking trail was really tough and steep. And then, shortly, we started with discussion on the NovaFest. Discussing positives and negatives of the Fest, we left the other group and headed towards the peak of Chandragiri. Finally we touched the peak of Chandragiri in 3 hours where we enjoyed a bit of junk foods we had been carrying so long and took sun bath waiting for the lagging group. Another group reached there after 1 hour. We then all getting together enjoyed delicious lunch and the bhogate BhaskarB was carrying all the way. Though we completed the mission of reaching the peak and exploring the height, we had still a long way to go to Chitlang and then finally to Thankot. So, with full confidence we descended downwards observing the wide view of dense Kathmandu valley and reached the base of Thankot in about another 3 hours.

01 First steps, rising up	02 Rudra's ancient home
03 Valley below Bahune Kanakot	04 Fixing the grinder
05 Our tea-spot at Masine	06 Tolling of the bells
06a Childhood tree	07 Climbing down
08 Tauko sano cha	09 Uh oh, climbing down may be tough
10 Job well done and resting	11 LavaK explains
12 Yes that was tough ...	13 But look I'm fine!
15 Down and out	16 Lava's explanations never cease
17	18 . . .
19 Bhogate time	20 I think I got it right this time
21 Group 2	22 Group 1
23 Serpentine - Highway to Naubise	24
25	26 Roxi
27 Is that fish he's holding on to	28 Use for preliminary screening at D2
29 Cover	30
31 Mahesh	32
33	34
35 Standing out	36 Marigold for Kathmanduites
37	38
39 Leading at the front	40 Distant bird
41 Towards the Thali	42 Rudra contemplates
43 Mahesh pastlife association near Thali	44 Prey or predator
45 Bush trudging	46 The team - Take I
47 The team - Take II	48 Darkness, darkness
49 At Chitlang Bhanjyang	50 Looking down to Thankot from Chitlang Bhanjyang
52 Bhalakusari