Travel Day 1017 – Extended Langtang Trek, NEPAL
08/15 LangtangVillage to Kyanjin Gompa (3870) and Chyadang
We were already off to our final stop on the Langtang Trek, Kyanjin Gompa, and from tomorrow on we would be already walking back through the valley, the same way that we had come…
Walking beyond Kyanjin Gompa, Nepal
For me personally this circumstance was another downside of the Langtang Valley Trek, that one had to go back and forth on the same path, instead of walking in a circle. This was one of the reasons why Basecamp Treks for Everest or Annapurna had not much appeal to me in the first place. Naturally one would see the same nature, the same views and the same villages again, instead of seeing something new. Plus walking back had a different feel to it than walking forward, at least in my mind…
Luckily the Langtang Trek was a very short trek and since the walk downhill was supposed to be much quicker, we would potentially only walk the same path for hopefully less than two days. Still, there had been a few thoughts of criticism of this part of our trek already and this was just simply adding one more thought to it. The fact that after two hours of walk in the morning, Kyanjin Gompa turned out to be a complete tourist town without any local village, didn’t help the effort either…
Nature and Yaks beyond Kyanjin Gompa
So after settling-in a somewhat decent guesthouse and enjoying some lunch, we did the best thing with our remaining time we could think of: We went for a long exploration walk further into the valley. Judging by the map, it seemed that there were not many local villages beyond Kyanjin Gompa, but we saw a sign for a lookout, about three hours of walking away, from where it was supposed to be possible to see the three different glaciers and we made that our target for the afternoon…
Once we started walking, the weather turned into somewhat drizzling rain, which made the walk across a rocky slope feel seemingly endless. This slope must have functioned as some sort of a river bed during monsoon season for waters coming from the mountains since there was no vegetation to be seen, but for us, to balance while walking on the stones was quite a painfully slow process. Luckily once we crossed the rocky slope, we found ourselves in complete wilderness…
Deserted Landscape by Chyadang, Nepal
It was actually strangely bizarre how remote and untouched the Langtang Valley was beyond the point of Kyanjin Gompa. It almost felt as if we were the first humans setting foot on this territory and so this experience finally allowed us to catch a glimpse of how the Langtang Trek must have been originally. There was just wind, nature, yaks roaming around, grazing and sometimes even an occasional horse looking for some greens to eat. It was simply amazing and needed to be fully enjoyed…
All of a sudden we felt hundreds of miles away from all the guesthouses and the tourists of the trail and we really enjoyed the walk through seemingly untouched nature. In fact, this part of our Langtang Trek felt so rewarding that it seemed to make all the efforts of getting here worth while. Even the fact that we never reached the lookout point to see the glaciers, didn’t really matter any more. For us the two and a half hours of walking through the nature to the little stone shelter place of Chyadang certainly became the highlight of the day and we were still talking about it until we went to bed…
Find all Day 08 – to Kyanjim Gompa Photos here.
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