SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019
BACKPACKER.COM 91Clockwise from top: Passing a chorten on the way to
the village of Nar, at more than 13,000 feet; crossing a
suspension bridge over the Nar Khola on day one;
prayer flags and mani stones line the approach to the
monastery at Phu.
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nepal2020.packed into jeeps and made the dusty drive down the mountain, all
three schools were nearly finished. And All Hands and Hearts had
just confirmed that they’d be back again this fall, to start work on
more schools in a new area. BACKPACKER will be back, too.O
F COURSE, WE WEREN’T going to travel all the way to
Nepal without going on a hike. After volunteering, we
embarked on a weeklong trek in the Nar Phu Valley, near
the Annapurna Range. For decades, Nar Phu was closed to
foreign visitors, and it’s just now becoming developed as a trekking des-
tination with teahouses. The valley once served as a salt-trading route
between Nepal and Tibet, which is just a dozen or so miles away as the
bird f lies, and is home to centuries-old Buddhist monasteries.
After another all-day bus-and-jeep journey, our team, plus guides
and porters, arrived at the trailhead in Koto, a small roadside town
on the Annapurna Circuit. While that famous route has become both
overdeveloped and overcrowded, we entered another world in the
Nar Phu Valley. The transition was immediate: We crossed a swing-
ing bridge over the Marsyangdi River and then didn’t see another
trekker for three days. Over the next week, we encountered only two
other groups. That suited us just fine, as we’d jelled into a tight-knit
crew—complete with trail names—while digging and painting, and
we started the trek feeling like a championship team.
That was ironic, because the first day almost defeated us. The trail
ascended 13 miles up a forested river valley, often crossing slopes
where spring snow lingered. A misstep would have been disastrous.
But it wasn’t all a grind. When the trail passed behind a 20-foot cur-
tain waterfall, some of us scooted through three times. And nobody
was complaining when we reached the upper valley, with views of
Annapurna II and its 26,000-foot, ice- and rock-encrusted face.
The plan was to spend a week touring the valley, then cross a
17,000-foot pass to end the trek. But mountains don’t care about
plans. In Meta, the first village we stayed at, a conversation with
the locals confirmed what we already suspected: There was still too
much snow up high. Ka ng La Pa ss couldn’t be crossed.
We’d have to adapt. As every hiker knows, changing plans to suit
conditions is the very essence of alpine travel —and like mixing
cement by hand when the generator quits, it’s disappointing but can
offer unforeseen rewards. So we altered our route to avoid the pass.
Our new itinerary pushed our arrival in Phu, the valley’s most
remote village, later in the week than we’d planned. Phu’s stone
buildings are clustered on a hill at 13,400 feet. Save for terraced
fields below the village, the surrounding terrain is all rock and snow.
At the teahouse where we were staying, we learned that our new
route might have delayed our arrival in Phu, but it put us there at the
perfect moment: the village’s Buddhist monastery would be holding
a special new moon puja, or ceremony, the next day. So under a blue
sky we walked uphill, past scores of prayer f lags and mani stones. As
we approached the hilltop complex, I couldn’t help admiring the con-
struction with the eye of someone who had just been working on a site
that wasn’t 30 miles from the nearest road.
In the monastery’s courtyard, monks ate noodles in preparation for
the all-day ceremony. Then everybody filed into the dim room and sat
on cushions spread around two long, low tables, with overf low squeez-
ing around the perimeter. A young woman served yak butter tea.
The monks started chanting, and occasionally a dozen men and
women from the v i l la ge joined the sing ing. We cou ldn’t understa nd
a word, but that didn’t matter. I closed my eyes and listened to the
rise and fall of voices. I knew this same sound had been heard here
for centuries. I thought about how abandoning the pass had felt like
a blow just a few days earlier, but now it felt like a blessing.
On the long hike out, I realized that if our volunteer work in
Sindhuli and our time in Nar Phu had taught us anything, it’s that
there’s more than one way to do the right thing.