Surya Peak 5145 m/ 16,879′
International– Nepal
Total Time: Just over 48 hours
Distance: 49.0 km / 30.5 miles
Elevation Gain: 4510 meters /14,800′
Crux: Class 3
Trailhead: Dhunche, full services
An unexpected 4 day weekend for Tihar gave me the perfect opportunity to acclimate for Mera Peak. After hours of scouring maps of Nepal, I decided on the Gosaikunda Lakes Trek in Langtang National Park, leading to a series of sacred lakes over 4000 meters in height, where Lord Shiva’s trident was said to strike into the earth, leading to their creation. While it is quite popular as a pilgrimage with both Hindus and Buddhists in the warmer months when bathing in the glacial water cleanses them of their sins, it is much less popular with tourists than the main trail through Langtang Valley. Just above the lakes is a series of unnamed 15,000’ and 16,000’ peaks, with a single obscure summit named Surya Peak at 5145 meters. For a website dedicated to climbing random and obscure peaks, what could be better than bagging a big(ish) Himalayan summit that no one has ever heard of? The main problem was getting there. Although the trailhead was only about 30 miles away by a straight line, it was a minimum 6 hour drive due to horrible roads, made even worse by the devastating earthquake of 2015, with the Langtang region being hit the hardest. The guide I was using for Mera Peak was kind enough to help me book a bus ticket for Dhunche, the starting point for the Gosaikunda trek. He was doubtful I would even make it to the lakes with only two days of dedicated trekking, the other two tied up with transportation. There would be no point in even sharing my plan of Surya Peak.
I’ve traveled enough abroad to know to give myself extra time for everything. But I should have known that even an extra 30 minutes would not have been enough as I entered the pure chaos that is the Kathmandu bus park. Rows of unmarked buses lined the streets, with vendors waving fruits, snacks and bottles of water in my face as I tried to force my way through wall to wall people. There was no one wearing any sort of official uniform, so I grabbed someone loitering next to a parked bus to see if they could help me. He glanced at my ticket and informed me that no one bothered to write in the bus number on it, which would be the only way for him to point me in the right direction. I barreled through the crowd, knocking people aside with my full backpack to push to the front of the line at the ticket counter. Breathless, I pointed to the blank spot on my ticket where a bus number should be. There was a single person working the counter of this very busy bus park, a cigarette loosely hanging from his mouth, talking on a cell phone as dozens of others screamed at him. He barely looked at me and jotted down a number from memory, handed the ticket back without a word, and directed his attention to the next angry customer. Armed with a bus number, I started looking at the corresponding license plates that I was supposed to match. I quickly realized this was an exercise in futility, as the license plates were in Nepali characters, their numbers looking just different enough to be undecipherable. I ran back to the first man with a look of desperation, and he walked me 3 buses down to the bus headed for Dhunche. The driver looked at my ticket, nodded when I asked “Dhunche?” and I scrambled aboard to find my seat. It was 7:50 with an 8:00 departure, and I was one of three people on the bus. I’ve also traveled enough to know nothing is ever on time.
I breathed a sigh of relief and settled into my seat as passengers loaded on, a group of college aged trekkers sitting next to me, assuring me that I was indeed on the correct bus. I was in the back row, and although the bus had set seats, the last row was more like a bench going all the way across. Two young Nepali teenagers tried to squeeze into one seat, which squished the entire back row. One of the college aged trekkers lost his temper on them, telling them to move. It wasn’t their fault, their tickets both had them in that seat, as many of these buses are purposefully overbooked. But he wouldn’t stop complaining until one of them sat on the floor, where he would remain for the entire 7 hour bus ride. He and I would not become fast friends. Pulling out of Kathmandu, we were immediately in stand still traffic. Our driver killed the engine at a stand-still less than 30 minutes from the bus park, vendors using this as an opportunity to come aboard and try and sell bottles of water and snacks to the stranded travelers. We sat in place for about 45 minutes before moving again, never seeing a reason for the stoppage in traffic when we finally rolled on. Although the trailhead was to the northwest of Kathmandu, we initially headed southwest, aiming for a pass out of the valley that was mostly paved, a rarity in the area. We climbed out of the city for some time until reaching a pass and started down hill into the next valley, with Langtang Peak looming directly ahead. Our driver pulled off at a rest stop for our first break, 2 hours into the journey and barely out of the city. They were serving chow mein at the rest stop directly next to the toilets, and to be fair, rest stop chow mein will get you sick anywhere, let alone Nepal. I was about to buy a bag of chips, then realized I was being silly and would be eating out of tiny kitchens with questionable cleanliness in the high mountains for the next few days anyways. I bought the fried noodles, and they were damn good for $1.50. Back on the bus, our driver drove the switchbacks downhill aggressively, passing cars and motorbikes on blind curves with enthusiastic honking to alert any oncoming traffic that a deluxe bus was whipping around the corner in their lane. When the switchbacks were mercifully over, we hooked north towards Bidur, and the road deteriorated quickly. In the US, this would be a road with a sign saying “4WD High Clearance Only.” Yet we were headed down the rough and rocky path, along with every other motorbike and low slung sedan willing to brave the road. When I was researching how to book a bus ticket in Kathmandu, Lonely Planet’s Nepal gave a statistic that you were more than 30 times more likely to die in a transportation related incident in Nepal than a developed country. 30. Times. I had that statistic in mind as we slowly climbed on to a shelf over an icy glacial river. I was in the back left corner of the bus, directly over the tire. And since one drives on the left in Nepal, I was looking directly down the cliff into the river, the road devoid of guard rails and looking like another landslide could take us into the water at any minute. I could see the dust from the churning rear tire drift over the edge 100s of feet down to the river below.
My wife will tell you I’m a horrible passenger and back seat driver. But this was honestly the most afraid I’ve been in a long time. The road was rough, and large bumps would send our center of gravity tilting towards the cliff edge, our driver trying to strike the balance of getting us there at a reasonable time and keeping us all alive. We hit bumps so hard that I struck my head on the ceiling and broke the plastic. Twice. This got a good laugh from the trekker that made the Nepali boy sit on the floor. I really did not like him. The rest of the ride, I clutched the hand bar so hard it could have been considered a hangboard workout. The bus became stifling hot as the sun grew higher. I looked up to flip open a vent above my head for some air, and a cup of dust fell into my open mouth. This was not quite the adventure I was looking for.
We reached the town of Bidur at around noon, the road momentarily better. On the maps, we were barely halfway with 4 hours of driving. After another short break, we started aggressively switchbacking uphill towards Dhunche, the road thankfully paved until we leveled off at a military checkpoint. A Nepali soldier hopped aboard, seemed content that we weren’t Maoist Revolutionists, and let us continue on without much fuss. While Dhunche looked like a straight shot on the map, the final stretch was actually the worst bit of road for the entire route, with road conditions that I would hesitate to even take my Subaru on.
It was about 3 PM when we finally reached a checkpoint just before the town of Dhunche, and we were all forced to get off and purchase a park ticket to Langtang National Park. I was annoyed that it wasn’t directly in town, since I now had to wait for everyone on the bus to get their tickets. Thirty minutes later, we all got back on the bus, and hit yet another checkpoint less than a mile down the road, where we all needed to show proof of the park ticket we bought minutes prior. We were now at the west end of Dhunche, with the trail taking off from the east end. I asked the driver if I should just get out here for Gosaikunda, but he seemed very confused, mumbling something about going farther. Indeed, the final destination of the bus was the town of Shyaphru Besi, the trailhead for the main Langtang Valley hike, and probable destination of all the other trekkers on the bus, aside from the group of college aged kids that I overhead talking about Gosaikunda and the ‘frozen lakes.’ I had my eye on my GPS as we whipped past the trailhead, and I jumped up to tell the driver to stop. Incredibly, there was yet another military checkpoint halfway through town. I jumped off the bus and pulled my bag out from underneath. I had a crisis of conscience when I realized the group in the back should be getting off too for Gosaikunda. Then I remembered the young man laughing when I cracked my head on the ceiling and making the Nepali boy sit on the floor. ‘I’m sure they’ll enjoy Shyaphru Besi,’ I thought to myself smugly, and turned on my heel as the engine kicked to life and the bus rolled down the hill and out of sight.
The Nepali soldier at the checkpoint jogged over to me, asking to see the park pass that I had now shown 3 times.
“Are you single?” he asked.
“No, I’m married,” I replied, a bit confused.
Equally confused, he responded, “No, are you trekking alone?”
“Oh, yeah,” I laughed, a little embarrassed.
“How far do you plan to go tonight?” he asked.
“Deurali,” I replied, which was the first small town on the trail at 2600 meters, about 600 meters above the elevation of Dhunche. He seemed content with that answer, nodded his head in approval and let me on my way.
It was already 4:15PM with sunset around 5:30. I had hoped to reach Sing Gompa at 3300 meters for several reasons. First, it would save a ton of elevation (1300 meters, or about 4,300’) that I wouldn’t have to hike the following day. Second, it would get me well above the valley floor where the cold air tends to sink at night, and hopefully be a bit warmer. Third, and I can’t emphasize how big of a factor this one was, is that Sing Gompa has a small Yak Cheese production plant, and presumably every tea house in town would have an endless supply of super fresh yak cheese. So I had yak cheese on the brain as I hiked up the valley towards Gosaikunda, following the river originating from the lakes high above. I passed over a pretty cool suspension bridge early on, then hit an isolated tea house early on along the river. It was closed for the season, but a sign indicated that Deurali was another 2 hours away, which would put me there at 6:30.
Since I didn’t need to pitch a tent or make dinner, there was no reason I couldn’t hike a bit in the dark, and thought hiking until 6:30 or 7 PM was completely reasonable, even though hiking alone, in the dark, in Nepal, sounds a bit sketchy on paper. I passed a small farm, and three small children ran out yelling “Namaste, namaste!” as I strode past.
“Namaste!” I responded. And they giggled with joy. The young girl mumbled something unintelligible (to me) in Nepalese.
“Sorry I don’t know that one,” I responded.
In the best English she could muster, she stammered “Do you have cho-o-late?”
Although adorable, my chocolate and candy rations were empty, and I had to break the children’s hearts as I pressed onwards. As I started up the dusty switchbacks above the river heading for Deurali, I passed another tea house that wasn’t on my map.
The owner was standing outside, and yelled, “Where are you going?” clearly thinking I should stop there for the night.
“Deurali!” I yelled back without breaking stride. This seemed acceptable to him, and he nodded and let me continue on my way as I climbed higher. At around 2400 meters, I passed an old man taking his cows for an afternoon walk.
“Deurali?” he asked, with a knowing smile. I nodded in agreement. That guy gets me.
I closed in on a few other hikers just before reaching Deurali, presumably having all arrived on an earlier bus. I was a little surprised when I reached the single lodge that is Deurali, rolling in at 5:30 and a full hour ahead of the projected time from the sign by the river. The tea house owner began ushering in the other hikers for the night and I crept past, determined to at least reach the next set of tea houses in Dhimsa. Once out of sight of the lodge, I took off my pack and put on my headlamp, the thick forest blocking out what little light remained. In my mind Dhimsa was at 2800 meters, roughly 600’ above Deurali. In reality, it was at 3100 meters, which meant another 1600’ of elevation gain. I was blissfully unaware of this as I charged ahead in the darkness. I’m still not sure how it’s possible, but I climbed that 1600’ of gain in the dark in 45 minutes and hit Dhimsa at 6:15. It was at that time that I realized I was 200 meters higher than I expected, and Sing Gompa was only another 200 meters higher at 3300. The dream of yak cheese dinner was again a reality, with a sign near the lodge stating ‘Sing Gompa- 1 hour.’ The tea house owner ran out, asking where I was going, now nearly an hour after dark.
“Sing Gompa!” I yelled as I hiked past.
“No, it’s too far!” he responded, shocked that I would continue past in the dark.
“No it isn’t!” I responded, and was gone before he could say another word. Nothing could keep me from my cheesy Shangri-La.
After a few more switchbacks, the trail began to level off at 3300 meters and traverse the slopes to the east to Sing Gompa, the largest town on the trail. I heard Sing Gompa before I saw it. There was a small military base at the edge of the small town, and the soldiers were drunk and running around the town singing and dancing for Tihar. As I reached the town at 7PM (over 4,000’ of gain in 2:45!), complete with 4 different tea houses, I made it a point to select one far from the loud military base, and chose the Hotel Red Panda on the east side of town. The hotel was even nicer than I expected (complete with a Western toilet!) and I was warmly greeted by the owner and given my own room, essentially free as long as I ate there. Although it was far from full, there were a number of European groups staying there, and I went to the common dining area to order dinner. I had a hot ginger-lemon-honey and bowl of garlic soup, both warming me up and rehydrating me from the steep ascent. For my yak cheese fix, I ordered fried potato spuds covered in shredded yak cheese. It was definitely worth pissing off every tea house owner on the way up. As I was finishing dinner, the rowdy soldiers had made their way to our lodge, and were singing outside the front door. I suppose it’s custom for the owner of the house or lodge to bring out an offering to the singers on this holiday, and the owner brought out a tray of snacks and small bills while we all looked on. It honestly seemed very similar to trick or treating. One soldier spotted me taking a video and pulled me into their circle to join in on the fun. Sadly, altitude does not have the same positive impact on my dance moves as alcohol, and I pulled myself away from the action as quickly as I could, not feeling like dancing at nearly 11,000’. Once they had moved on to the next lodge, I headed to bed. I wasn’t sure if I should be alarmed or amused by the bat fluttering around the sub-room leading to my bedroom. So I split the difference and quickly slipped into my room, shutting the door behind me before it could fly in, hopeful that I could get some meaningful sleep at nearly 11,000’.
I let myself sleep in after getting so far the day before. But thanks to a hacking cough from one of the Belgians in the room above me, I was still up at 6:30. I had a breakfast of chai and a yak cheese omelet before packing my things, paying for the food and stay (~$18 for a room, breakfast, dinner and two bottles of water) and heading on my way.
The town was smaller than I expected in the daylight, and I saw no yaks to thank for their bountiful cheese as I started out of town. The next small town on the trail was Chyolangpati at 3654 meters, roughly considered the halfway point between Dhunche and Gosaikunda Lakes. The trail rose onto a ridgeline and wove through a dense old growth pine tree forest. Through the trees, I had peek-a-boo glimpses of Langtang Peak and the Ganesh Himal behind me. I hit a clearing just before reaching the next town and stopped in my tracks, the full glory of Langtang Peak before me. At 7227 meters or ~23,700’, it was one of the largest peaks I’ve ever seen up close. I kept looking over my shoulder at the beautiful peak as I dropped into Chyolangpati, a small town with two tea houses split by the trail.
One of the owners was outside and flagged me down, asking if I wanted tea or a rest. But I had been hiking less than an hour and continued on. I had a feeling I was breaking convention passing over all of these towns without stopping for even a snack or short rest. But I was on a tight schedule, and needed to sacrifice convention for speed. The big trees around Chyolangpati quickly shriveled as I neared treeline around 3700 meters. Large pines were replaced by small snarled trees and prickly bushes, and I was soon above treeline entirely, with a full view of not only Langtang Peak, but the Ganesh Himal and Buddha Himal behind me. It was hard to continue hiking up the trail while constantly looking at the peaks behind me, but I reached the next town of Laurebina at 3900 meters rather quickly. This also had two teahouses, and again one of the owners stepped out asking me to stop for a rest and some tea. This town easily had the best views of any on the trail, and I promised her I’d stop in for lunch tomorrow.
Laurebina is loosely translated to “without stick,” with the most pious pilgrims climbing the next section of trail towards Gosaikunda without a walking stick. There’s no denying I’m a lost heathen, and aggressively used my two trekking poles up what was probably the steepest section of trail passing the 4000 meter threshold. I was definitely beginning to feel the altitude a bit, and was pretty excited when the trail abruptly leveled at around 4200 meters (~13,800’). The abrupt change in steepness was celebrated by a small shrine to Buddha, and I sat here for a small break, trying to catch my breath in the thin air.
Although the map showed the trail to be fairly level from there to Gosaikunda, it was actually fairly undulating, with more up and down than I care to recount. The map showed a strange pass along the way, which was actually a notch over a large cliff band that required one final short but steep ascent to reach. From the notch, I could see the small town of Gosaikunda at 4320 meters, and slogged the remaining distance to the first tea house.
“Please come in!” the owner of the first tea house yelled to me, and I slowly worked up the steps to greet him. “Are there many others behind you?” he asked.
“There’s a group of about 10 from Belgium,” I replied.
“Ah, yes. They have reservations to stay here tonight.”
I thought about the hacking cough that went through the night. “I think I’ll check out the other options,” I said, and walked across the trail to the Hotel Tibet.
I was the first one to check in for the day, and had another double room to myself. Being much further from town, this tea house was far more Spartan compared to the lodges in Sing Gompa, with the food prices being proportionately more the further we were from Dhunche. By the time I settled in, it was about 1:30 PM. I figured I didn’t have enough time to tag Surya Peak with the daylight I had left, but that I could continue along the trail to Laurebina Pass at 4610 meters or ~15,200’, following the old adage of ‘climb high, sleep low.’ I left the lodge as the trail dropped to Gosaikunda Lake, the largest of the roughly dozen alpine lakes in the basin. Near the inlet of the lake was an elaborate shrine for Shiva with hundreds of prayer flags, water streaming down from a smaller lake in a basin above.
I was definitely feeling the altitude as I followed the trail to the pass, my pace dropping to maintain a steady respiratory rate. I kept looking at the ridgeline above, trying to spot Surya Peak above the pass. I had read two trip reports on Surya and had seen photos of prayer flags and a plaque at the summit. I thought I spied some colored fabric flapping in the wind on a peak high above, and assumed that was probably my objective for the next day.
It was 3 PM when I reached the pass, clouds blocking much of the unknown view to the east, a single pyramidal white peak sticking out in the distance. There was a collection of peaks just under 5000 meters to the south, their northern slopes coated in snow and ice from lingering clouds.
After taking some photos and watching a cute pika run around an enormous rock cairn, I started back down the trail towards Gosaikunda, reaching the lodge a little after 4 PM. I changed into warm clothes and ordered dinner, getting the same combo of garlic soup and cheesy potatoes, this one being covered in a sauce that was probably left over from some other dish, but truly phenomenal. The wood burning stove at the center of the room hardly gave off enough heat for everyone crammed into the small space at 14,500’, but we crowded around the old black metal can like hoboes.
It was certainly interesting people watching, one young Nepali man playing Eddie Vedder covers on guitar, another British family speaking perfect Nepali, having worked for an NGO in Nepal for 20 years. With a huge day planned tomorrow I got ready for bed at 8 PM. There were no comforts of a western toilet, as I walked the creaky planks to the bathroom, a porcelain hole with the ground coated in a thin layer of frozen piss. I crawled into bed and pulled out a pulse oximeter I had brought up with me. My oxygen level read 78%. I rubbed my fingers vigorously, thinking the low reading may have been from the cold. 76%. I shut off the light and went to sleep.
I woke up to voices through the paper thin walls at 2:30 AM. I had surprisingly been asleep for a few hours despite the altitude, but the voices had awoken me an hour before my planned 3:30 departure. I felt fairly awake, and thought even if I did fall back asleep, I would just wake up groggy and confused in an hour. So, after 15 minutes of internal debate/ dreading leaving the warmth of the covers for the cold, I rolled out of bed and pulled on my hiking pants. I had packed everything the night before, and was out the door in 10 minutes, stepping into the night at 3:10 AM. It actually felt fairly warm stepping into the still, moonless night, and I slowly started up the trail. Although Surya Peak is not climbed very frequently, the traditional approach is to climb the basin at the head of the lake near the Shiva shrine, reaching a saddle along the ridgeline between the basin beneath Surya Peak and an unnamed 15,000’ peak to the west. Being the greedy peakbagger I am, I thought I could tag the 15er as well. On my hike back from the pass the day before, I spotted a well defined trail behind the Gosaikunda lodges leading to some prayer flags on the ridgeline above. I thought I could hike up the trail to the ridgeline, then follow the ridge up and over the 15,000’ peak to the saddle, bagging the peak and avoiding what looked like a probable loose talus slog climbing to the saddle directly. I felt surprisingly good as I slowly ascended above the small collection of tea houses, my pace somewhere between a normal walk and full rest step. The ground was frozen providing good traction for the normally loose trail, small ice crystals and bits of mica shimmering from my headlamp. The trail was quite easy to follow and I reached the prayer flags on the ridgeline at 4AM, having climbed to over 15,000’.
I had hoped to pick up an easy use trail along the ridge itself, and initially a well defined path climbed higher past more pockets of prayer flags. I topped out on a rise with a cairn on top, the earth dropping off all sides into darkness, clearly looking like the summit. A dark silhouette of a mountain was dead ahead, Surya Peak I presumed. But when I pulled out my GPS, I was nowhere near the summit, the first of many false summits I was to find. The dark silhouette in the distance was actually the 15er I was ascending. Slowly and carefully, I dropped off the false summit and was able to find the connecting saddle on the ridgeline, continuing east. While the map showed this ridgeline to be straightforward and a consistent grade, I quickly realized it was for more complex than I had bargained for, with large rocks and gendarmes barring progress and requiring significant scrambling and traversing, the contour lines omitted from my map. I had been scrambling with success in the dark for some time when I hit a headwall, only 20 meters below the summit. I stared up at the rock face, seeing only sketchy class 4 leading to an unknown quality of rock even higher out of sight and beyond the reach of my headlamp beam. There was a fresh rockfall scar immediately left of the ridge crest, leading straight down a steep gully and out of sight on the north face. Looking at the rock, I just had a bad feeling about it. I tried to see if I could traverse around the face to the south, but found only cliff bands barring progress. I hiked back up to the base of the cliff face. I had luckily taken a picture of this unnamed 15er while hiking the day before, and could see exactly where I was in the photo. It looked like there were some huge grassy ramps on the south face, I just needed to figure out how to access them.
With no obvious options, I did the safest thing- leaned against a rock and waited for sunrise to show me the way. I sat there for about an hour until I had just enough ambient light to see a class 3 ramp heading up and to the right, hopefully to the grassy ledges on the south face. I carefully moved up the ramp, on hands and knees at times, and did one or two easy but exposed moves to put me on the grassy ledge from the photo. From there it was easy and straightforward class 2 to put me on top of the unnamed summit at 6AM, just in time for some beautiful morning lighting across the high mountains.
I had already wasted too much time on this ‘bonus’ peak and continued east to the saddle beneath Surya Peak and its’ basin. The east ridgeline to the summit of the 15er was dramatically easier and certainly the preferred route to the summit. At the saddle, I joined the standard approach and found numerous cairns to lead the way. I needed to traverse into a glacial basin to the northeast, and found a great cairned route slowly ascending stable talus into the basin.
While my map showed this basin as a simple bowl, in reality it was a series of dried up lakes and tarns split up by large moraines and boulder fields. It reminded me a lot of the infamous Williamson Bowl beneath the west face of Mount Williamson in California. The basin was lined by at least 5 peaks, and I have seen various map versions placing Surya Peak on top of at least three different summits over this basin. So it was somewhat intuition that I choose to ascend the peak in the southeast corner of the basin, basically the furthest one away.
Moving around the small tarns and moraine fields was fairly straightforward until the final moraine at the base of Surya Peak with boulders ranging in size to refrigerators and small cars. The gaps between the boulders were filled with ice and snow, and getting through was extremely slow and tedious, probably the most difficult part of the day.
Once on the other side, I stood at the base of a long rib of scree leading directly to the summit ridgeline. It was 7 AM, and my GPS said 15,700’, only 1,200’ below the summit. I think I said something stupid under my breath like ‘Let’s get to work,’ and started slogging up the scree. It was actually more stable than many scree slopes I’ve climbed thanks to the frozen layer underneath, and I was pleased with the progress I was making. As I neared the ridgeline proper, the scree became unstable talus, and my pace slowed to a full rest step, trying not to slide down the slope and lose any progress that I’ve made.
The summit looked tantalizingly close, yet somehow my GPS said I still had another 800’ to go. Interesting that I couldn’t see any expected prayer flags at the summit. They’re probably just out of sight, I assured myself, too committed on this rock pile to do anything but go for it. Although the peak was definitely starting to seem more involved than what the average trekker would sign up for…
About 200’ below the summit, I encountered some class 3 rock bands that were holding a decent amount of snow. While the moves would be considered easy in almost any context, the snow and ice added another level of difficulty, and I needed to focus all my attention on staying coordinated at this high altitude (the highest I had ever climbed solo). Once through the short class 3 section it was just a bit more class 2 slogging to the high point… devoid of prayer flags or a plaque. Where did I go wrong? I looked at my map, and matched all the features around me. I was without a doubt standing on the summit labelled Surya Peak. I looked at my GPS, and the reading matched 5145 meters exactly. I started looking around at the other summits and spotted a figure moving up the ridgeline on a small peak immediately to the west. I could vaguely see prayer flags fluttering in the wind at the summit and realized that was probably the peak from the trip reports. But on every map that has shown Surya Peak, it always had given an elevation of 5145 meters. The peak I was standing on was that elevation, confirmed by my GPS. That shorter peak was barely 5000 meters and was nowhere near 5145. The day before, I had noticed that some of the lodges around Gosaikunda offered one day guided trips up Surya Peak. I have a feeling someone knowingly or unknowingly placed a Surya Peak plaque on the smaller and much easier peak, being able to guide people up there for the day without a slog through a rough moraine or plenty of loose class 2 and class 3 scrambling. Confident that I had climbed the correct mountain, I sat down to take in the views that could only be described as spectacular. Langtang dominated the view north, with Naya Kanga and other 6000 meter peaks now in view that had been hidden before. The Ganesh Himal still stood proudly to the west. To the east were massive mountains that I couln’t name, although I’m pretty sure I could see the dark outline of Cho Oyo, Mount Everest and Lhotse.
I stayed on top for nearly 30 minutes, very long considering the 10,000+’ of descent to get back to Dhunche that day. I wanted to avoid the snowy class 3, and found some lower angle talus on the east face to traverse beneath it. I then traversed along the western slopes below some of the looser rock on the ridgeline before dropping back down on the scree rib into the basin below, getting down in just over an hour.
Now that I had a better idea of the basin layout, I swung wide to the north, avoiding the worst of the boulder fields and going up and over a grassy rise to reach the first tarn quickly and painlessly. Here I picked up the cairns again and did a descending traverse across the talus down to the saddle between the basin and my unnamed 15er.
Spying more cairns below, I dropped off the saddle into a small basin with a half frozen lake feeding the main Gosaikunda Lake below. This route was actually heavily cairned, and would have been far faster to climb than my long and arduous ridgeline traverse. I may have even had time to climb the trekker’s Surya Peak too!
Once past the small lake, I could see Gosaikunda and the Shiva shrine below, and found a very easy to follow use trail taking me all the way back to the lake. The turn off for the use trail was actually pretty easy to spot, and located just past the Shiva shrine.
I reached my Gosaikunda Lodge a bit after noon, and ordered some Tibetan bread covered in cheese to tide me over until dinner. I packed my things, paid my bill and headed out towards Dhunche, leaving town at about 12:45. Based on my ascent time, I thought I could reach Dhunche by 6 PM despite already hiking for nearly 10 hours at that point. Clouds moved in, obscuring the views of the Ganesh Himal and Langtang I hoped to enjoy for the entire descent.
The hardest part of the descent was the up and down path out of Gosaikunda, my ‘up’ muscles pretty destroyed from the morning. But once I reached the pure downhill section past the Buddha shrine, I flew down the mountain. I reached Laurebina at 1:35, the owner thankfully not outside to cash in on my promise of lunch during my descent. Dropping into trees, I reached Chyolangpati at 2 PM on the dot. The owners here were outside, but they were fussing over some larger groups and let me pass without much notice. I took a break in the old growth forest beyond Chyolangpati, my first break since Gosaikunda. With the mixed clouds, it would be the last time I saw Langtang Peak for the trip, the 23,000′ peak having mesmerized me all weekend.
There was a short uphill section that I didn’t remember heading into Sing Gompa, and I reached the small town just before 3 PM. There were still no yaks out at the cheese factory and just some small horses grazing, so I continued through town without stopping until passing through Dhimsa about 20 minutes later.
The forest here was covered in thick moss with huge gnarled trees, and I was kind of glad to not known how creepy it looked as I hiked through in the dark. A family a monkeys flew through the trees as I dropped towards Deurali, hitting the single lodge at 3:50PM.
Having started this hike at about 4:20 two days before, it looked like I was going to just miss the 48 hour mark. I could finally start to hear the river in the valley below, and by 4:30 I reached the small farm with the chocolate-loving children, sadly still having none to share.
It was almost 5 PM on the dot when I reached the eastern edge of Dhunche, the entire climb taking about 48.5 hours, the bonus summit keeping me from a sub-48 hour time. Filthy, I walked through town I chose the hotel closest to the bus stop.
Stepping inside, I found the owner and confidently said “Room for one?”
She looked me up and down. “We’re full.”
This was unexpected. I went to the hotel next door.
“How many?” the owner of the second hotel asked.
“One person,” I replied.
“No room. Booked for the festival,” was her response. What answer could I have given that would have worked? Did she have room for 2 people but not 1? I struck out at 2 more places before a stranger pointed to a dark hotel across the street.
“They’ll take you,” she said. I didn’t know whether to be nervous or relieved.
Sure enough, Hotel Sunshine did take me, and I was checked into room 1, “The Everest Room.” I learned the reason no hotel would take me was because all rooms were doubles and they wanted to charge people a double rate. Hotel Sunshine was going to charge me a double rate regardless. I gladly paid the $6.
My only wants for the night were WiFi, to let my wife know I was still alive, a hot shower, and a hot meal with a cold beer. The hotel checked off the WiFi. But the Everest Room had water that seemed to have been pumped from Everest itself, and after 10 minutes of hoping that the water ‘just needs to warm up,’ I took a fast and incomplete ice cold shower and put on my down clothes to warm back up. Walking through town, every restaurant was closed for Tihar, and I was beginning to think I would be eating bagged chips from the only small store still open. Feeling a bit defeated, I walked back to my hotel and asked if they had any food.
“We only have Dal Bhat,” the young girl replied.
“Sounds perfect! I said with a smile. I really would have eaten anything.
By then about 5 other trekkers had also checked in to the only hotel that would have them, and all of us sat at various tables in the small dining room to feast on Dal Bhat, the national dish of Nepal. During dinner, a round of singing a dancing broke out in the courtyard beneath the hotel for Tihar. Perhaps that’s why no one wanted to stay here… I had hoped to go to bed early, but the singing and dancing continued until after 10 PM, finally allowing me to go to sleep after a 21 hour day.
I’d like to say that the journey back to Kathmandu went smoother than the trip to Dhunche. In many ways it did. But when I woke up at 6:15 to try and catch a bus, I found the ticket counter closed. Several other trekkers were standing outside, hoping to get an early ticket back to Kathmandu. There were rumors the buses had been cancelled the previous two days for the holiday, and we were worried there would be a large backlog of people. 7 AM, the expected departure time of the bus, came and went. By 7:30, the collective group at the bus stop were discussing splitting a Jeep charter back to Kathmandu. We were nearly ready to flag down a Jeep when a bus came barreling through Dhunche. It pulled off next to us and we all piled on, a bus worker mumbling something about Kathmandu. Feeling relieved, the bus pulled out of the stop and a man stepped back to announce something in Nepalese. I asked the girl next to me what he said.
“This bus is not going to Kathmandu, but is stopping at a town halfway there. Also, he won’t tell us the ticket price, but we can negotiate it with him when we arrive.”
This did not sit well with more, or three other European trekkers on the bus. We all jumped off at military checkpoint at the edge of town and asked the officer to call us a Jeep to charter. Split 4 ways, it wound up costing $32/ person, far more than the bus, but a much safer and faster ride. Even with the same rough roads, it wound up taking only 5 hours compared to the 7 hours on the ride in.
He dropped us off in Thamel where I had a proper victory meal of an entire pizza and Sherpa Red Ale to celebrate the two highest peaks I’ve ever soloed.