Trekking in Nepal - Round Manaslu
The Upper Budhi Gandaki Valley: Lho to Samagaon
Travellogue Day 9: On the ninth day we trekked from Lho to the village of Samagaon
Click in the corners to enlarge the pictures
The mountains pasture of Shyala
starting in Lho we soon entered a forest along an icy littler river and had to climb steadily about an hour
the icy river Forrest
Video clip HH, mp4 3 MB
Then we reached the plateau of the high mountain pastures of Shyala entering the site through a beautiful chorten.
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We were so lucky, in more than four weeks of trekking we did not have a single rain day an all the mountains of Manaslu massif shined in full glory. only Manaslu itself was a little bit shy and covered its head in thin frayed patches of fog.
With this panoramic view it’s wonderful to sit in the
warm sun.
We only met one couple with their child, but in
Summer hundreds of animals and many people live here.
Panorama Shyala
Video clip HH, mp4 9 MB
The Ngadi Chuli 7871m The ridge of the Larkya Himal
Continuing from Shyala we walked in hilly terrain
through bushy forests.
We could feel that we had gained in altitude as sometimes we saw some patches of ice on the way. And this little river fall become a awesome ice sculpture.
Finally the valley opened wide and in the distance
the next larger village Sama Gaon appeared.
There the valley turns to the north which will be the way for the next day.
But first we reached a big chörten an our funny porter Raj took the chance to frolic and performed several handstands.
Sama Gaon 3390 m
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We arrived in Samagaon around 11:30 PM . We could had continued to Samdo which is just 3,5 hours away but we al ready had climbed 350 since Lho and it would have been some other 250 m to Samdo. Approaching Larkya la a good acclimatisation to altitude is crucial and one should not climb more than 500 m a night. And Anyway Samagaon is a gorgeous village and it does’ t make much sense to run if your are in one of the most beautiful spots of Nepal. So we had the full afternoon to wander through this marvellous village and it’s surroundings.
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The welcome committee
To big chörten were surrounded by a long wall with prayer mills. The villagers had piled up thousands of mani stones engraved with the holly Om Mani Pedme Hum or other Buddhist texts or pictures.
Most Manaslu Expedition will start from Sama Gaon so you can find three lodges and two camping sites.
When the expedition teams return after some weeks, they normally pillage al the beer of Sama. The German climber dieter Porsche told me hoe they went after a successful expedition back to Sama. Soon they had finished all the beer of their lodge some more was brought from other lodges. When all the beer of Sama was gone, beer from Lho was brought. At the end all the beer stock of the upper Valley had gone.
The bereaved one was another expedition who descended the next day. All what was left was mineral water and coke.....
We settled on a camping side with a large kitchen building. When we saw there the piles of soft mattresses we decided not to put up our tents an had a perfect night inside.
surprising offer our beautiful landlady
Houses in Sama
cold water, you want some ice with it?
many women wear a nice silver spoon as jewellery.
children, children, children
The Gompa of Samagaon
On a little hill near Samagaon is a old Gompa. When we reached it with the last sun rays it was closed on no one was seen. I started to shout as loud as possible : “Oh Lama, Oh Lama aunnus” and after 5 minutes a young monk appeared. We were really lucky. His sleeping house was about 100 m distance and he had heard us. He gladly showed us this beautiful Gompa.
Photos: the pictures of the Manaslu pages are from me and my friends. You can see the respective photographer in the filename of the photo: HH = Hans Henninger, HPS = Hans-Peter Stupp, MJ = Manfred Jeckel and AdR = Andrées de Ruiter
For the search engines, Trekking in Nepal, A travellogue of the Manaslu trek, Round Manaslu, Pictures of Manaslu trekking, Photos of Manaslu trek , Trekking in Nepal - round Manaslu, Sama Gaon, Samagaon, Sama