Trip to Mustang || Muktinath

We went to Muktinath, Mustang on June this year. Here are some photographs from the road trip.

Riverside landscape while traveling to Myagdi towards Mustang

We were traveling at the beginning of monsoon season. The road after we crossed Beni was not good and so was the journey. After some time we came across this big and beautiful waterfall known as Rupse Waterfall which I had never seen before in Nepal. And, it made our day.

Rupse Waterfall. This fall is close to the Kaligandaki gorge.

A typical high elevation landscape : looking downwards from Muktinath

The Muktinath bazar. It has some good hotels for overnight stay.

The famous Muktinath Temple at 3700 meter above sea level

108 dhara 

The holy ponds. Water is always freezing cold here.

Jharkot, a small town about 20min walking distance downhill from Muktinath. This town has a health post. 

Best 5 places in Wyoming you must visit

Wyoming is a western US state. It is a truly wild west and famous for adventure. Plenty of open space and wildlife. Based on my experience while I was attending graduate school in Laramie, I suggest 10 places in Wyoming you should not miss to visit. I will miss these places.

Wind River area Wyoming by Basant Giri on 500px

1. Vedauwoo

Close to Laramie, the home of the University of Wyoming, Vedauwoo is famous for outdoor rock climbing-I never did though. This place has Sherman granite rocks, some of which are seen to be placed on top of other rocks very carefully.

I have been to Vedauwoo several times for picnic, camping and hiking specially in summer. In cold winter nights, we went there with chilling beer. White snow on ground and clear sky with stars supported us.

I needed no prior planning. I used to be ready for anytime whether it was an early morning or a late night, specially, when bored or frustrated with the lab experiments and classes.

You can also enjoy Curt Gowdy State park with some beautiful lakes for fishing. Also, you don't want to miss HappyJack recreational area during winter for snow sports. I specially enjoyed sledding. Lincoln monument (3.8 m tall on a 9.1 m pedestal) on the side of I 80  (at 8878 feet elevation) can be another attraction. We also enjoyed drinking beer on the other side of the monument over looking I -80 and Vedauwoo in both summer and winter nights.

2. Snow Range Mountains

I like mountains-no doubts. Snowy Range Mountains are part of the Rockies, just half an hour drive west of Laramie.

Snow sports in winter and fishing and hiking in Summer. Around this mountain, there are numerous high elevation lakes in which you can enjoy fishing-we had done hand fishing too.

snowies by Basant Giri on 500px

I have hiked to the top of this mountain (12013 ft). More than this, I liked the scenic highway (HW 130) that crosses the mountain: driving is this road was an unforgettable memory. Highest point on this road is at 10847 ft.

There is a small town called Centennial on the eastern side of the mountain and Saratoga on western side. Saratoga is famous for hot spring.

3. Grand Teton National Park (GTNP)

GTNP is bit far from Laramie-northwest part of Wyoming. You need at least four days to fully enjoy the place. This park includes a major section of Teton Range mountains, Jackson valley, and Jackson lake.

Jackson Lake and the Tetons by Basant Giri on 500px

You can mostly enjoy the natural-prestine scenery, wildlife-deers, bears, moose, hardworking beavers, marmots and hiking to the Teton Mountains peaks in addition to backcountry camping.

Mom Grizzly with cubs by Basant Giri on 500px

I had seen black and grizzly bears almost every time I visited this NP (3 times so far).Camping on the periphery of Jackson lake looking towards the Tetons was awesome. I had hiked twice up to the static peak (11,303 ft) via death valley trail which includes Phelps lake. During one of the trecks, enchanted black bears couple of times from very close.

Hike to the Static Peak

4. Yellowstone National Park (YSNP)
YSNP is the world's oldest (estd: 1872) national park. It is north of GTNP, comprises lakes, canyons, rivers, and mountain ranges and touches Idaho and Montana states.  

This NP is most famous for wildlife (Bison, bears, deer, elks, moose, wolf, coyote etc. to my interest) and its many geothermal features such as the Old Faithful-the biggest one. There are hundreds of other smaller geysers too.

Old Faithful geyser eruption by Basant Giri on 500px

You can enjoy hiking, fishing, camping, boating, sightseeing etc. We had camped close to Jackson lake and at Mamoth-close to north entrance-Montana. Making a 8-loop is very famous to cover almost every aspects of Yellowstone ecosystem. Yellowstone lake and upper falls of Yellowstone river are amazing.

5. Devils Tower National Monument

From northwest, lets move to northeast where you can see the Devils tower. Devils tower is an igneous intrusion which rises 1267 ft above the surrounding terrain in Black hills.

For me it looked like a Shiva Linga in Hinduism. If it was in south Asia, religious people would have made it a place of worship.

Devils Tower Monument

When you are traveling to this place, don't forget to incorporate the Mt. Rushmore near southwestern South Dakota in your visit where you can see a sculpture of five US presidents carved into the granite.

Trip to Annapurna Base Camp [4130m] #ABC #photo

I recently visited the Annapurna Base Camp popularly known as ABC in Annapurna conservation area, western Nepal. We (had a group of four) were in a research field trip that involved collecting bee samples. We were able to collect Himalayan cliff honey bee from an elevation of ~3700 meter above see level. Trekking to ABC involves a visit to the Machhapuchhre Base Camp (MBC) on the same route.

If you are planning to trek in this area, I recommend you read this post. In my post you will see some pictures from the trip during early monsoon season.

An evening at Jhinu, right after the short heavy rain.

Beautiful village "Chhomrung". The cliff seen in left is famous for cliff honey bee hives. 
Small house
at the bottom of the picture (green roof) is a small hydro power house.

Looking downstream the Modi khola watershed. Village seen on right is probably 
the famous "Ghandruk" village,
whereas "Landruk" village is on left.

Around Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado

Initial plan was to go to Yellostone National Park during second weekend of August but we had to cancel that trip in the last moment. On the same day we planned for one night camping in Rocky Mountain National Park. In a short notice more than two dozens Nepali in Laramie became ready for the trip and went togather. We started our trip late in the evening and reached in the destination around 1am in the midnight. This was a different experience for everyone, I guess. Night was little bit cold.

Team LARAMIE at Camping site

Climbing on Vedauwoo rocks: thrilling experience

We visited Vedauwoo, one of the outdoor recreational places in Wyoming. It is famous for rock climbing and is ~16 miles from the place where we live. Saturday afternoon I was waiting for a call from Rajan to go to school. I got a call from him but not for going to school rather going to Vedauwoo. So, this plan was NOT planned. There were ~15 people, all Nepalese, in the trip. After reaching to the parking place, we decided to go for hiking.

Climbing up to the rock was also un-planned. Step by step we went towards top. It was a wonderful view to look at down, exciting and challenging too. It reminded my childhood. We used to go to jungle for grass and firewood. One route for us was close but very steep naked hill (I can't recall the name of the hill now). We had to go up and down every other day. Besides this, I have not tried rock climbing. I had one hour indoor rock climbing training at OSU which had yielded scar on my left hand. Let me go back to Vedauwoo climbing. This place has big rocks, very rough, sitting on each other. We had to walk on the steep rock surfaces. One of the most difficult, very challenging and scary points was very close to the summit. Anyhow we reached to this point. When I looked down from this point I felt like climbing from that particular route was a wrong decision.

अमेरिकाको सबैभन्दा गहिरो लेकको यात्रा र मेरो ढाका टोपी

"सुत्ने घर ठडाइयो, खानेकुराको जोहो गरियो। हरियो मकै उसुनेर र पोलेर, आलु र जुकुनि अनि टमाटर उसुनेर, नुन पनि हालेको थियो है। उसुनेको कुखुराको फुल पनि। अधेंरी रात, जुन हेर्दै, तरा गन्दै, आगो ताप्दै, गफ गर्दै। आधा रात ढल्केपछि सुत्ने झोला भित्र पसियो।"

 क्रेटर लेक अमेरिकाको सबै भन्दा गहिरो लेक। आउनुस आज म तपाईहरुलाइ यसको भ्रमण गराउछु। यो लेकका केहि आफ्नै बिषेशता छन। त्यहा पुग्दा के अचम्म लाग्छ भने यसको पानी अतिनै निलो छ। र अनि नै सफा। यति सफाकी माछा पनि बाच्न नसक्ने। माछाले खाने केहि पनि छैन रे। यसपाली त मैले माछा मार्ने प्रयास गरिन। तर २ बर्ष पहिले गर्दा रित्तै हात फर्किनु परेको थियो। [पहिलो पटकको क्रेटर लेक यात्राबारे पढ्न यहा थिच्नुस।] 

 क्रेटर लेकमा माछा मार्दै (2007) 

A trip to the deepest lake in the US: Crater Lake

Crater lake with Wizard Island

One of the best places to visit in Oregon is Crater lake. It is the first deepest lake in USA and seventh deepest lake in the world. This place has a good combination of deep pure blue water, sheer surrounding cliffs, almost two thousand feet high, two picturesque islands, and a violent volcanic past. It was formed about 77000 years back when mount Mazama collapsed due to huge volcanic eruption. It is 592 m deep and it doesn't have any inlet and outlets. Water is collected as snow and is removed by evaporation seepage.

It is about 3 hours drive from Corvallis. We were altogether 2 dozens of friends. It was the idea of not being "lab rat" and getting fun and good time with nature and its beauty at least during the weekend.

Our expedition team:2 of our team members are not here.

Did you bring any fish or water from the Lake?

We headed up there Friday evening and ended up to Diamond lake camping area and returned to Corvallis on Sunday. Diamond lake was our base camp(like we are going to the top of the world 'Mt. Everest' and 'Namche' is base camp there). sounds interesting....? That was my first time of spending night inside tents. Actually it was fun....how? by not getting enough sleep? at least we had 2 night close contact with nature. is that true? I think so.

My little nice house for two nights

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Here is one more photo(right) from the camping site. यो धूनी बालेर भजन गाएको होइना है। It was fire work for making our dinner. We made camping special with banana, chocolate and marshmallow. That was tasty. I don't know the name. Susie knows it, doesn't you Susie? We listened some interesting short stories from friends about something that happened in their life. That gave me the memory of my childhood listening stories from my grand mom. However the stories were different and were relevant to the culture and society of that time and place.

Saturday we went for hiking. The main hiking route was 3 hours mountain trail. Everybody was excited and interested for the hiking. It was cold morning and there was no clear sun. We were at the summit of the mountain at around noon. The Crater lake was surrounded by cloud and we had to wait for a while to see it. The cloud sometime uncovered the lake and gave us chance to see and take pictures.

Ready for the mountain trail hiking?

Second hiking route was a short trail around wild flowers. And third was all the down way hiking trail to Crater Lake. We did fishing but were not able to catch any fish. As the lake was formed by the collection of water in the bowl like structure created by volcano, there are no native fish in this lake. The water is so pure that it is blue and doesn't have enough natural food for fish in it. I think thats why population of fish is very low.

worthless try but was fun, is that true Juan?

As I mentioned above, our base camp was diamond lake. It is also a beautiful lake 45 min drive from Crater lake. We did kayaking on the diamond lake at evening. That was wonderful time in the diamond lake. That was also my first Kayaking. It was surrounded by conifer forest. You can see mountains with snow. No noise at all and time after sunset. I enjoyed a lot. Sunday morning most of us did swimming on the diamond lake.

Jill and I Kayaking on Diamond Lake

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