Great Himalaya Trail (GHT) - live tracking

September 17 may seem a long time away, but I know how quickly time goes when you are having fun. So, I am getting the admin sorted out now, to avoid a last minute rush.

On September 17, I will fly into Kathmandu, armed with 5 pairs of running shoes. It may seem a bit excessive, but I am planning to run and hike the Great Himalaya Trail (or at least the Nepal section of it).

The route I am looking at following starts on the western side in Hilsa and finishes on the eastern side in Pashupathagar a few weeks later. If I manage to complete it all, I will cover over 1500km and it looks like I have over 55000m altitude gain lined up [puke]. And that excludes the 4 days of hiking to get to the start! For one stretch of over 100km, I will never drop below 4000m above sea level and at the other extreme, I drop down as low as 300m above sea level near the end of the trip.

My main aim is to finish, so I am not going to publish a plan for the simple reason that anything measured in weeks will change several times. The key here is for me to have fun, so I am going to break my usual rules of going light by carrying an SLR camera and tripod the whole way. I fly out of Kathmandu on 14 Nov, so I have plenty of time, it is just a case of keeping going.

One way or another, I will get a few updates and hopefully a few pics back home. The plan is to use this forum thread for live/near live updates related to the trip. I can be followed on my SPOT tracker, the URL is below. I suggest switching to the "Satellite" mode so that you can see the snowy passes and zoom into crazy suspension bridges.
share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0W4o0EfVc3K3938UVkjT9S7I8tCmYqmOT

A proper report back will follow when I get home.

Oh I am horribly envious! Something I would love to do aside from the running part
It will be such an adventure - I look forward to the reports and will definitely be keeping an eye on your progress

Enjoy, Andrew. I hope it is everything you wish for. Good luck!

Best of luck Andrew! I'll definitely be checking out some of your progress. So good to hear you'll be taking many photos too. The extra weight will be well worth it I'm sure.

Just a question, are you using the Gen3? I'm assuming all the features work in good old South Africa in terms of the SOS and Help functions?

The SPOT tracker does not allow me to upload a planned route, it only shows my location for the past few days/hours. So, if anyone is interested, this is the route I plan to follow

That looks INCREDIBLE Andrew!! Have an amazing time out there...

All the best for this new venture, Andrew! Enjoy, Nepal is an amazing country, the people the friendliest ever!

Hi Andrew

Wow it sounds amazing, enjoy and good luck.

Tomorrow I will be heading out of Kathmandu. It will take 2 flights over 2 days to get to Simikot. There, I will spend 2 days sorting out some admin, getting some food, acclimatising and scoping out some of the route for later on. And then another 3 days hiking just to get to the start, at Hilsa. So, if all goes to plan, I start on the 26th!

For various reasons, 2 of the 3 stashes I had initially planned on will not happen. And, I have made a few last minute changes to the route as well. As a consequence of this, I have to carry the heavy ice gear the whole way. And yet, when I looked at my revised plan, it actually looks better than the original one.


The final pack



A sampling of the gear inside it

Exciting stuff! We look forward to the updates Andrew- enjoy!