Traveler’s Journal

About the presentation:

When: 7 p.m., Thursday, March 5

Where: Sequim High School library, 601 N. Sequim Ave.

Cost: Suggested $5 donation (adults); 18 and younger, free

Presenter: Randy Johnson

Presentation: Nepal

by Randy Johnson

For the Sequim Gazette

Nepal is renowned for its magnificent mountain grandeur and its 8,000 meter peaks, including Mount Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, Dhaulagiri and Annapurna.

Northwest of these giant mountains lies the remote region of Dolpo. Further north across the crest of the Himalaya Range are the high, arid valleys of Inner Dolpo, a land of blue sheep, snow leopards, yak herds and a traditional Buddhist culture hidden deep in the mountains.

I first read about Dolpo in Peter Matthiessen’s book, “The Snow Leopard.” In 1973, Matthiessen and zoologist George Schaller traveled illegally to Inner Dolpo and Shey Gompa, the Crystal Monastery, to study the herds of blue sheep that roam the slopes of Crystal Mountain.

I was enchanted by Matthiessen’s description of their journey and was determined to travel there myself one day, if and when the Nepalese government ever opened the region to foreign travelers.

In 1994, word arrived from Kathmandu that a few trekking permits finally would be issued for Inner Dolpo.

By October of that year my brother Richard and I were hiking through those strange valleys and across the high, windy, cold passes with a troop of Tamang tribesmen and a federal police officer.

Traveling east from Crystal Mountain, we trekked the lower Nangkhong and the length of the Bantshang valleys, through the fortress town of Charkha and down the impossible gorge of the Chalungpa River to Mustang.

During the 1994 trek we missed one major valley of Dolpo: Tarap. Twenty years later we returned, hiked the length of Tarap and the upper Bantshang, and connected with the 1994 route and onward to the Crystal Monastery and beyond.

About the presenter

Randy Johnson, 62, is a professional fish biologist with a lifelong love affair with the world’s rivers, estuaries and mountains.

In 1983, he first traveled to Nepal, saw Mount Everest, climbed a 20,000-foot peak and became spellbound by the Himalaya Mountains and the Nepalese people.

He has returned to Nepal another five times, most recently in May and June of 2014.

About the presentations

Traveler’s Journal is a presentation of the Peninsula Trails Coalition. All of the money raised is used to buy project supplies and food for volunteers working on Olympic Discovery Trail projects.

Shows start at 7 p.m. in the Sequim High School library at 601 N. Sequim Ave. Please note the change of venue: All shows are in the library, not the cafeteria as in previous years.

Suggested donation is $5 for adults. Youths 18 and under are welcome for free.

One selected photo enlargement will be given away each week as a door prize. Creative Framing is donating the matting and shrink wrapping of the door prize.

Call Dave Shreffler at 683-1734 for more information.