SANGAM

The Great Himalaya Trail
SANGAM PRASAIN
KATHMANDU, SEP 03 -
The Great Himalaya Trail (GHT), the longest and highest alpine walking track in the world, is scheduled to be inaugurated on Jan. 14, 2011 in Kathmandu.

The Nepal Tourism Year 2011 (NTY 2011) implementing committee announced the launching of the trail as a new product aimed at attracting trekkers from around the world.

Currently, 95 percent of the 120,000 trekkers visiting Nepal annually do not go beyond the Annapurna, Langtang or Everest regions. Only around 6,200 trekkers venture off the beaten track.

“The long-term aim is to connect the six Asian countries of Pakistan, China (Tibet Autonomous Region), India, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar via a route covering more than 4,500 km of the Great Himalaya range,” said Lisa Choegyal, consultant to the project and Honorary Consul designate for New Zealand in Nepal. The westernmost point of the GHT is the world’s ninth highest peak, Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, and it winds past the sacred headwaters of the Ganges in India, the entire length of Nepal beneath Annapurna, Everest and Kanchenjunga, through Sikkim then Bhutan and eventually to India’s remote Arunachal Pradesh, Myanmar and Namche Barwa in Tibet. Spectacular views include all of the world’s 14 eight-thousander peaks. Robin Boustead documented Nepal’s part of the trail in detail in 2008. He completed an upper route of about 1,700 km, which offers high-altitude adventure visitors unparalleled trekking, mixing high passes and alpine valleys, she said. The GHT spans the length of Nepal from Darchula and Humla in the west to Kanchenjunga in the east. Few hardy souls would tackle the full length of the trail in Nepal at one go, taking some 150 days. The concept of the GHT emerged in the late 1990s in Nepal. In 2008, SNV conducted the GHT first phase pilot project in Humla and Dolpa financed by the UK Department for International Development. The project aims to provide a significant boost to Nepal’s tourism industry, the idea is to channel more tourists and pro-poor tourism investment to under-developed districts, stimulating a range of private sector business, employment and production opportunities for poor mountain communities, Choegyal told the Post.

According to her, the twin concepts of marketing and development were first pulled together in the Asian Development Bank’s Nepal Ecotourism Project in 2000.

The GHT also featured in Nepal Tourism Board’s National Ecotourism Strategy and Marketing Programme of Nepal the following year. However, implementation was constrained by the insurgency that made it impossible for tourists or development workers to visit many parts of Nepal.

In 2004, the GHT was adopted as a pro-poor tourism initiative in the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation’s Tourism Development Plan, sponsored by the Asian Development Bank in Nepal, Bhutan and India (Sikkim, Darjeeling and Arunachal Pradesh). With Nepal having the most to gain due to its geography, SNV and ICIMOD took up the concept in 2006.

“Nepal’s three main trekking routes, Everest, Annapurna and Langtang, attract thousands of visitors every year. However, with the visitors preferring new trekking destinations and the country’s strategy to diversify tourism products to other regions, this concept has been implemented,” said Kashi Raj Bhandari, director, research, planning and monitoring, Nepal Tourism Board.

The GHT is not a new product, it is the same trekking route that has been elegantly connected with the itineraries combining old and new routes. The route not only offers incredible bio-diversity but is also associated with the objective to transform untouched wilderness in the remotest districts into economic assets, Bhandari said.

After the project is accomplished, its ownership will be entrusted to the government of Nepal. SNV has been holding discussions with the government in this regard.

Murari Bahadur Karki, joint secretary at the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, said that talks were in progress. “We are forming a committee under which discussions will be held to finalize ownership,” he said. The committee will study every itinerary and district through which the GHT passes to make sure that the project incorporates responsible environment practices and potential opportunities. “After taking ownership, the project will be handed over to the private sector for branding and promotion,” he said. “This new potential product can make a real difference for people living at barely subsistence level, and boost incomes in rural areas that have been untouched by the government’s development projects,” said Bachchu Narayan, first vice president of the Trekking Agents Association of Nepal (TAAN).