This story has been co-published with Kalam Weekly.
IT IS 5 AM on 26 August – just before dawn. My friends and I load our rucksacks into the trunk of a small car and leave Kathmandu. We head north, via the Pasang Lhamu Highway, a two-lane ribbon that connects the capital to Syaphru in Rasuwa district and the border with Tibet beyond. We are headed to Gosainkunda, a glacial lake that sits at an elevation of 4380 metres and is a popular pilgrims’ destination for the festival of Janai Purnima. We will drive to the trailhead at the mountain town of Dhunche and walk two days up from there.
We drive without incident over the lip of the Kathmandu Valley, then descend into Nuwakot district. At around 7 am, we stop at the highway town of Battar to pick up supplies. We debate whether we should stop at Betrawati Bazaar, this historic market and trading hub, for breakfast or head straight to Dhunche. We pass through Bidur, the headquarters of Nuwakot, and at around 7.45 am we cross the Betrawati bridge, not stopping at the market. The undulating highway follows the Trishuli River, and somewhere between the hamlets of Ramche and Grang we stop to take in the view of the river valley below. The Trishuli is a silver ribbon amid hills wreathed in emerald green. It is 8.57 am.
About 36 kilometres north as the crow flies sits Langtang Lirung, a 7227-metre Himalayan peak that casts its long shadow over the Langtang Valley. At 8.37 am on 26 August, a gargantuan shelf of glacier and rock breaks free from its northern face, on the opposite side to where we are standing. It crashes thousands of metres down into the Lhende Khola, the river that demarcates Nepal and Tibet. The impact is so immense that the US Geological Survey records it as a 5.2 magnitude seismic event.
A wall of rock, mud and water surges downriver with frightening speed. In minutes it arrives at the Kerung (Gyirong) border point and obliterates it. The town of Timmure vanishes under mud and debris, as does the picturesque Syaphru Besi, a staging point for the popular trek into the Langtang Valley. Along the way, the Lhende Khola becomes the Bhotekoshi River, which then merges into the Trishuli.