The lands shiver and vibrate in the heat, the wind ,and the cold. The journeys I’ve taken along the many routes along the Kali Gandaki have only served to fuel subsequent journeys and more wanderings with more deviations. Lying high above 4000 metres, this particular pathway was favoured by the Khampas, who fled Tibet during the Cultural Revolution. It is in the detours that one gets a scope and a more intimate feel of the route. In the past years, I’ve made several journeys along one particular route on the high eastern flank, following small abbreviated detours. Vitally, it is the oral narratives that still carry the stories of the times of trade and pilgrimage, but like so many great tales, with tellers of tales fading it is only a matter of time before the routes' pasts fade entirely. Now, not even the creaking of leather saddles the caravans hoof sounds mark this high route. There are only hints here and there of the route now. Small hunters’ huts shared by shepherds dot the route now, and wisps of etched paths that link remote valleys to each other, climb over mountain passes that are backlit by extraordinary mineral-laden mountain-scapes. Trade in illicit snow leopard pelts, herbal medicines, watches, and weapons once flowed thick along this route which has now been largely reclaimed by Snow leopard, the winds, and Blue Sheep. I assigned it this name, though I’d been told by an elder trader that his generation had simply referred to it as the ‘Route of Wind’. High on the eastern flank of the Kali Gandaki (the deepest gorge on the planet) lies a route that is a reminder of the days of the fearless wanderers of eastern Tibet, the ‘Khampa’ people. Remote Tantric meditation caves carved into mustard coloured walls drew pilgrims further into the folds, and hunters and migrants crossed the high passes that ring the old kingdom seeking prey, homes, pillaging material, or peace. The higher up and more remote a route, the less travelled, the less known, and the least maintained. Trade, migration, and pilgrims have hummed through Mustang for centuries along ill-defined lines and along ancient pre-set routes. As always, it is the ‘in-betweens’ that one finds the intrigue and efforts more succinctly worth the exploration, and one cannot find the in-betweens without embarking on a journey. Few outside of the users of particular routes would find the pathways. You don’t accidentally find a place here”. “You have to have intention to reach a destination. Upper Mustang is an area that one local explained needs knowledge of before wandering. It was inevitably these lesser routes that drew me upwards into their folds. Though this main route has seen a revival of traffic, there are dozens of lesser known ancient routes that linked and connected communities, passes, and ancient Tantric zones of worship. The great triangulated white mass of Dhaulagiri (from the Sanskrit “beautiful white mountain”), stands west of the entrance to Mustang, and Annapurna l rests as the eastern sentry alongside the sacred (and unclimbed) Nilgiri. Two guardians of 8000 + metres stand at the unofficial gateway to Mustang as though reminding that the region was chosen well by its ancient inhabitants and by the warrior founder, Ame Pal, when founding the Buddhist kingdom in the 15th Century. It also played to host to dozens of routes higher in altitude just beyond the multiple layers of stone and snow on its horizons. The entire region of “Lo” provided vital stops, hubs, and grazing points along routes that came south from Tibet, and for those heading into the higher lands from further south. Asphalt lacks some of the allure of dirt pathways, but the inherent brilliance of the route remains. The blueprint of the route was set long ago linking the border of Tibet in the north at Kora La (Kora Pass), to regions further south at Pokhara and Kathmandu. A main channel for centuries that travelled the vertical length of the Kali Gandaki Gorge it is the most seen and obvious of the travelling routes in the region, but far from the only route of trade, pilgrimage, or migration. Upper Mustang, or the ‘Kingdom of Lo’ as it was once known, is in the process of getting some ‘enhancements’ in the form of a modern asphalt facelift to one of its ancient thoroughfares.
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