The Langtang area, highly sought after by hikers and mountaineers, has once again suffered the consequences of a natural phenomenon, the devastating flood that today swept through several towns in northern Nepal and also Tibet. Langtang already experienced moments of horror in April 2015, when an earthquake claimed nearly 9,000 lives in the Himalayan country, and this morning its inhabitants have been victims of another natural disaster. The event occurred during the low season for the trekking industry, in the middle of the monsoon season. It is in spring and autumn when Langtang receives more visitors eager to explore an affordable and beautiful route.
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But Langtang is not only a destination for tourists who sign up for a trek, as this enclave offers very demanding peaks longed for by mountaineers with pedigree, such as Langtang Lirung, at 7,234 meters, Ganchempo, at 6,378, or Langshisha Ri, at 6,420. Precisely, alpinists David Goettler and Colin Haley opened a new ascent route to this last peak last spring. There are still places to explore in the wilder Langtang.
Mountaineers Kilian Jornet and Jordi Tosas went to Langtang at the end of April 2015 to help the populations most affected by the earthquake in any way they could. Tosas recalls this afternoon by phone from the Alps that they had planned to attempt Everest with Jordi Corominas that spring, but due to the earthquake, they changed their plans and headed to Langtang. “It always happens to the same people,” Tosas laments. The days Jornet and Tosas spent eleven years ago in that corner of the Himalayas led to the documentary Langtang, by the Frenchman Seb Montaz. The Catalan alpinists explored the area in search of missing people, buried by mud and stones. At that time, the Nepalese population showed its gigantic resilience, its ability to overcome adversities of such magnitude. Many lost their homes and took several years to rebuild them.
Nepal has many faces, that of opulent high-altitude tourists who enroll in five-star expeditions managed by powerful companies based in Kathmandu, and then there is the vast majority of inhabitants, the men and women who do everything to emigrate and thus secure the future of their children away from the danger of the mountains.
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