Spectrum Magazine - April 2006
RUNNING ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD
It’s approaching London Marathon time again but if you’ve been there, done that and bought the T-shirt, why not try the Mt Everest Challenge. At an average altitude of 12,000 feet, this trail marathon will definitely test your mettle – but you’ll also experience the calming beauty of the Eastern Himalayan region.
A beer and a cigarette help ease the immediate pain, proffered by a smirking, toothless porter, who clearly finds my discomfort somewhat amusing. Soft jibes from my travelling companions, though, begin to put my huffs and puffs slightly more into perspective. My exertions are small fry compared to the group of people milling around me on the verdant, perfectly clipped lawns of the Sherpa Lodge in Rimbik, West Bengal.
They have travelled here to the Himalayan foothills, from nine different countries, to complete the 26.2 mile Mt Everest Challenge Marathon and, embarrassingly, they have done it in less time than it took me to struggle ten miles.
As if the distance wasn’t challenging enough, much of the race is run at an altitude of almost 12,000 feet, which by all accounts feels like you are running with a plastic bag tied over your head. The terrain is unforgiving and so bone-jarringly rocky that a couple of days previously, while travelling by jeep to photograph the race, I’d felt like my internal organs were playing Twister.
But despite the lung-busting altitude, the unrelenting, cobbled trails and the punishing gradients, each year more people arrive in this tiny corner of India, nestled between Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan, to test their mettle. For most it is a once in a lifetime experience, for others it has become addictive – one American has returned this year for the fourth time.
While it can’t claim the glory of being the highest marathon in the world, the Mt Everest Challenge, so named because she is visible during much of the race, is surely one of the most difficult, and almost certainly the most beautiful.
The start line is at the small sherpa settlement of Sandakphu Peak, elevated at 11, 815 feet, on the Eastern Himalayan trekking trail, about 36 miles from the hill station of Darjeeling. This place, in the heart of Singhalila National Park is the one spot on the planet where you can gaze at four of the world’s five highest mountains at the same time. Only K2, the second highest peak situated in Pakistan, is not visible. The view here is so magnificent that in 1948, when told of its splendour, the Aga Khan ordered a road to be built all the way from Darjeeling, so he could see for himself.
Standing in the early morning dawn, before the cloud had crept up through the vertiginous valleys and obscured them for the day, Everest, Lhotse and Makalu stared directly back at me, albeit with a good few miles between us.
It is Kanchenjunga however, number three on the highest peak hit list, that provides the main race backdrop. The most easterly of the 8000m plus Himalayan range, and until 1852 assumed to be the highest mountain in the world, the name is derived from the Tibetan words kanchen and dzonga, which translate as ‘five treasures of the great snow’ and relate to her quintet of perilous peaks. The Kanchenjunga Marathon would perhaps be a more fitting moniker, given her proximity and prominence, but then it would probably not have quite the same allure.
Despite his newly constructed road, the Aga Khan never actually saw this spectacular panorama - the road, which is really more of a narrow cobbled track, was denounced by the Khan's emissary as far too dangerous.
Two days earlier we had set off from the serenity of the Mirik Lake Resort, a small hill station near Darjeeling, for the trip to Sandakphu. It had taken our driver, Bemba, several hours of painstaking concentration and expert manoeuvrings of his jeep, at a top speed of just six miles per hour. The rise in altitude from 6000 feet to double that produced practically vertical gradients and corners.
The earth plummeted away into what appeared to be a succession of bottomless valleys, first on our left and then our right, as we meandered upwards. Each of the steep valleys was dotted with houses and small settlements, no matter how high we drove, surrounded by rhodedendrons, magnolia trees and beautiful exotic flowers. After an hour or so we broke through the cloud line and everything was lost under what resembled a large multi-peaked Pavlova.
The Mt Everest Challenge Marathon itself constitutes day three of the Himalayan 100 Mile Stage Race - an annual ultra running event that is now in its 16th year. Days one and two require completion of 44 miles; the 24 on day one includes running up the punishing vertical hills to Sandakphu, past remote army outposts guarding the border with Nepal, and through tiny sherpa villages. After today’s 26 miles they still have another 30 to complete, over days four and five which will see them struggle over endless steep ascents and descents.
The Marathon though, is both the longest and hardest stage. Having lined up in front of the Kanchenjunga Massive at 7.00 am, clad in not very much considering the temperature, these 70 hardy souls had set off on the race of their life.
The course follows an undulating mountain trail for the first 11 miles with superb views of Everest which stop everyone in their tracks, all thoughts of being in a race forgotten for a moment.
From this angle, it may not be her best side, flanked as she is by Lhotse and Makalu, but you still know you are looking at the highest point on earth and it stirs the soul nonetheless. This trio of multi-million-year old rock towers above the valleys and hills of Nepal like King Kong over a New York skyscraper.
16 miles into the race, a cruel descent begins and continues for five and a half thousand feet. From treeless ridge through dense tropical forest, runners have to navigate their way over slimy rocks, through ankle-deep, terracotta-coloured mud and along gulleys left behind by the monsoon rains. Copious amounts of yak poo doesn’t help and neither does the weather. As clouds rise up from the valleys, it switches from warm to uncomfortably damp without warning.
Eventually the Ramman river can be heard flowing hundreds of feet below, flanked on either side by slopes covered in acres of tea plantations. Small dots of colour move slowly through the green bushes until, as you near, the dots reveal themselves as women harvesting the leaves.
Just when the pain really threatens to overwhelm, the locals with their ruddy-cheeked, grinning faces - a wonderful mix of Indian, Nepali, Tibetan and Bhutanese ancestry - urge you on. Brightly coloured Buddhist prayer flags, flutter in the breeze and shaven-headed monks in their distinctive purple robes gaze in wonder at each day-glo clad person who runs past.
Villages appear more frequently and with them sheaves of corn hanging from verandas, chillies drying in the sun and small kiosks selling random goods. Naked, giggling toddlers play amongst scrawny chickens and bleating goats. It's a vibrant, wonderful, eclectic mix in a world where electricity and flushing toilets just don’t exist.
Finally, the finish arrives at the village of Rimbik, lush, green and positively tropical compared to the cold mountaintop of Sandakphu where the race began several hours ago.
As I savour my Indian beer and have my feet rubbed, I question what makes anyone take on this kind of challenge; to push themselves day after day, mile after mile, with aching limbs, blisters and chafing in places one really doesn’t want to chafe. John Hoare, one of the UK participants, clears it up for me: "I sit at a desk, day in, day out, all year. I need to do something crazy every once in a while, otherwise I’d go….well...crazy!” For a very brief moment I envied them, slapping each other on the back, ecstatic at their achievements. But then I came to my senses, eternally grateful that tomorrow I will be back in the jeep. Well, you know what they say, two legs bad, four wheels good!
TRAVELLER’S GUIDE
Mount Everest Marathon and Himalayan 100 Mile Stage Race
The 16th Himalayan 100 Mile Stage Race takes place on 27 October - 03 November, 2006. For those who wish to run only the Marathon, it will be held on 31 October 2006. The price of the 100 Mile Stage Race is US$1799 and for the Marathon US$1025 and includes transfers from Bagdogra Airport to Mirik Lake Resort/further accommodations, seven nights food and lodging, transfers back to Bagdogra and one day sightseeing in Darjeeling. The closing date for applications is 30 August 2006 but the race will close when all places are filled which could be earlier.
Further information on Race/Marathon packages can be found at www.himalayan.com or contact Mr C S Pandey, Race Director (00 91 11 22772700; hrtpl@del2.vsnl.net.in or cspandey@vsnl.com)
The event can be combined with a holiday in India or nearby Nepal, before or after. For further information on India visit Indiatourism 7 Cork Street, London WIS 3LH (020-7437 3677; www.indiatouristoffice.org) or Nepal Tourism Board (00 977 1 4256909). The Royal Nepalese Embassy in London can also provide information at 12a Kensington Palace Gardens, London W8 4QU (020-7229 1594; www.nepembassy.org.uk).
Getting There
The writer travelled as a guest of Indiatourism. Flights from London Heathrow to Delhi, non-stop, are available from British Airways (0870 850 9 850; www.ba.com), Air India (0208 560 9996; www.airindia.com), Virgin Atlantic (0870 380 2007; www.virginatlantic.com) and Jet Airways (0800 0265626; www.jetairways.com). Return ticket approximately £470.
Internal flights to Bagdogra airport in West Bengal, the nearest airport to the race location, can be organised by the Race Director but are not included in the price.
Alternatively, you can fly to Kolkata which is in West Bengal itself. Return flights from London Heathrow are available from British Airways, non-stop. Virgin Atlantic, Air India and Jet Airways also fly but with one stop. Prices vary but a typical return ticket will cost around £600.
Staying There
Delhi: The Ashok Hotel, 50B Chanakyapuri New Delhi (011 26110101). Doubles start from US$218 (£126);
Hotel Yuvraj Deluxe, 38 Arakashan Road, Paharganj, New Delhi. Doubles start from US$£28 (£15)
Kolkata: 17 Park Street, 17 Park Street, Kolkata (00 91 33 2249 3121). Doubles from US$112 (£65)
Red Tape
British passport-holders require a tourist visa to visit India, which costs £30. Contact the High Commission of India, India House, Aldwych, London W1 (020-7836 8484; www.hcilondon.net)