A shared event
Until April 2015 I had never been at the centre of a natural disaster. The Kathmandu earthquake turned out to be of biblical proportions at 7.9 on the Richter Scale. We had been in the centre of Kathmandu when it happened and stood against a rippling, eight foot high wall which gave us a ridiculously unfounded sense of security.
One hundred kilometres north of us the quake shook just as vigorously but it's effect was massively amplified by the detachment of a serac wall near the summit of a 7,000m mountain. The ensuing avalanche of rock and ice came crashing down driving before it supersonic winds. Devastation of the village below was total and of cataclysmic proportions.
Furba had briefed us about today's walk the night before and his solemn tones put me in somber mood for the 1,000m ascent. All the way up the valley Remembrance poetry span through my mind.
The raging river had carved its way through a very steep sided valley and our twisting route kept to the shade for much of the morning. The way was through forests dripping with mosses and lichens. The icy waters of the river kept the valley chilly and so we plodded on for hours over cobbles and tree roots polished by generations of feet and hooves. An ancient route into a high mountain valley. A route hemmed in by oppressive mountains where little light is able to percolate.
Every now and then landslides had ripped through the forests and destroyed the path but these were minor geological events compared with what was to come.
By lunchtime the valley had opened out letting the sun in and before we stopped we past by the twisted ruins of a hamlet and hotel that had succumbed to one of the minor landslides. New shiny corrugated iron structures now form the replacement lodge and health post.
The afternoon brought whisps of cloud and a chilled mountain breeze. Then came the mother of all landslides. Where Langtang Village was there is now a gargantuan sea of boulders bisected by the faltering path. The chilled afternoon wind and whisps of cloud gave the whole place the feel of Golgotha. A somber grey place where so many had died in the same instant that we had stood against that rippling Kathmandu wall in 2015.
I think we all felt moved to be there and, being there, finally silenced the bit of war poetry that had been churning away in my brain all day.
They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning we shall remember them.