A Tour of Northern Humla, Nepal (September-October 2014)
Stage 6: Halji to Hilsa (Tibetan border) via Til
Limi valley between Halji and Til.
Our mules crossing Limi Khola on an old bridge and climbing a steep trail to enter Til′s side valley.
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In Til′s side valley.
Til and its cultivated terraces. Till people had started removing snow from some terraces and gathering some fresh vegetables.
Views of Til village.
After Til, the Limi valley becomes increasingly deeper and narrower and eventually merges with the equally deep and narrow Humla Karnali canyon.
The Humla Karnali canyon after the merging of the two rivers. The canyon is approximately 1800m deep.
Because the canyons of the two rivers are so steep, the trail climbs to approximately 4300m. At one point this allowed us to see most of the Limi valley, as far as the Tibetan plateau.
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Steep descent from a 4300m pass. The first photo shows only the upper section of the descent. The next photo shows the entire descent from the pass.
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Other views along the Humla Karnali canyon. Note our three mules in the second photo below.
Finally, the ″road″ from Hilsa to Nara La became visible on the face of the mountain on the opposite side of the river (road in blue dashed lines, footpath shortcut to the pass in red line).
Descent toward Hilsa (the village with blue roofs). The red dotted line plotted on the annotated photo on the right indicates the approximate contour of the border with China. Locals say that the piece of land on the right side of the line used to be Nepalese and was stolen by China. Because crossing the border is now forbidden the descent to Hilsa coming from the Limi valley is very steep and awkward.
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The foot bridge across the Humla Karnali river. There is no other bridge across the river despite the fact that there are a paved road on the Tibetan side and a dust road on the Nepalese side.
Welcoming board to Chinese Tibet.
Friendly Tibetan guesthouse in Hilsa.
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Hilsa′s main street.
Large building, hydroelectric plant, and high-tech equipment for border control on the other side of the border. What is their purpose? Today there is almost no traffic across the border. Some people say that China is interested in the forests in western Nepal and that trucks loaded with tree logs may soon cross the border.
