It had been a long time since I have had a proper walk! The only walking that I did was from Office to the nearest Bhyaarbhyaare momo (Check out my blog on best momos in town: Here). Finally, today I went for it! 

The last time I was there, it was quite different, less disturbed, less crowded, but now things have changed. I don’t remember how long it has been but then such kinds of changes happens in a blink. Ghyaampedada lies to south-east of Suryabinayak temple.  Ghyampedada is not that far for Suryabinayak. Must be around 4 kilometers give or take, not much of a hike. But most of the time, it’s not just about the hike, it’s something different.

Like I said, it had been a long time so I just wanted to spend this Saturday doing something fun, and at the same time, Abhishek wanted to go hiking as well. So we decided to go do the Ghyampedada-Lamatar hike! At the same time I found out that a friend of mine was doing the same hike as well, so we decided to join in the hike. We didn’t know anyone apart from a single friend in the whole group, and they didn’t know us as well. I don’t remember how many of us were there, 9 I think? Anyways, the thing is- I never, and I mean never go on a hike or trek that has more than 4 people in it! Personally I think 3 is the best number, because if it’s few days trek then just two people trekking can get monotonous and boring so it’s better to have that 3rd person in the team. Or it could be 4 as well, but not more than that. The more you have the more conflict you get, either its about going somewhere or not going somewhere or something like that! You get it, if you’ve been there!

Anyways, we were on the move and before too long, the Northern canvas of Kathmandu valley, was painted in snow and peaks. The sky was partially clear, but still the view was splendid! I knew that we could see good view of the Himalayas from there but I didn’t realize that the view was that good! Because to be honest, The view from Ghyampedada and the trail leading up to the top of the hill could provide a better mountain viewing spot than Nagarkot! The last time I was there I didn’t see anything because of the clouds but I was highly impressed today.

The trails upto Ghyampedada is basically the road, that too is black-pitched, our plan was to reach Lamatar from there but then we didn’t for few reasons. The first fun thing that happened was when we decided to boycott the road and take the shortcut by climbing a steep hill, and it was steep! (Well not for me) But we had few people who wasn’t used to those kinds of situation so it was kind of challenging at one time. It actually took us more time to reach the top than it would have taken us if we had taken the road! But there’s no fun in the road. It should have been a good experience for the first timers. By the time we reached up, most of them must have been mad at me for taking us that way, I know two of them were, but well I can surely say that they had fun as well.

A short walk from there took us to the gates of Pilot Baba Aashram, right before the gates, on the turn, the view from there was absolutely stunning! The Annapurna’s weren’t quite visible, but the Manaslu, Ganesh Himal, Langtang Lirung, Dorje Lakpa, Phrubi Gyachu, Gaurishankhar and Melungste were high up in the sky with no clouds to obscure our views. I bet that place offers one of the best mountain views from the Kathmandu valley. (Photos below )

Mountains seen from Ghyampedad: From right to left- Dorje Lakpa, Shishapangma and Gangchempo (Forget the black dot, I need to clean my sensor)

From there on we made our way to the Ghyaampe dada, because we needed to eat something, I can’t go on long without eating meat, so had to find some meat! And meat there was, after a brief lunch time, we started the descend back to the Suryabinayak, but before we actually started it, we ran into a small problem. 3 of the people were missing, no where to be seen. And strangely none of them were picking up their phones, after looking around for about an hour, finally we made contact with them and then started to descend down. Yet again we took a crazy short cut which was more of a fun for me, not steep as well, just plain fun hiking trail.

After a short trip to the fields near the previous army camp, we made our way to the Suryabinayak temple and then to the bus stop. All in all it was a very short trip, at least for me , but it was fun in some kind of way. May be because it happened in the unknown company, but it was actually fun. Back when I was there few years ago, I had seen vast diversity of butterflies and birds, but this time I barely saw  more than 3 butterflies and heard 2 birds, saw 1 magpie and that’s it. I think I have a blog on my first trip to Ghyampedada and If I’m correct I should have mentioned about the diversity of Butterflies there, but in no time, it has gone down to the extremes. Development is definitely required but then if it really does affect species such as butterflies, should we think about it? To be honest, no one would think about the butterflies right? But they do more for us than we do for them! And I really do think Ghyaampedada could really benefit as a very good spot to see mountains, it needs more promotion. I hope they do it soon, but keeping the diversity intact, in whatever way possible. But anyways, hike more if you can!