The Great Himalaya Trail (GHT)  is sometimes called ‘The longest, highest, hiking trail in the world’ or the ‘Trail to End all Trails’.  If you are really serious about the GHT – your first stop should  be Robin Boustead’s site: www.greathimalayatrail.com which is the definitive repository of all things GHT.  Robin is the architect of the trail and the authority.

Great Himalaya Trail - image used by permission from Robin Boustead and Richard Bull
Great Himalaya Trail – image used with permission from Robin Boustead and Richard Bull

Our contribution

Without trying to take all of the adventure away from completing the GHT, our goal is to compile resources to help future hikers. As data geeks – our focus is on curating GPX tracks and to maintain them in an interactive map. Many of these originated from Robin Boustead. We also like to try to keep track of current and past efforts with our GHT Hiker Database. And when random things come our way, we add it below so it can be a resource for the thru-hiking community.  This page was originally created by Seth Wolpin, who thru-hiked the Nepal section in 2014 with friends John Fiddler and Kathleen Egan, crossing all technical passes self-supported.

If you are a past or a thru-hiker in planning, we would welcome any information about your trip so that we can list it here or in our database. If you are planning a thru-hike and wanting help with logistics, please look at our basic GHT support package.

Other GHT Resources

  • www.greathimalayatrail.com: A very nice site created by Robin Boustead who is considered the architect of the GHT. We are big fans of Robin. Check it out – great links and resources. It also covers much more than just Nepal and Robin coordinates the Great Himalaya Alliance.  It also has a facebook page. Content is tailored to the GHT with trip reports and more posted.
  • www.greathimalayatrails.com: Note that the address for this site differs from Robin’s site by only one letter. This site used to be a beautiful, informative, and had a different url ending in .org  As of 2016, it was being managed by Samarth an NGO that receives funding from DFID and possibly the Dutch government. Prior to this management, in 2014, it still had very nice marketing and branding – touting the GHT as the ‘longest, highest, footpath in the world’ and using the classic map with black background and rainbow coloring that we use here on this page. Under Samarth, the focus instead became on a ‘network of adventures’. It reads like many other trekking company websites in Nepal – all mostly devoid of real content and drawing attention to popular sites that are along (sometimes a bit far away) from the high route. There is no emphasis on thru hiking. The embedded maps are erroneous, tracks are not downloadable, and no primary source citations for the tracks are provided. Efforts to have them fix the tracks or notate the erroneous sections have been met with ‘We will do it next year’ for two years. In 2016 we had an email exchange with one staffer who said their focus was not on thru hiking, but instead shorter hikes. It has a facebook page with many likes: https://www.facebook.com/Great.Himalaya.Trails/info/– posts are frequent but usual tourist fare for the most part.
  • www.greathimalayanepal.com – a now defunct site for ‘The Great Himalaya Trail Nepal Alliance’ (GHTNA) with primary contacts Tej Raj Dahal and Mim Hamal. There is no substantive content on the site for a thru hiker. The focus (relative to the other alliance) is supposed to be only on the Nepal section. We dislike the fact there are now two ‘Alliances’ – that is an oxymoron.

Misc Thru-hike Blogs/Sites

Books

Silly Videos

2 thoughts on “Great Himalaya Trail”

  1. Great contents!
    I’m plannninng to go GHT spennding 5 years.This site definitely helps me a lot.
    I appreciate your effort.Thank you!　

    Reply

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