Mountains Of Memories Gerry Copeland Wanted To Take His Wife And Children On A Trip That Would Broaden Their Minds, To A Place They Would Long Remember

“I was searching for something,” wrote Frenchman Michel Peissel, “… for a dream that thousands have had before me. I dreamed of a lost horizon, and felt that somewhere there existed the last land unspoiled, untouched and ageless - a world yet unexplored.”

Peissel’s account of his 1964 trek to the remote Himalayan territory of Mustang, “The Forbidden Kingdom,” convinced Spokane architect Gerry Copeland and his wife, musician Margie Heller, to undertake a similar journey several months ago with their two children, Mira, 11, and Forrest, 9, and friends Andy and Helen Biggs.

Copeland recalls what led to the decision to visit Mustang, and what his family discovered when they reached its cloistered capital, 12,400-foot-high Lo Mantang:

We wanted to go someplace where time had not changed the way people live … someplace without TV satellite dishes.

After considering Turkey, Patagonia and several other destinations, we decided to go to Nepal. I felt a personal connection with that country, having been a Peace Corps volunteer in India in the late ‘60s, and having visited Nepal a couple of times since.

But this time we’d go farther out - to the “forbidden kingdom” of Mustang.

The people of Mustang once were self-sufficient, raising most of their own food and traveling north into Tibet or south into Nepal and India for their few trade items.

But China’s efforts to destroy the Tibetan culture across the border cut off Mustang’s traditional pasturelands. So a couple of years ago, the kingdom decided to allow 300 tourists a year, as a low-impact way of generating jobs.

Through Spokane friends Ric Conner and Denise Atwood, who import handicrafts made by Tibetan refugees in Nepal, we met Ram Karki, a Nepalese tour organizer.

Ram assured us Mustang was a wonderfully unique, yet accessible, cultural experience. Mira and Forrest could ride Tibetan horses if they wanted, and the route would have just “a little up, a little down” for us older trekkers. The cost was $2,600 per person, plus air fare.

Ram made all the arrangements from Katmandu, including finding porters and horses, paying government fees, arranging air transportation and our stay in Katmandu.

Our job was easy. Since springtime temperatures in Mustang range from 30s to 70s, we needed only our normal hiking clothes. And because the Tibetan plateau is high and dry, we didn’t worry about malaria and cholera shots.

Mira and Forrest would miss several weeks of school. But they both attend Jefferson Elementary’s Montessori program, which encourages experiencing the world through travel. They took along journals so they could record their daily adventures in words and drawings.

The flight took about 20 hours, plus an overnight layover in Bangkok. Ram met us in Katmandu, and after a couple of days, we flew to Jomosom, which put us at 9,000 feet.

There we rendezvoused with the rest of our crew: two Sherpas, a cook and his helper, 13 porters, two horse handlers, and a political liaison officer who, by law, was required to travel with us. We also had seven horses - one for riding, and six pack animals.

In other parts of Nepal one can travel lighter, and cheaper. But all groups going into Mustang must be completely self-sufficient, packing in all supplies and carrying out garbage.

Our permit only allowed us 10 days inside Mustang, and we needed all 10 just to get to Lo Mantang and back. We had little time to stop and think. The kids had no problem with the altitude, but the “little up, little down” wore us older ones out.

Meals started out elaborate: tasty curries for dinner; breakfasts of scrambled eggs with yak cheese and onions, plus potatoes and chapatis (unleavened bread) with peanut butter.

But as some of us began suffering from the altitude, we switched to simpler fare: packaged soups, chapatis and potatoes. One exception, though, was a tasty dinner of fresh goat requested by our porters.

Most days, I rose at sunrise and wandered around taking pictures while breakfast was being prepared. We’d usually break camp around 9, and hike for three or four hours. Meanwhile crew members would travel ahead, set up a tent and start cooking lunch. After lunch, we’d walk some more, averaging about 8 miles a day. By evening, we were exhausted.

We always spent the night in villages, sleeping in our own tents. The countryside is beautiful, but very desolate. Most villages have a population of 200 to 300, except the capital, Lo Mantang, where residents number a couple of thousand.

Whenever we entered a village, local youngsters would gather around to look at us - especially our kids, since very few foreign children have visited Mustang.

We’d visit the local Buddhist gompa (religious building) or a monastery, or just walk around in the village observing the daily activities.

The highlight of the trip was Lo Mantang. You first see it from above, catching glimpses as you descend from a nearby 13,500-foot-high pass.

As we approached with the afternoon light hitting the temples and prayer flags, I was hoping the city would still resemble the description in Michel Peissel’s book. (A couple of days earlier we had passed a group of Belgian tourists who described Lo Mantang as the filthiest, dustiest place they had ever seen.)

Well, it was pretty dirty, with unmelted snow and a winter’s accumulation of animal and human debris all around. But it was still unchanged - no tin roofs, no modern gaudy Katmandu architecture, no tourist restaurants and definitely no TV satellite dishes.

Watching the people weave cloth from their own animals’ wool … hearing the older men at dawn as they circumnavigated the walled city chanting “om mani padme hum” … following the shepherd boy herding the town’s sheep out the city gate … seeing my kids sitting with their respective age groups at Lo Mantang Primary School - these were the experiences that made the trip rewarding to me.

In retrospect, our children probably would have preferred traveling in a more beautiful and less harsh area of Nepal. We would all have liked a more leisurely pace, with time to interact with people.

But I think the intensity of this trip will cause our memories to remain sharp for a long time. Nepal’s friendly people and their self-reliant ways were an inspiring contrast to our very material, complex, fast-paced lifestyle.

Printed on a T-shirt in Katmandu was the reminder to tourists, “Nepal is here to change you, not for you to change Nepal.”