Well Joe, checking the weather locally is easier said than done. While you can ask any old farmer's wife in the European Alps and she knows exactly if rain or shine tomorrow, none of the locals in Nepal had any idea at all, and I speak enough Nepali to ask those questions. All I got is I don't know. In Manang not many places seem to offer Wifi, when I asked for an information office people pointed to the western doctors office even though I was almost next to the ACAP which was open but no one inside. Later a middle-aged Nepali man came. Weather? No idea. Conditions on trail to Tilicho? Better ask in the next village (Khansgar). After Manang no more Internet and no mobile reception possible wherever I checked. Asking again at Yak Kharka some smart guide recommended I use the lodge's landline to call someone in my country, ask them to check the weather online, and call them again in 10 minutes to ask for results. People do that, he said.
Nepal is a developing 3rd world country which will become obvious once you stray off the tourist circuit . Try not to expect the same services as in Switzerland .
I was at Manang couple summers ago and headed to Tilico Lake . Stayed in Khansgar and asking about the route to the lake got one or two word answers even tho the lodge was full inebriated folks who knew the area well . No problem . The trail turned out to be treacherously steep gravel sides with no visible trail ,,,extremely dangerous . I turned back after too many hairy moments . My point is that there is no reliable info coming from the Nepalis usually . They want us to pay a guide for that .
...you can ask any old farmer's wife in the European Alps and she knows exactly if rain or shine tomorrow...
After all the recent talk about how hard it is to predict mountain weather, I'm glad to hear that, at least in the alps, the farmer's wives have a perfect track record! Maybe they should start a web service?
Agree with skyline1, and as an average trekker I have been somewhat annoyed at all the bemoaning that has occurred concerning the lack of fancy comm/sat data, wx downloads, etc and blame being placed on the Nepali govt for not providing this info---they are just not set up to deliver it, that is just the way it IS, heck they can barely get water and electricity to their own capital, why the H should they invest in fancy techno stuff for trekkers/tourists? To me trekkers should be more 'involved' in observing what is going on around them....your best source of info as has been expressed in this thread and emphasized in others on AC in particular recently is your eyeballs and your brain. Monitor the sky and clouds for some days (why not everyday?) prior to the pass and see the trend---afternoon clouds? clearing at night/clr in the morning?, or breaking up later and later or whatever. If it is nice clr wx as can often be expected and all of a sudden higher clouds, cirrus type, move in and next day or so lower clouds, well this tells you something....
I wasn't there and do not know how fast the wx 'changed' but I find it hard to believe the snow swept in out of clr skys with no warning after trekkers had departed from high camp. Rather I think likely people departed into deteriorating conditions both that morning and with reference to conditions the prior few days....
Every time you approach any pass the wx and the trend is of utmost importance....this all seems too obvious to state but it seems that this facet of trekking was ignored to a lessor or greater extent. The idea that people think that all of sudden all kinds of sat photos, foreign wx broadcasts, upto date internet links, and overseas phone call wx updates are required seems frankly, absurd to me....ok, if they are readily available you use them, as had been said if you are in Switzerland or wherever, but for all practical purposes they are not and will not be available for years in Nepal yet generations of trekkers have some made it over all the passes in Nepal on a reg basis. Freak storms occur and anyone can get caught, even professionals as we have seen, but to me that does not mean you ignore the basics of what your eyes are telling you and your brain is saying.
Roger
This is the post that never dies!!!! :)
While on one hand, I completely agree with Roger, that the trekkers themselves should to be congizant of the weather around them (and know how to "read" it), the reality is that we cannot depend on every trekker to be prepared to do this. On the other hand I think Nepal is missing an opportunity here. Rather than the expensive, probably not effective, and difficult to administer guide requirement, I think a very doable, effective and low cost way to help with the situation is for Nepal to provide a regular daily weather forecast explicitly for trekkers (at least during the high seasons). The forecast could be in English and broadcast on Radio Nepal at a set time (each evening?), and trekkers could be educated about this when they get their TIMS card. Everyone could know that they need to check the weather each evening (and even if you miss the broadcast itself, you'll know to ask other trekkers in the lodge what the forecast was).
Note that Nepal already does this for the mountaineering expeditions -- there is (or at least was) a nightly mountain forecast, broadcast in English, which is fairly detailed, including wind speeds at various altitudes. I see no reason why they can't do the same for trekkers (i.e. the forecast focused on the hills & lower mountains, as opposed to the high mountains in particular). There is already a an available nightly forecast in the English language news each evening, but his is for the country in general, and probably not sufficient for trekkers.
This solution would requrie no new infrastructure (e.g. no need for the the GPS devices that they are talking about, and no worries about cell phone reception problems), and could be implemented with very, very little additional cost to the govt. Maybe the only issue is that this approach won't provide a new revenue source for the country (as the guide requirement does...)
Good idea. And as there are now many many AM and FM stations throughout the country these days coverage for most areas should work. At a given time on many radio stations weather conditions/and forecasts pertinent to trekkers could be broadcast....surely much more cost effective as well as less onerous than the absurd GPS thing and mandatory guide for each trekker/group/whatever, however not as lucrative for TAAN and govt officials, so I have my doubts that common sense will prevail.
Roger
I still think that with many Nepalis having mobile phones, this would be the best way of spreading an advance, general warning about possible severe weather. There was sufficient warning about Phailin in Oct 2013 and Hudhud in Oct 2014. For Phailin, as I posted above, I, sat in the UK, using my humble mobile (it is not even a "smart" phone) was able via text messages to warn the 2 guides I trek with about its possible approach - they were both up in the Everest region (with different parties).
Surely something similar can be done via the Nepali mobile companies - even if people are in coverage blackspots, guides move around by nature of the work, and word would soon spread. It can't be that difficult, can it? No need for inappropriate high tech investments - at least half the money for which would find its way into the pockets of the well connected (politically, not telephonically).
I certainly agree with the need to use eyes, and then engage brain, to assess the weather, especially major changes in the strength and direction of the wind which could be bringing in snow, and cloud build up. No cloud build up means no snow. Cloud build up means big risk of snow high up.
As also posted above, this mania for setting off ridiculously early to cross a high pass may have been a factor - you ain't going to get much of a view of say cloud build up if it is pitch dark and freezing cold when you set off. Bit late to start seeing heavy cloud as the sun comes up if you are then 2-3 hours into a trek with no shelter anywhere.
Also complacency may have been a factor - you get posts saying in effect "doing X was easy when I did it - no need for warm clothing, can't see what all the fuss is about etc etc". Certainly thousands of people will have trekked AC in the past year with no major weather related problems, but when the weather does turn bad, which it will do every so often, things change a bit...
It would be good to read a proper analysis of what went so wrong (40 or so dead), if one is ever written up, but I suspect it will all be slowly forgotten.
good idea for a mobile phone or radio 'storm warning' service. both are cheap and available methods for public announcements. I suggest the service must be:
- explicitly for ALL the people in Nepal Himalaya, not just in the trekking areas or involved in trekking. some of the people who lost their lives in this storm were yak herders and farmers. that might imply multi-lingual broadcasts etc.
- explicitly paid for by tourist-trekkers. costs are going to go up anyway, whether that be for GPS rental, forced guiding or whatever cash-for-the-already-rich scheme the Nepal govt and TAAN can think up. If tourist-trekkers are explicitly paying for a service there is a better chance of that service being supplied. It might also make indy trekking more acceptable.
A service like that could be set up by an NGO initially.
Perhaps this is naive dreaming, but many of the reports emerging from this disaster (credible or not)and related anecdotes on this board are sad testimonies to the problems caused by the vast disparity in wealth and opportunity blighting relationships between tourists and locals in Nepal. Finding solutions to lesson that divide could help save lives of tourists and locals alike.
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