The village of Langtang is gone, buried by an apocalyptic landslide triggered by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Nepal on April 25.
Last November, I was in Langtang with my family. I met the yak (actually nak, as she makes the milk) cheesemaker, and had an amazing lunch of melted cheese and fresh tomatoes on toast at this tiny stone cheese factory. I peeled potatoes with local women and enjoyed many meals of curried fried potatoes. And I walked on the left side of countless ancient mani walls, constructed of stones engraved with prayers. But everything I saw in this town is now destroyed, and most of the kind people we met there are gone. I can’t even imagine it.
Hiking through the Langtang valley was incredibly beautiful, but it was also a really cool experience because my father can communicate with the locals. I liked that. We sat around smoky fires every night, talking about their lives and their plans for the future. They loved my dad, especially the family that runs the Hotel Tibetan in Ghoda Tabela, a couple of hours’ walk below Langtang village. They survived the earthquake and rockfalls, but his entire extended family was killed in Langtang’s avalanche.
When the massive earthquake rocked Nepal, not only did the summit of Langtang Lirung sink about 5 feet, but also a giant piece of the mountain sheared off and created a landslide, pushing gale-force winds ahead of a ferocious sludge of ice, mud, snow, rocks and metal roofs. It would have been impossible to outrun, and it buried the entire village of a few hundred residents, their homes, 55 guest houses, and their trekkers and guides. The earthquake struck when the Nepali children were home on school break, and the trekking season was going strong. It could not have happened at a worse time.
Cayenne Cofman is an eighth-grader at Mountain Middle School. She is working an internship at The Durango Herald this week.
