Climbing Mountains With Motorcycles

Royal Enfields in Nepal

- Michael Lichter

When asked to climb mountains with a motorcycle, just say yes...

Living just 10 blocks from the juncture of the Great Plains with the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, I’m no stranger to tall peaks and riding the twisties. However, where snow-crested pinnacles rise to sheer majesty above 20,000 feet as they do in the Himalayas, it’s entirely another story.

And so is getting through packs of bikes at which, I consider myself an expert (always in search of making a better photo.) The bar rises to a new level on the roads of Nepal. There were perils to mountain riding and getting through traffic I never knew existed. I found myself knee-deep in river crossings, scrambling up rocky inclines (without off-road experience), and on narrow paved highways (hardly paved or highways). Crammed intercity buses raced straight toward me in what seemed like a game of chicken, only much more severe. I found myself jostling in dirt shoulders more than once to avoid head-ons. Considering all the risks, there was no question – the brain must fire on all cylinders all the time in these conditions. Now, doesn’t this sound like the making of a great adventure!

Let me explain that at the invitation of Bear Haughton and his Motorcycle Sherpa adventure company, I rode the proverbial “Stairway to Heaven” in Nepal, a country that is home to eight of the 10 tallest mountains in the world with the 29,000-foot (almost 9km tall!) Mount Everest at the top of the list.