My Adventure In Nepal: The Himalaya Rescue Squad

I'll spend the majority of my time in Nepal getting to know Ingo and the other members of his search and rescue team, gathering information and stories so I can return home to Arizona and write the book.

Dutchman Ingo Schnabel established SAR Dogs Nepal, the only organization of its kind in the country, in October, 1989. Since then, the team has provided search and rescue and medical aid when trekkers have been reported missing and in the event of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, landslides, and flash flooding. The team is able to provide helicopter rescue and tracking dogs to almost any area of Nepal.

SAR Dogs Nepal members have trained in a range of disciplines, including rock rescue, firefighting, logistics, and wilderness medicine.

The team now also has a Junior Rescue Squad. This follows a ten-year hiatus during The People's War in Nepal from 1996 until 2006, when SAR Dogs Nepal was unable to continue training new disaster relief workers. Currently, only 18 staff members and 9 Nepalese volunteers remain, while the goal is to have a minimum of 100 workers on standby in the team's mobile Disaster Relief & Medical Aid Unit.

SAR Dogs Nepal's main headquarters is in Shyauli Bazaar, Lamjung District, in the center of Nepal, and includes a dog breeding and training center. Team members often work at an altitude of 18,000 feet or more and in harsh conditions, from jungle gorges to flooded plains, avalanche zones, and even large-scale traffic accidents.

Due to a lack of national infrastructure and government support, SAR Dogs Nepal has provided the only medical disaster relief to poor villages in remote areas.

To learn more about SAR Dogs Nepal, visit the team's website at SARDogsNepal.asia

Also, see my blog post: Featured Team: SAR Dogs Nepal on SAR Stories News.

Photo Credit: Stock.xchg / CC license

After flying into Kathmandu, Nepal's capital city--the largest and pretty much the only city in the country--and spending a day or two there, I'll travel to the town of Pokhara by bus, where I'll meet Ingo.

I've read that the 200-kilometer (124-mile) trip from Kathmandu to Pokhara along the Prithvy Highway can take as many as eight hours. The road often follows rivers at the bottom of deep valleys and passes a number of what I've seen described as comfortable refreshment stops.

(Added: A friend of mine who's been to Nepal has quite strongly suggested that I fly to Pokhara rather than taking the bus. She said the road is narrow--really just wide enough for one vehicle--with no guardrails, and the buses honk their horns as they "scream" around the corners, hoping there isn't a vehicle coming the other way. She also said that the "valleys are littered with burnt-out buses." Eek! Me thinks her advice to fly is definitely sound. I've heard that a flight from Kathmandu to Pokhara and vice versa is only about U.S.$70, and I think that is going to be well worth it!)

After spending maybe a month in Pokhara, Ingo tells me we'll trek to the team's current headquarters in Shyauli Bazar and spend some time there before returning to Pokhara for the month of July, which I believe is the wettest month of the year.

Most of my time in Nepal will be during the rainy--or monsoon--season, when many of the country's unpaved roads are impassable. So I expect I'll be doing a lot of walking (trekking, that is), which is more than fine with me. I hope to explore as much as possible on foot.

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