Hiking in the footsteps of Bhutan's bizarre Snowman Race
The Snowman Race is an event that revels in its superlatives. It is the highest ultra-marathon in the world, it is widely considered the most demanding and, even though it is invitation-only for athletes who have a track record of competing in extreme races, it still has an alarmingly high drop-out rate.
In its first iteration in 2022, the 125-mile route – which covers some of the toughest terrain of northern Bhutan – required the 29 athletes who took part to run at an average altitude of 4,267m (14,000ft) for five days and climb multiple Himalayan passes over 5,470m (17,946ft).
The effects of altitude sickness typically start to be felt at around 2,500m (8,202ft), and the symptoms can be brutal, including headaches, dizziness, vomiting and confusion. Extreme altitude, considered anything above 5,500m (18,044ft), can be fatal.
No fewer than 12 of the starters in the first Snowman Race – all seasoned ultra-marathon runners – had to be airlifted off the trail or helped back to base camp when they ran out of puff. By the end, the consensus among those who had optimistically stood on the start line, in the town of Gasa, was that it was the hardest thing they had ever attempted.
Fortunately for those of us who don’t enjoy pushing our bodies to the very limit of human endurance, there is a considerably gentler alternative. The Snowman Trek crosses much of the same ground and – though it can take up to three weeks to complete the whole stretch, and still requires hikers to ascend and descend thousands of metres of mountainside – is a good deal more attainable for the average hiker.
Nevertheless, given that more people have reached the summit of Mount Everest than have completed the Snowman Trek, it would be fair to say that it is, in a word, challenging.
Curious but keen to survive the experience, I opted for a relatively short stretch of the route – but just six miles from the start of the trail at Tongchu, my rest breaks were already becoming longer and more frequent. Dizzy, I braced myself against my trekking poles, while a nearby yak eyeballed me as it chewed a mouthful of wiry grass.
On the plus side, the breaks did give me a chance to breathe in the stunning valleys and peaks of the eastern Himalayas. From a bluff, the densely forested valley dropped away steeply to a raging river of milky blue meltwater. It was joined below me by another river from a side valley that reached into the distance, ending abruptly in the angular peak of Tsenda Kang.
As I braced myself for the next stretch, a caravan of mules overtook me with gas canisters, sacks and boxes strapped tightly to their backs. Their herder, in a traditional knee-length “gho”, gave me a breezy wave as he strode past – on what was probably already his second ascent of the day – headed for the villages in the uplands.
I went on, though forests of rhododendron and glacial lakes, large stretches appearing barren but still home to Himalayan blue sheep and the elusive snow leopard, the route – once these remote communities’ only link to the outside world – winding its way past glaciers and waterfalls, rickety bridges and sky-scraping mountains on all sides. I found myself in a constant state of awe.
Eventually, the path meandered through the cluster of homes that make up Lunana (made famous by the 2021 film Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, the first Bhutanese movie to be shortlisted for the Oscar for best foreign film). A prayer bell within a white-painted “chorten” – a kind of stupa – kept up a constant chiming, driven by the waters of a mountain stream, and women from the village of Laya (at 3,820m/12,532ft, the highest community in the country) passed by in their distinctive conical hats held in place by colourful strands of beads.
I had reached the end of my stretch, and so I descended – from one of the remotest parts of one of the remotest countries in the world, into the Punakha Valley beyond Gasa. There, I took a tented villa at the Pemako resort on the slopes above the Mo Chhu river. Carrying a cold local beer, I waded into the heated pool and sat, gazing through a gap in the trees, still just able to make out the white peaks where the snowmen run.
Essentials
Julian Ryall was a guest of the Bhutan Department of Tourism.
For details on the Snowman Race, and updates ahead of the next event, visit snowmanrace.org.
Pemako Punakha (00 975 77 10 00 93) has doubles from £872 per night.
KE Adventure Travel (01768 773966) has the 30-day Snowman Trek group tour from £11,895 per person, including flights, all meals and all accommodation. Departing September 20 and October 6 2024.
