11 minute read
COVER STORY: NAVIGATING NEPAL
HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN
AMA member Bear Haughton overcame his demons in the jaw-dropping mountains of Nepal, and now he leads others on that same life-changing ride
BY KALI KOTOSKI, WITH MICHAEL LICHTER PHOTOS BY MICHAEL LICHTER
S
ome people say, ‘Hey Bear, I just want to ride motorcycles all day and drink 10 beers at night. All this Nepal cultural stuff? I don’t need that,’” said Bear Haughton (pictured right), an AMA member and cofounder of Motorcycle Sherpa, an adventure tourism company that offers thrill-seeking rides in India, Nepal, Bhutan and Mongolia.
“That very same guy or gal is a different person by the end of the trip,” he said. “It’s something about the people and the size and magnificence of the mountains. Really, you’re just an ant on this giant landscape, and when they realize that their minds really start to open up.”
HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN
When Bear started organizing tours in 2016 he wanted to do something different from most tour companies, and by 2018 had launched Motorcycle Sherpa, a company that focuses on dialing the adventure level up to the extreme, all while providing an affordable tour for the everyman. And, in the presence of the Himalayas and their ancient culture and way of life, one that’s pretty sure to be life changing. The company’s 13-day Ride to the Heavens tour in Nepal has some of the most difficult (and rewarding) riding through the Himalayas, and largely follows the famed Annapurna Circuit. Both mind and body are tested as riders cruise up to an austere elevation of nearly 18,000 feet, dive into lush green valleys, hightail it through clean, glacial-fed rivers, and even cross a 384-foot-high suspension bridge that’s nearly a quarter of a mile long.
On this trip you’ll pass careening elephants (not to mention their fourwheel-drive metal cousins), navigate the frenzied streets of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, and visit shrines, temples and pagodas that have been active pilgrimage sites for Hindus and Buddhists for over 2,000 years.
“When I say it is a unique company,” Bear says, “that’s because I really set out to put the adventure in adventure riding…like riding mountain passes on six-foot-wide roads on the edge of a cliff with a 4,000-foot drop! While it isn’t for everybody, it is an experience of being fully alive.”
When Bear started the company with partner Buddhi Singh, he had numerous goals in mind. As a “serial entrepreneur” who also owns Old Bike Barn and WhiteKnuckler Brand, Bear first and foremost wanted to provide riders with a highly personalized tour. It was all about the thrill and the shared experience, which in Nepal never gets old when you are in the snow-crested shadows of the highest mountain range in the world, witnessing a way of life so vastly different and simple from that on the American continent.
“There are a lot of companies [in Asia] that act more like travel agents, earning a couple grand per booking, and using guides they have never met in person,” Bear said. “For me, it is about riding handlebarto-handlebar and never selling our customers short. We are uncompromising.”
While extreme, the tour aims to avoid the pitfalls of group riding dynamics, like not always considering an individual rider’s comfort or skill level. For Bear, when scrambling up loose rocky inclines or single-track gravel roads, safety cannot be compromised.
“Some tours I think are incredibly dangerous, especially when group dynamics take over for
the worse,” Bear said. “Besides a few parts of the Nepal tour, like in Kathmandu, you ride at your own pace. Whether it takes you four hours to do 70 kilometers, or you want to roost it in two, it doesn’t matter. It surprises people to learn that from tip to tail, riders can be two-and-ahalf hours apart.”
Bear is a former NATO and UN soldier who’s participated in four peacekeeping missions. He utilizes leadership skills honed in military service, fostering comradery and using that no-nonsense focus towards completing the mission during long days in the saddle. Those leadership skills naturally come in handy, helping him keep a pulse on the group to steer riders away from confrontation, especially when the going gets tough and nerves are frayed.
“This is work. This is tough. It is cold. It is hard hours of riding and today is the day where Paul punches John in the face. And I want you to remember why we are doing this together and embrace the teamwork that is required to get through this,” Bear said, recounting one of the early morning speeches he gives when he can tell the pot is ready to boil.
Being hands-on and straight with the riders serves as a humbling reminder that people are half a world away from home, riding through mountains that 100 years ago would have only been accessible to explorers,
MICHAEL LICHTER
daredevil mountain climbers or the largesse of aristocrats and nobility.
But for Bear, there is also a profoundly deep reason to lead a group of riders out into the wilderness for a trip of a lifetime. Some years back, he found himself drifting into the more hardcore aspects of the biker lifestyle. The partying, the booze, the drugs, etc.
“In my experience, it is
fairly common for those with military backgrounds to kind of find themselves on that path, but when I realized ‘Oh man, I am that guy,’ I decided to get totally sober,” he said. “Six years now, no alcohol or drugs.”
What he ended up finding in Nepal before he launched his tourism company was something far more rewarding and satisfying, especially for motorcyclists that feed on freedom and independence.
“I found a new way to get high,” Bear said, which in this case is both figurative and literal. “I had such a great time I knew I had to share it with people. I like to say: ‘We don’t sell trips, we sell catharsis.’”
It’s not just the scenery that supplies catharsis, despite how wildly intense it is to visit the home of Mount Everest, but also the Nepalese culture, which is comprised of a largely harmonious balance between the dominant Hindu religion, followed by Buddhism (and Tibetan Buddhism to be exact, with numbers largely supported by generations of refugees exiled after China finished taking over Tibet in 1951), Islam and a small Christian minority.
“I get some people asking as if we are going to cartel-run parts of Mexico,” Bear said with a laugh. “I have to tell them that these are Buddhists and Hindus and honestly some of the most welcoming people you will ever meet.”
The cultural experience starts on day one when riders land in Kathmandu and are given a “Temple Day” to overcome jet lag. The sightseeing preparation for the next day’s ride
BEAR HAUGHTON
includes visiting the Swayambhunath Stupa, known more commonly as The Monkey Temple and then a walk-through Durbar Square, an UNESCO World Heritage Site known for its stunning architecture and royal palaces.
The next day, the engines are fired up and the escape from a city with a population of slightly over one million begins.
“Navigating out of Kathmandu can be intimidating to the most seasoned riders,” famed motorsports photographer Michael Lichter wrote for this piece (Lichter accompanied Bear on two Nepal trips over the last few years). “The density and bustle make NYC look like a walk in the park. Still, somehow there’s a sense of cooperation and give and take that makes it work, as if by some invisible force.”
Once out of the capital, the sheer enormity of nature starts to dig in hard, with pristine views of the snowcapped peaks of the Himalayas. And, of course, that marks the point when the real work that goes into an adventure begins. By the time the adventure ends, riders will have covered nearly 1,000 kilometers and multiple times that in elevation.
For Lichter, navigating around the Annapurna Circuit brought back memories of when he hiked through the Himalayas in 1975, when
many roads had yet to exist and seeing a car was a novelty. And of course, almost zero hotels, no phones or internet and no pollution.
While some things have undoubtedly changed in the country over the last 40 years or so, Bear said the Nepalese way of life is astounding in its comforting simplicity, free of the typical Western travails.
“I enjoy showing people that have possibly never traveled to Asia that there is more than one way to live,” said Bear. “I am often envious of the simplicity of their lives, especially when I come back to taxes and bills and material possessions. On the trip you will witness some of the happiest kids you have ever seen, and they have less than anyone here in America.”
One of Bear’s favorite stops of the adventure is at Muktinath, an ancient temple that sits at an elevation of 13,000 feet, which makes it one of the highest temples in the world. It is a sacred pilgrimage site for both Hindus and Buddhists.
“People have been worshipping here for thousands of years, with three prayers a day every day,” said Bear. “Whenever I get there, I experience something I can’t explain. I don’t believe in ghosts or the supernatural, but you can feel the energy and the emotions are so powerful.”
Numerous times Bear
On this trip you’ll pass careening elephants (not to mention their four-wheel-drive metal cousins), and visit shrines, temples and pagodas that have been active pilgrimage sites for Hindus and Buddhists for over 2,000 years.
has crossed the threshold of the temple with his group of riders, giving them little knowledge of its spiritual and historic importance, and some of the riders just fall to their knees and start crying.
“When that happens, you have to ask yourself what makes this place and this adventure so magical,” Bear said. “And it is also why people come back to me once it is all over and tell me how the trip changed their life and how they wished that they would have done something like this sooner.”
For Motorcycle Sherpa, the ethos of the adventure riding tourism company revolves around a single core belief: A rejection of the typical lifedeferred program that puts dreams of adventure out of reach until retirement.
“I kind of preach this ‘live now because we don’t know what the future holds’ belief,” Bear said. “For my generation, investing in experiences has become more important than hopefully someday owning a mansion with a fancy car in the garage. And I am happy to be there for those experiences.” AMA
