Hunting Pines around Kulekhani area, central Nepal

03/11/2008

Pines make up the family Pinaceae and its representative genus is Pinus. Nepal has two species of it viz. Pinus wallichiana and Pinus ruxburghii. Many species of Pinus are proved to be good for dendrochronological study. From Nepal, Suzuki (1990) studied P. wallichiana from Rara Lake area, western Nepal. Bhattacharyya et al., (1992) studied these two species, and samples for this study were collected from Bhaktapur Nagarjun, Tila Nala (P. ruxburghii) and Rara National Park (P. wallichiana). Only samples from Tila Nala and Rara National Park produced good chronology. Originally, these samples were collected by Rudolf Zuber in the direction of Dr. Fritz Schweingruber, Switzerland. Later Cook et al. (2003) developed chronology from samples of P. wallichiana collected by Dr. Burghardat Schmidt from dry inner valley of central Nepal. Dr. Dhananjay Regmi collected tree-ring cores of P. ruxburghii from Chisapanighadi and P. wallichiana cores from Bajrabarahi area for his master thesis entitled “Climate and tree ring growth pattern of pines in Kulekhani Area, Middle hills of Nepal” in 1999. In his study, he found these species formed distinguished growth ring and recommended more samples needed to be collect to understand tree-ring climate response and study past climate. I always wanted to visit these sites for collecting tree-ring cores to understand past climate of the Kulekhani area.

On the day of Mahashivaratri (Day of Lord Shiva), with my friend Prakash I headed towards Kulekhani for preliminary survey. I always preferred pre visit before main field work. On the day of Mahashivaratri, young men like Prakash and me usually visit Pashupati Temple and hunt for Ganja (Marijuana). People smoke Ganja this day as a blessings of lord Shiva. Unlike other youths hunting for Marijuana on this day, I decided to hunt for Pines which might be useful for Dendrochronological study in Nepal.

I woke up early in the morning because I was supposed to meet Prakash at 7 am in Balkhu. Balkhu is the place from where we can board vehicle to Kulekhani. I reached Balkhu on foot, but before that I went to Shiva Temple to worship. After few minutes, I reached Balkhu and Prakash arrived there few minutes’ latter. Both of us had not visited Kulekhani area before, so we were confused where to take off from the vehicle. After discussion with ticket clerk we decided to take off at Chisapanigadi. For this, we took one full ticket to Hetauda and one to Chisapanigadi. We did this because only one seat was available for the local passenger in ten seated Tata Sumo Jeep we board. We were total 11 peoples in the vehicle including the driver. Prakash and me in the third and last row with two other people, middle aged lady on the side of Prakash and middle age man on my side. Four men, all of in their fifties were sitting in front of us and two middle age ladies were in front row with the driver.

We reached Dakshinkali Temple (one of the famous temples among Hindu believers of Nepal) around 8.45 am after 45 minutes of our journey started from Balkhu. On the way, we faced dozens of children collecting money for celebrating Shivaratri with travelers. Our vehicle stopped at Dakshinkali temple because most of the fellow passengers wanted to worship the Kali goddess. Usually, this temple used to be very packed with devotees and have to wait in queue for hours for glimpse of the Goddess Kali idol. Prakash and I worshiped the Kali from distance because we have to take off shoes to enter inside the temple, and we were not into good mood take of our shoes. When we reached at the vehicle, I received a call from my father and gave me a sad news about the demise of my maternal Grandmother. It was really a bad news for me because she was very close to family.

Journey started one more time after short break. I remember we visited Dakshinkali five year ago, for our geology field work and that time this road was not in function. This is the shortest sections of road which connect Kathmandu with the Hetauda, only 85 km. Only small vehicles were allowed to run in this section because road was still in construction phase. Most of the section of road is still unpaved, and width is only enough to pass single vehicles once at a time. As our vehicle move further towards Hetauda and slowly we started to interact with fellow passengers. During interaction, I told them that we were students and looking for old, undisturbed pine forests around Kulelhani area for research. Many people were from Kulekhani area and they told us that it is hard to find old stand of pines in this area. They suggested us to visit the Daman area by Tribhuvan highway for the old pine forest stand.

As vehicle was moving through mountainous road, I was thinking about Ives and Mesarelay “Himalayan Dilema”, N. S Jodha’s Himalayan Perceptions, people of mountain and I admired mountain people’s tolerant power of living under extreme conditions. I feel proud of being the part of Mountain and Mountain people. After passing through typical mountain road, mountain villages and mountain people, we reached Chisapanighadi around 12.30 pm. In Chisapanigadi, we looked for old stand of P. ruxburghii but we found that they were still young for dendroclimatological study. We got disappointed and fellow passengers suggested us to drop down at Bhainse and took the Tribhuvan highway route for old pine forests. We reached Bhainse through a historical city of Bhimphedi. This city used to be the headquarter of this region in the past, but after construction of Tribhuvan Highway and Mahendra Highway it shifted to Hetauda. Fellow passengers showed us flood plain which happens to be old market of Bhimphedi. When Rana regime used to rule the Nepal, this route was very famous for the trade. Rana ruler often used this route to go for hunting in the Terai plain. Old bridges made during Rana dynasty were also visible, infact these bridges are part of this road sections now days also.

We reached Bhainse at 1.30 pm, and Hetauda was only 7 km away from Bhainse. We were in dilemma whether to continue our hunting for pines from Bhainse or go to Chitwan through Hetauda a hour drive away. Finally, we decided to go Chitwan and rejoin the hunting trip next day.

Next day we board the microbus at Hetauda which was heading towards Kathmandu from Birgung. We reached at Chunia about 11.30 am after 1.20 hours of drive and this was the station from which we need to walk and look for Pine stands. Chunia is situated at the altitude of 1150 m and has P. ruxburghii forest but they were young and have little significance in Dendroclimatological study. We followed the highway, and after walking some time we reached at Bagmara, situated at altitude of about 1300 m. This place has P. ruxburghii stand comparatively older then Pines of Chunia, but problem was all these old trees were used for resin extractions. Local people have been extracting resin for long time. According to my knowledge, resin extraction may hinder the tree ring formation and has little significance for the climate-response study. We reached at Laminda (1402 m), following the highway through pine forest. Pine forest extends from Chunia to Lamidanda. After Lamidanda Pine forest did not exist. It was worthless to walk, so we board the bus which was heading towards Kulekhani through Palung. We passed through Aghor (2028 m) while looking at terraced agriculture field where people were working hard to grow seasonal crops. Quercus semicarpifollia (Oak) forests started from Dandubhanjyang and extend up to Simbhanjyang (2488 m). This Oak forest has old stand trees and looked like 300 - 400 years or older. I tried to memorize the list of species suitable for dendrochronological study given by Dr. Grissno Mayer but my mind was not so strong enough to recalled whether Oak was suitable for Dendrochronology or not. Later, in Kathmandu I went through Dr. Girssno Mayer paper and found that Qurecus genus was second most studied genus with 44 species and 27 of them were cross dated well. I did not found the name of Q. semicarpifollia in this paper.

We were heading towards Daman (2700 m) and P. wallichiana forest started appearing in front of us as we looked from the Bus. We dropped down at Daman and started looking around for the potential sampling sites. We observed that most of the trees were young and branches were cut down for firewood. Few trees looked more than 50 years older and hardy any trees look older than 100 years old. P. wallichiana forest extends all around Daman and down up to Palung but most of the stands were young. So we got disappointed from the second site too. After the second site, we were in great dilemma whether to go Bajrabarahi or not because most of the local people told us that Bajrabarahi also has young stands of P. wallichiana. We had already missed the last bus to Bajrabarahi and have to wait until tomorrow for the next bus. Prakash’s sister was suffering from fever since last few days so he was urgently needed in the Kathmandu. After looking at past two day’s unsuccessful hunting for the old Pine forest stand and other unfavorable conditions, we decided to return Kathmandu.

This short survey of Kulekhani and Daman area gave me the idea that these areas have P. ruxburghii and P. wallichiana forest stands which can be used for Dendrochronology related study as they form distinguished annual ring, but are still young for climate reconstruction study. These areas are good for showing beginner in Dendrochronology how to do sampling and what is sensitive and complacent tree, but not good for the advance level study.

Thanks to my dear friend Prakash Aryal for accompanying me to this hunting trip.