9/28-10/2
Stok Kangri trek and climb (6123 m/20,088'!)
The climb was 4 days and I thought I was missing 3 days of school but turns out it's only 1.5 days. On Friday at assembly it was announced that Saturday is a half day because the last day of the month is always a half day and since that is on Sunday this month.....
Then just as we were leaving town I was told that 2 Oct is GandhiJi's birthday and is a national holiday-so no school Tuesday.
First day: Stok 3600m to Mankarmo 4400m 1030-1430 easy trek (actually 2.5 hrs of walking.
1630: Sitting in my large tent (carried by horses along with everything else AND set up for me) drinking a huge mug of sweet milk tea with biscuits that Purin (cook) just brought me.
Let's get the superlatives out of the way: WOW! UNBELIEVABLE! I keep pinching myself and laughing out loud as I walk around this place not believing I am lucky enough to be here. A truly beautiful first day trek along a braided clear mountain stream up a deep valley with towering spires and fluted couloirs from the high ridges on both sides with occasional peaks of the high snowy peaks we will climb tomorrow night. Amazing colors with shades of pinks, greens, yellows, reds and browns and changing constantly. Not sure I have seen anything so beautiful (except of course for my wife and daughter!)
(Will, Shannon an Ian; you have to come back- this is so much better than what we did last year!)
Crew: 7 horses, 2 horse men, Purin the cook (also a guide), Dawa the guide ( has summitted 14 times this summer already and will do Everest next year as an assistant guide), ((tomorrow Sunny, the owner of the company will join us), Katarina the German volunteer, and a honeymooning Indian couple (Raj and Tanu,Jains, both engineers, he works in France (Nice) and she will join him soon. He has attempted before and turned back because of altitude. They are both pretty slow, but made it)
Wildlife spotting: One Peregrine in first 30 min, numerous grouse (francolins), a herd of 13 blue sheep (that"s what everyone else calls them but they might be Ladakh Urial) walked through camp as we arrived! Katarina saw (iffy) a snow leopard print! And the kiwi we met on his way down reported his friend saw 4 Snow leopards at base camp where we go tomorrow!!!!! Fingers crossed!, large unidentified raptor: vulture or eagle.
Acclimation: I am feeling very strong and no altitude symptoms so far and feeling optimistic, but it can hit anytime so.....They say a short hike higher than camp before returning to sleep is a good stimulus for acclimation and producing the erythrocytes (notas easy as Lance's methods but....) , so took a half hour up towards base camp and back- maybe 200 meters altitude gain and halfway to BC. The raptor flew over during this hike.
Hiking: I spent most of the day at an easy steady pace ahead of the horses and party plugged into Jackson Brown, JT, Leo, Van Morrison, etc at a steady pace trying to keep track of the trail and my foot placement while also looking up at the changing light and scenery. The only disappointing parts were the occasional beer, co,e, water bottles, trash, cigarette butts and graffiti on the rocks, but they are easy to ignore. The worst though is the little white TP flowers everywhere. Again, really not that bad.
If you plan to come here, this is the time- in summer there are hundreds of Trekkers at these camps. Tonight it is us and one other Swiss couple.
The sun has gone down and the temp dropped precipitously. I am definitely glad I spent the $28 on the fake Mammut pants. I am wearing them with long underwear and 4 layers on top, the Ladakhi fur hat I bought and gloves and am pretty warm. Waiting for dinner which won't be until 8- hungry. Hopefully my sleeping bag is warm enough!
Dinner: hot, plenty, varied and good. All vege: soup,noodles, vege, pannir, papadam,,chapatti, warm fruit, tea and a bit of rum for Dawah and me. Good conversation and laughter in a small wall tent lit by candles, mixed with serious " guide talk and instructions about the coming climb.
Sleep: cold night but toasty in my sleeping bag and liner.Sleep was fitful and in spurts mixed with freezing trips to pee. Not sure if the interrupted sleep was due to the normal first night on the ground effect, altitude effect, lack of howling dogs replaced by running stream : ), or the bright light from the full moon ( reminds me of 2 yr old Josh camping in summer inAK wanting the lights out at night)- or a bit of all.
Image I won't forget: the crew playing cricket at 4400m
The full moon lighting Stok Kangri in the middle of the night
The Swiss couples guide won the Kardung La challenge- the 78k race that was part of the marathon from the top of Kardung La pass to Leh and is now sponsored to run in the Bangalore and Mumbai marathons.
Day 2:Awake in the dark at 5 waiting for the others and the sun to st rise and shine. Reading the Week on iPad.
Breakfast: coffee(instant), tea, porridge, toast (lots), grilled tomatoes, omelettes.
Snack at 3PM: pekoe as and tea
As they say here: Same, same, but different
More spectacular scenery, steeper climb, shorter distance and less oxygen
Wildlife: flocks of Rock Buntings, marmots, a white-capped water redstart, and more blue sheep ( when I came into basest camp 6 with 2 babies ( are they lambs? I don't think they are sheep actually-look more like pronghorns. I will need to read Peter Matthiessen again when I get back)) were 20' from me. They then joined a larger herd of about 40 and apparently later lower down the valley became over 100. I feel like the story of the little optimist looking for the pony in the pile of horse manure- everytime I see the blue sheep I start scanning for,a snow leopard. None yet.
Feeling good still- trekked from Mankarmo to Base Camp (4990m) in a little over 1 hr ( the guides say it should take 2-3) at an easy pace.
Knees and feet are not a problem so far (thanks for the injection Aaron Askew: seems to have worked)
Got to camp about 2 hrs before the rest of the party and the horses (with my warm clothes and it was cold and windy here) so bought a cup of tea, ate lunch and tried to stay warm talking with a 17 yr old Nepali kid helping his big brother guide on a trek. When the clothes arrived, got the tent set up, changed and took a hike up the trail to about 17,000 and back for snack.
During snack Dawa came in and said we would climb tonight at 1AM. There has been some mixup. This was our original plan, but when Ram and Tanumjoined it switched to climbing tomorrow night, which we agreed to. Now the weather is good and it's not sure it will hold.....Dawa and raj and Tanu are arguing about this now. Katarina and I left and will see what transpires. As of now I assume we will go.
The speed I am trekking gives me some idea of what to expect in Nepal. All of,the books have itineraries for the Annapurna Circuit that take about 22 days and now I am thinking I can probably do it in 12-14 days and that would allow time for some extra side trips and maybe a trip to Annapurna base camp in the meantime I will rest until dinner at 7 (momo, thukpa, fried rice) and try to hydrate..
We are going tonight and I am packed. Not sure what Raj et al will do and I feel bad, but it was our trip and original plan, so they will need to work it out.
Day 3 Oct 1:Rabbit rabbit
The dispute worked out Raj and Tanu will not go until tomorrow (I really doubt they will make it) and Katarina and I went with 3 guides Dawah (main), Anu (assistant) and Sunny (owner of the company but has never climbed before).
A fitful sleep after the huge dinner. I was a bit nervous about how I would do at altitude and also feeling a bit weird. Also Katrina was feeling even worse- nausea, headache, fever. But, we woke to a clear, calm, cold full moon at midnight. I drank some water, had a couple of Tylenol, dressed in almost all the clothes I brought (2 pairs of ski socks, 3 pant layers- long underwear, insulated Mammut pants, goretex shell, 5 layers on top-thin Patagonia long undershirt, heavy zip Patagonia shirt, heavier Sporthill ski top, down sweater, goretex shell, 2 pairs of gloves (ski and liner) and a ski hat! Had a midnight breakfast of soup, porridge, popcorn and tea and started in the moonlight at 1AM. It was light enough to hike without a headlight until we reached the glacier and needed more detail. Other parties had departed ahead of us and there was a trail of headlights in front of us as we headed up to the first pass above camp. We rapidly passed everyone and easily reached the glacier by 2. Crossing the base of the glacier took about 20 min and was pretty easy. Did not need or use the crampons and ice axes we had brought. The moon over the glacier and surrounding peaks was stupendous. Unfortunately, my simple little digital camera wasn't sufficient to show much (might need a better one for the future). After crossing the glacier at about 5500 m the real work began. First (the entire ascent was in the dark, with full moon) a scramble up and across large talus, then steep winding climb up scree reminiscent of South Sister (except steeper and much longer) up to the ridge at about 5800m. Here began the real hard work: climbing and scrambling 300+m up a steep, rocky knife-edge ridge to the summit. Most of this was head-down, slow, one foot after another. I quickly entered the zone where I start counting steps: 100 at a time and then a break. This continued until the last 200m and altitude really kicked me in the ass! The count switched to 20-25 max and a rest with 10 deep breaths, but just kept slogging and reached the summit at 6AM (5 hrs)- just as the sun was rising to the east over the mountains of Tibet and the moon was setting to the north over K-2 and the rest of the Karakoram in Pakistan. Truly amazing watching all this and the surrounding mountain and glaciers below us! Lots of group pictures, a sip of rum and short ( the phone said it had less than 20% power left, which seemed strange, since I hadn't used it- must have been the cold, since I just checked it back at camp and it is almost full again) calls home( a direct line of sight to a cell tower in Leh). Stayed at the summit for about 20 min and then the worst part of the climb- going down.from the summit back down to the glacier was horrible for my knee (again, like coming down S Sister only steeper and way longer!), but made it with only,one small scrape on my arm and sore knee ( but actually feeling fine now). Made it down to base camp before 10AM in 3:30 the rest would have probably been down in 3 if they didn't wait for my creepy knee) for a total time of 8:50, absolutely wiped out. Big hugs from Raj, Tanu and Rupa. Collapsed outside my tent with a cup of tea and some gruel and then waddled over to the Mitra tent where Dwah bought me a Godfather (large , pretty bad local Ladakh beer) and then a nap, a baby wipe bath and some clean underwear and a t-shirt, more nap, lunch......
GREAT DAY
Katarina was areal trooper, kept up, even with vomiting once along the way and actually seemed to rally during the last 200 m ascent whenI was crashing.
Image I won't forget: guides smoking cigarettes at 6123 m ( and while we are climbing for that matter)
Sunrise from the summit
Full moon over Stok Kangri and the Karakoram and K-2
Dawah opening beer bottles with his teeth
People: Prasad and Rupa- a youngish (late 30s) couple from Mumbai. He owned an IT company, she worked in multinational business. He has a genetic deterioration of the retina and has no peripheral vision and is considered blind (maybe what Rachel Scdoris has?). He sold the business and they have been traveling around India for the last year trekking, volunteering (currently at a school for the blind in Leh) and trying to figure what meaningful thing to do next. He climbed the mountain! About 5 hrs slower than us , but much more impressive. Even more impressive is his fun positive outlook.
Tomorrow (GandhiJi's birthday) Katarina and I will head back to Stok in the morning with the horses and tents, while the other two try the climb.
To remember to bring for future treks: thermometer (the last night was super cold, but I don't know how low it got- my entire bottle froze in the tent and I need a 2nd bag)
Altimeter/ gps- I may try to find a watch somewhere with temp and altitude before I get to Nepal.
Stove top espresso maker with some real coffee
Next trek: almost all the guides, cooks and help up here seem to be from Sikkim or Assam and are headed back there for their trekking season after this week. Sounds like that is the place to go for another trek in the spring when the 47 species of Rhodies and other flowers are in bloom.
In the meantime, got some good advice from Sunny about going to Nubra in 2 weekends. Sounds like I can get a local taxi out there to Diksit pretty cheap and then can take buses and stay in guesthouses. He will be gone but will get me someone who can arrange my permit. Also sounds likePrasad and Rupa may want to go also. That would be fun and we can share a taxi.
Day 4
Freezing cold night-had to borrow a 2nd sleeping bag and sleep in my down jacket, bit actually did sleep long and hard after that. Tanu did not even try to summit because of the cold and Raj "only" made it to the ridge because of the cold- he got back before we left in the morning and seemed pretty depressed all day.
Easy walk out and by the time we were down near the Valley it had warmed enough to hike in a t-shirt! Lots more blue sheep or urial and marmots sunning on the rocks , but they are becoming common place! Saw a large soaring raptor that my book doesn't identify but should be easy: see photo above.
Black with 2 large white spots under each wing and a white band inside. A black NAND on the tail. Head might have been white also.
Made it to cars in Stok by about 1, had tea at a local restaurant at the trailhead and waited for the others. Piled into taxis and took a short tour of the Stok Palace, where the deposed royal Namgyul family of Ladakh now lives half the time and then back to Leh, more tea, home and a hot shower (electricity is on!)
Small World: on the way down today met a party of 6 from the Czech who were heading up to climb (no guide). Some of them were Nordic racers, one a wax tech. They knew Josh' old roommate and teammate Norbert and invited me to come race their Loppet. We are planning to meet for a beer when they return later this week.
Overall bestirs of the trip: all the various people you meet and share time with in camp. I think the trek in Nepal will be great because of this.
Stok Kangri trek and climb (6123 m/20,088'!)
The climb was 4 days and I thought I was missing 3 days of school but turns out it's only 1.5 days. On Friday at assembly it was announced that Saturday is a half day because the last day of the month is always a half day and since that is on Sunday this month.....
Then just as we were leaving town I was told that 2 Oct is GandhiJi's birthday and is a national holiday-so no school Tuesday.
First day: Stok 3600m to Mankarmo 4400m 1030-1430 easy trek (actually 2.5 hrs of walking.
1630: Sitting in my large tent (carried by horses along with everything else AND set up for me) drinking a huge mug of sweet milk tea with biscuits that Purin (cook) just brought me.
Let's get the superlatives out of the way: WOW! UNBELIEVABLE! I keep pinching myself and laughing out loud as I walk around this place not believing I am lucky enough to be here. A truly beautiful first day trek along a braided clear mountain stream up a deep valley with towering spires and fluted couloirs from the high ridges on both sides with occasional peaks of the high snowy peaks we will climb tomorrow night. Amazing colors with shades of pinks, greens, yellows, reds and browns and changing constantly. Not sure I have seen anything so beautiful (except of course for my wife and daughter!)
(Will, Shannon an Ian; you have to come back- this is so much better than what we did last year!)
Crew: 7 horses, 2 horse men, Purin the cook (also a guide), Dawa the guide ( has summitted 14 times this summer already and will do Everest next year as an assistant guide), ((tomorrow Sunny, the owner of the company will join us), Katarina the German volunteer, and a honeymooning Indian couple (Raj and Tanu,Jains, both engineers, he works in France (Nice) and she will join him soon. He has attempted before and turned back because of altitude. They are both pretty slow, but made it)
Wildlife spotting: One Peregrine in first 30 min, numerous grouse (francolins), a herd of 13 blue sheep (that"s what everyone else calls them but they might be Ladakh Urial) walked through camp as we arrived! Katarina saw (iffy) a snow leopard print! And the kiwi we met on his way down reported his friend saw 4 Snow leopards at base camp where we go tomorrow!!!!! Fingers crossed!, large unidentified raptor: vulture or eagle.
Acclimation: I am feeling very strong and no altitude symptoms so far and feeling optimistic, but it can hit anytime so.....They say a short hike higher than camp before returning to sleep is a good stimulus for acclimation and producing the erythrocytes (notas easy as Lance's methods but....) , so took a half hour up towards base camp and back- maybe 200 meters altitude gain and halfway to BC. The raptor flew over during this hike.
Hiking: I spent most of the day at an easy steady pace ahead of the horses and party plugged into Jackson Brown, JT, Leo, Van Morrison, etc at a steady pace trying to keep track of the trail and my foot placement while also looking up at the changing light and scenery. The only disappointing parts were the occasional beer, co,e, water bottles, trash, cigarette butts and graffiti on the rocks, but they are easy to ignore. The worst though is the little white TP flowers everywhere. Again, really not that bad.
If you plan to come here, this is the time- in summer there are hundreds of Trekkers at these camps. Tonight it is us and one other Swiss couple.
The sun has gone down and the temp dropped precipitously. I am definitely glad I spent the $28 on the fake Mammut pants. I am wearing them with long underwear and 4 layers on top, the Ladakhi fur hat I bought and gloves and am pretty warm. Waiting for dinner which won't be until 8- hungry. Hopefully my sleeping bag is warm enough!
Dinner: hot, plenty, varied and good. All vege: soup,noodles, vege, pannir, papadam,,chapatti, warm fruit, tea and a bit of rum for Dawah and me. Good conversation and laughter in a small wall tent lit by candles, mixed with serious " guide talk and instructions about the coming climb.
Sleep: cold night but toasty in my sleeping bag and liner.Sleep was fitful and in spurts mixed with freezing trips to pee. Not sure if the interrupted sleep was due to the normal first night on the ground effect, altitude effect, lack of howling dogs replaced by running stream : ), or the bright light from the full moon ( reminds me of 2 yr old Josh camping in summer inAK wanting the lights out at night)- or a bit of all.
Image I won't forget: the crew playing cricket at 4400m
The full moon lighting Stok Kangri in the middle of the night
The Swiss couples guide won the Kardung La challenge- the 78k race that was part of the marathon from the top of Kardung La pass to Leh and is now sponsored to run in the Bangalore and Mumbai marathons.
Day 2:Awake in the dark at 5 waiting for the others and the sun to st rise and shine. Reading the Week on iPad.
Breakfast: coffee(instant), tea, porridge, toast (lots), grilled tomatoes, omelettes.
Snack at 3PM: pekoe as and tea
As they say here: Same, same, but different
More spectacular scenery, steeper climb, shorter distance and less oxygen
Wildlife: flocks of Rock Buntings, marmots, a white-capped water redstart, and more blue sheep ( when I came into basest camp 6 with 2 babies ( are they lambs? I don't think they are sheep actually-look more like pronghorns. I will need to read Peter Matthiessen again when I get back)) were 20' from me. They then joined a larger herd of about 40 and apparently later lower down the valley became over 100. I feel like the story of the little optimist looking for the pony in the pile of horse manure- everytime I see the blue sheep I start scanning for,a snow leopard. None yet.
Feeling good still- trekked from Mankarmo to Base Camp (4990m) in a little over 1 hr ( the guides say it should take 2-3) at an easy pace.
Knees and feet are not a problem so far (thanks for the injection Aaron Askew: seems to have worked)
Got to camp about 2 hrs before the rest of the party and the horses (with my warm clothes and it was cold and windy here) so bought a cup of tea, ate lunch and tried to stay warm talking with a 17 yr old Nepali kid helping his big brother guide on a trek. When the clothes arrived, got the tent set up, changed and took a hike up the trail to about 17,000 and back for snack.
During snack Dawa came in and said we would climb tonight at 1AM. There has been some mixup. This was our original plan, but when Ram and Tanumjoined it switched to climbing tomorrow night, which we agreed to. Now the weather is good and it's not sure it will hold.....Dawa and raj and Tanu are arguing about this now. Katarina and I left and will see what transpires. As of now I assume we will go.
The speed I am trekking gives me some idea of what to expect in Nepal. All of,the books have itineraries for the Annapurna Circuit that take about 22 days and now I am thinking I can probably do it in 12-14 days and that would allow time for some extra side trips and maybe a trip to Annapurna base camp in the meantime I will rest until dinner at 7 (momo, thukpa, fried rice) and try to hydrate..
We are going tonight and I am packed. Not sure what Raj et al will do and I feel bad, but it was our trip and original plan, so they will need to work it out.
Day 3 Oct 1:Rabbit rabbit
The dispute worked out Raj and Tanu will not go until tomorrow (I really doubt they will make it) and Katarina and I went with 3 guides Dawah (main), Anu (assistant) and Sunny (owner of the company but has never climbed before).
A fitful sleep after the huge dinner. I was a bit nervous about how I would do at altitude and also feeling a bit weird. Also Katrina was feeling even worse- nausea, headache, fever. But, we woke to a clear, calm, cold full moon at midnight. I drank some water, had a couple of Tylenol, dressed in almost all the clothes I brought (2 pairs of ski socks, 3 pant layers- long underwear, insulated Mammut pants, goretex shell, 5 layers on top-thin Patagonia long undershirt, heavy zip Patagonia shirt, heavier Sporthill ski top, down sweater, goretex shell, 2 pairs of gloves (ski and liner) and a ski hat! Had a midnight breakfast of soup, porridge, popcorn and tea and started in the moonlight at 1AM. It was light enough to hike without a headlight until we reached the glacier and needed more detail. Other parties had departed ahead of us and there was a trail of headlights in front of us as we headed up to the first pass above camp. We rapidly passed everyone and easily reached the glacier by 2. Crossing the base of the glacier took about 20 min and was pretty easy. Did not need or use the crampons and ice axes we had brought. The moon over the glacier and surrounding peaks was stupendous. Unfortunately, my simple little digital camera wasn't sufficient to show much (might need a better one for the future). After crossing the glacier at about 5500 m the real work began. First (the entire ascent was in the dark, with full moon) a scramble up and across large talus, then steep winding climb up scree reminiscent of South Sister (except steeper and much longer) up to the ridge at about 5800m. Here began the real hard work: climbing and scrambling 300+m up a steep, rocky knife-edge ridge to the summit. Most of this was head-down, slow, one foot after another. I quickly entered the zone where I start counting steps: 100 at a time and then a break. This continued until the last 200m and altitude really kicked me in the ass! The count switched to 20-25 max and a rest with 10 deep breaths, but just kept slogging and reached the summit at 6AM (5 hrs)- just as the sun was rising to the east over the mountains of Tibet and the moon was setting to the north over K-2 and the rest of the Karakoram in Pakistan. Truly amazing watching all this and the surrounding mountain and glaciers below us! Lots of group pictures, a sip of rum and short ( the phone said it had less than 20% power left, which seemed strange, since I hadn't used it- must have been the cold, since I just checked it back at camp and it is almost full again) calls home( a direct line of sight to a cell tower in Leh). Stayed at the summit for about 20 min and then the worst part of the climb- going down.from the summit back down to the glacier was horrible for my knee (again, like coming down S Sister only steeper and way longer!), but made it with only,one small scrape on my arm and sore knee ( but actually feeling fine now). Made it down to base camp before 10AM in 3:30 the rest would have probably been down in 3 if they didn't wait for my creepy knee) for a total time of 8:50, absolutely wiped out. Big hugs from Raj, Tanu and Rupa. Collapsed outside my tent with a cup of tea and some gruel and then waddled over to the Mitra tent where Dwah bought me a Godfather (large , pretty bad local Ladakh beer) and then a nap, a baby wipe bath and some clean underwear and a t-shirt, more nap, lunch......
GREAT DAY
Katarina was areal trooper, kept up, even with vomiting once along the way and actually seemed to rally during the last 200 m ascent whenI was crashing.
Image I won't forget: guides smoking cigarettes at 6123 m ( and while we are climbing for that matter)
Sunrise from the summit
Full moon over Stok Kangri and the Karakoram and K-2
Dawah opening beer bottles with his teeth
People: Prasad and Rupa- a youngish (late 30s) couple from Mumbai. He owned an IT company, she worked in multinational business. He has a genetic deterioration of the retina and has no peripheral vision and is considered blind (maybe what Rachel Scdoris has?). He sold the business and they have been traveling around India for the last year trekking, volunteering (currently at a school for the blind in Leh) and trying to figure what meaningful thing to do next. He climbed the mountain! About 5 hrs slower than us , but much more impressive. Even more impressive is his fun positive outlook.
Tomorrow (GandhiJi's birthday) Katarina and I will head back to Stok in the morning with the horses and tents, while the other two try the climb.
To remember to bring for future treks: thermometer (the last night was super cold, but I don't know how low it got- my entire bottle froze in the tent and I need a 2nd bag)
Altimeter/ gps- I may try to find a watch somewhere with temp and altitude before I get to Nepal.
Stove top espresso maker with some real coffee
Next trek: almost all the guides, cooks and help up here seem to be from Sikkim or Assam and are headed back there for their trekking season after this week. Sounds like that is the place to go for another trek in the spring when the 47 species of Rhodies and other flowers are in bloom.
In the meantime, got some good advice from Sunny about going to Nubra in 2 weekends. Sounds like I can get a local taxi out there to Diksit pretty cheap and then can take buses and stay in guesthouses. He will be gone but will get me someone who can arrange my permit. Also sounds likePrasad and Rupa may want to go also. That would be fun and we can share a taxi.
Day 4
Freezing cold night-had to borrow a 2nd sleeping bag and sleep in my down jacket, bit actually did sleep long and hard after that. Tanu did not even try to summit because of the cold and Raj "only" made it to the ridge because of the cold- he got back before we left in the morning and seemed pretty depressed all day.
Easy walk out and by the time we were down near the Valley it had warmed enough to hike in a t-shirt! Lots more blue sheep or urial and marmots sunning on the rocks , but they are becoming common place! Saw a large soaring raptor that my book doesn't identify but should be easy: see photo above.
Black with 2 large white spots under each wing and a white band inside. A black NAND on the tail. Head might have been white also.
Made it to cars in Stok by about 1, had tea at a local restaurant at the trailhead and waited for the others. Piled into taxis and took a short tour of the Stok Palace, where the deposed royal Namgyul family of Ladakh now lives half the time and then back to Leh, more tea, home and a hot shower (electricity is on!)
Small World: on the way down today met a party of 6 from the Czech who were heading up to climb (no guide). Some of them were Nordic racers, one a wax tech. They knew Josh' old roommate and teammate Norbert and invited me to come race their Loppet. We are planning to meet for a beer when they return later this week.
Overall bestirs of the trip: all the various people you meet and share time with in camp. I think the trek in Nepal will be great because of this.
Hi, David. This is your (nth?) cousin (in law?), Amy Robertson, Ruth Blau's daughter. Sylvia linked to your blog on Facebook and I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying it! Amazing adventures; amazing descriptions. I'm transported from my mundane desk in Denver to sunrise over the mountains of Tibet. Also love your teaching adventures. So glad you're writing about this.
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