A Long Walk in the Himalaya: A Trek from the Ganges to Kashmir by Weare Garry

Author:Weare, Garry [Weare, Garry]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Transit Lounge
Published: 2011-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

From the Gaddi camp it was a long, steady haul to the Bara Lacha La—a pass that is under snow for eight months of the year. It is only in July that hardy wildflowers add a patch of colour to the otherwise grey, barren fields of shale and scree stretching towards the pass. On this overcast day the low cloud merged with the undulating landscape. Striding ahead I came within a whisker of a family of Himalayan snow cocks that scrambled, hopped and took off in a flurry. An hour after leaving camp I recognised a row of a dilapidated rock cairns that defined the southern summit of the pass. This was not the kind of pass on which to exchange hugs or handshakes. Neither was today the time to make exhilarating comments on the view. I shivered in the near sub-zero temperatures as I waited for Norboo, Dilip and Biro. Once gathered we formed a solemn procession, walking in single file for the next 2 kilometres to the true summit of the Bara Lacha La (4950 metres) on the Manali to Leh road.

Well before I reached the northern pass I heard a convoy of trucks shunting and shuddering their way up the road. It was a sound that I had not heard since leaving Manali. The trucks would have left the Kullu Valley the previous day, negotiating the switchbacks over the Rhotang Pass, the motorable road linking Manali and Lahaul, before setting off at the crack of dawn on the long and gradual ascent to the Bara Lacha La. Once over the pass the trucks would cross the vast Lingti Plains to the border between Himachal Pradesh and the state of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. After clearing border formalities the trucks would then need to cross two more passes if they were to reach the Indus Valley and Leh, the capital of Ladakh, by nightfall.

Reaching the road, our mules were unnerved by the sound of the traffic. I instinctively grabbed hold of one of the mule’s reins as its load almost brushed the side of a passing truck. Fortunately it was only a few kilometres before we left the highway to a camp known as Kilang Sarai on the northern perimeter of the Lingti Plains.

The next morning I set out across the vast Lingti Plains. Locked in my own thoughts I was at first startled by the blast of truck horns. About a kilometre away several hundred sheep and goats were blocking the road to Leh. Judging by the blasts on the horns, the truck driver’s patience was reaching its limit, but any sense of urgency was lost on the shepherds. It was only after another three or four trucks had come to a halt that the flock began to scatter off the road. I heard the distinctive sound of raised voices before the truck convoy moved on. The drivers did not seem to comprehend that the Gaddi had been grazing their flocks on these high pastures long before the road was constructed.

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