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Duration
9 days
Rating
Strenguos
Maximum elevation
Kanga-la 5.450 m (18.000 ft)
Average daily walking time
6 hours
Specials
Starting point is
Udayour in Lahul
Only 1 pass in 9 days
Beautiful but less popular trek
First Group
1990 Avventure nel Mondo Tl Marco Vasta
Highlights
The tranquil beauty of the Lahauli Miyar Valley with its alpine campsites leads
us to the more savage beauty of the Miyar Glacier which we follow to the
magnificent snowfields and spectacular panoramas of the Kang La - from where we
descend to the warmth and beauty of our favorite kingdom in the sky, Zanskar. An
unforgettable and truly Himalayan passage.
A shepherd’s day
The sixty, seventy days spent on the summer pasture are monotonous. Shortly
after dawn I get up, hoping the weather will be good, and have the first smoke
of the day. A little milk just milked by a goat (sheep’s milk is just sufficient
for the little lambs) and then I light a fire: a few juniper sticks are enough
to make some ember and then yak’s dung is added. Then I prepare the dough for
chapati. I take water from the stream, I make tea, and then I knead the dough,
spread it, put it on the tawa, an iron disc I then put on the fire. By
mid-morning the meal is ready. Then I clean the dishes with cinder, wash them
and put them to dry on the igloo roof. It’s time for one more hooka and after it
I can tend the flock. The small lambs that cannot walk yet, are put in stone
enclosures so small that are covered with only one stone. Then the flock starts
moving towards the meadow chosen as the day’s pasture. I spend five or six hours
looking after the flock, smoking, chatting, visiting other shepherds, collecting
wood or playing koda or sip.
But mine is not a lonely life. I meet shepherds of other families and we go down
to the nearby village to visit Lahule families we have made friends for decades,
we start love affairs with the girls, we wait for the man ……. Sometimes he is a
boy from the village, some times they are caravaneers who arrive here through
the Beas valley from Kangra. It may also happen that in the middle of the season
a relative arrives to take turns with me and he’ll wait for the month of Arshana
(September-October) when he’ll go back home.
Marco Vasta © 1990
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