On twitter I just saw a retweet from  @lakshmisharath by @GFexplorers about Pangong Tso which is a saline lake in the Indian Himalayas which made me dig out some photo’s I took there on a trip to a nearby lake Tso Kar.

I realised that was a couple of years back so I dug out some more taken two years ago. This is a campsite we spent a rest day at, it’s about 4800m above sea level so it’s like camping on top of Mont Blanc. The group had a few games of cricket with our horsemen but there’s not a lot of running at that altitude.

The family on the photo’s are nomadic farmers moving with herds of goats and yaks around the high passes of the Ladakh region. The goats produce the wool that weaves to pashminas and it’s extraordinarily soft.

Tags: himalayas | Indian Himalayas | Ladakh

Some photo’s from the trekking phase of the World Challenge trip to Ladakh in the Indian Himalayas. Tso Moriri is a lake at 4500m, “Tso” is local dialect for lake. It’s a fair drive in on dirt roads, or just dirt in places, from the “main” road. It’s a fairly well know trekking area with a route over some high passes.

These are pashmina goats, I reckon this is the place to be a goat, as a male goat your outlook isn’t great in most places but around here your coat is as good as the females and you don’t even get sheared, just combed vigorously from time to time. The best stuff comes from the soft bit just under the chin in the spring as the winter coat is coming out. I just had to buy a handful of pashmina scarves as souvenirs.

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Tags: Indian Himalayas | Ladakh | trekking | Tso Moriri | world challenge