After a week of rest in Leh, following the departure of Karin and Jeff, I returned to the trail. This time would be a new experience for me, as I would be accompanying a trekking group organized by my friend Mohan. I was going in the capacity of an officially unofficial guide, despite having never done the trek from Rumste to Tso Moriri. It was a trek I had heard good things about, and I was anxious to hike the route. The trail passes through the barren region known as the Rapsu, there is only one village along this route, at Tso Kar. It definitely made things easier logistically accompanying a group, which brought with it the luxuries prepared meals and pack horses to carry some of my gear.
The group consisted of a brother and sister from Poland on a Ladakhi summer vacation, a guy from Minneapolis who had also be traveling for a while, and a Czech guy who had been working in Afghanistan for an NGO. The Polish duo had been on another trek with Mohan and had earned the reputation as “difficult” for making numerous complaints, Raj one of the cook/ guides told them I was the guide making my unofficial status more or less official.
Even though he had been on another trek the previous week, the Polish guy was having a very hard time with the altitude. The whole trek from Rumtse to Tso Moriri is above 4200 m (~13,800 ft). On the first night of the trek he was displaying the classic symptoms of AMS, a severe headache and a lack of appetite, despite only having done a very gradual half day hike from Rumtse to the base of the first pass. On the second day, as we were heading up the first pass, he was really slow falling way behind the rest of the group and clearly struggling. This was the easy part and I was worried he was going to have more problems later on. I told his sister while we waited for him that it was going to get much harder and that if he got worse tomorrow night it would be a very big problem, since at that point we would be camped in between two high passes where the only option would be to evacuate him by horse and we didn’t have any horses to spare. It could turn into a very serious problem if he continued. I volunteered to take him back to Rumtse where he could get transport back to Leh and then catch up with the group. I explained the situation to the Polish guy, that trek was going to get much tougher than this, and the seriousness of the situation (even life-threatening) he could be in, if he chose to continue. I left the final decision up to him, realizing how hard it must be to turn back especially when you’ve spent $300 to do this trek, not including traveling all the way to Ladakh. He had the unfortunate luck of being one of those people who despite being in tremendous shape just couldn’t handle the altitude. In fact, I learned he was going to be attending a school in Connecticut next fall on a swimming scholarship so no doubt he was in excellent physical condition, he just couldn’t handle the altitude. He decided to turn back, to my relief, a very good decision. He would not have made it through the trek so to continue would just have been to delay the inevitable. I unloaded my tent, sleeping bag, and some dried food from the horses and took him back to Rumtse. It took him over 4 hours to get down, an extremely slow pace. By contrast it took me a little over 2 to return from Rumtse (uphill), to the campsite we had stayed the previous night after I had dropped him off. I reached the campsite a little after 5:00 pm, but I didn’t have the strength to continue over the pass, so I camped there for the second night this time by myself. I woke before 5:00 am, and after packing up my gear, I got on the trail a little after five. There were two passes, each just under 5000 m, to cross before I would reach campsite where the rest of the group had stayed the previous night. It was a beautiful early morning walk, the weather was perfect and the views were impressive. I walked in complete solitude, surrounded only by expansive views over the rolling barren terrain of the Rupsu. Before I had left to take the polish guy down, I had asked how long it took the local horsemen to do the next stretch of the trail unloaded when returning back to Rumtse, figuring that would give me a lower bound on how long it would take me. I was told 4 hours. I made it in just under 4 including a 20 minute detour down the wrong valley when I momentarily lost the trail. I arrived at the next campsite just in time to put my tent, and extra supplies back on the horse. They had just finished packing up camp, it was about 9:00 am. I was very grateful to lose the extra weight before the next pass, and I caught up to the rest of the group (who had left a half hour earlier) just after the 4875 m Shibuk La, my third of the day. I was thankful it was my last pass of the day. I then walked at a relaxing “group pace” with the others down to the lake of Tso Kar the location of our third night’s camp.
The following day was a short one, giving us time to explore Tso Kar as we walked to the eastern side of the lake. I appreciated the short flat walk which gave my legs a chance to recover from the previous long two days of hiking. The following day was also a short day, I took the opportunity to detour up a nearby peak marked 5999 m (~19,680 ft) on my map. I figured as long as I was standing I could count it as another 6000 m peak under my belt. While the lower section of the mountain was easier than I had expected, the upper stretch was tougher. It was all steep loose scree, a mixture of sand and loose rock which made it like climbing a 6000 m sand dune. With each step up I would slide a half a step back. I seemed to get no closer to the top despite its apparent proximity. I finally decided to traverse across the mountain to its steepest face, which was at least solid rock, mercifully allowing me to escape the scree. I rock climbed my way the last 50 feet or so to the top. The view was great, but unfortunately the weather had grown a bit cloudy during my climb. The distant white peaks merged with the white clouds of the sky, ensuring photographs wouldn’t do justice to the expanse of the view. Three hours up and about an hour down, it was a rewarding 4 hour detour (oh yeah, no one else in the group opted to join this crazed altitude junky on this 6000 m jaunt). I strolled into camp in the late afternoon.
Unfortunately the weather was a bit cloudy for the last two days of the trek to Korzok, on the banks of Tso Moriri. Each day we crossed a high pass, a ~5200 m on the first day, and 5400 m on the last day of the trek. The 5200 m Kyamayuri La, view wise, was rather disappointing. The very gradual pass lacked any breathtaking views; nevertheless, I was not deterred and climbed up onto the plateau to the southwest of the pass which greatly improved my vantage point. I even caught a glimpse of a fox, rummaging around the plateau, but he disappeared before I could lift my camera. From the Kyamayuri La, the trail descends into a particularly beautiful valley inhabited by nomads and backed by snow covered peaks. A further pass the Kartse La, nearly, if not as high as the Kyamayuri La, brought us to the our final camp at the base of the 5400 m (~17,700 ft) Yalung Nyau La. What the Kyamayuri La lacked in views the Yalung Nyau La delivered. Surrounded by the glaciated peaks of the Mentok Range the pass offers a spectacular view down towards the blue waters of Tso Moriri. The view is improved further by hiking up the ridge to the south for a nearly unobstructed view of the entire lake below. I had initially planned on climbing one of the several relatively easy 6000 m peaks in the vicinity of the pass, but since the weather was far from optimal I decided not to make an attempt, and continued with the others down to Korzok.
Note: For those planning to undertake this trek, altitudes, pass names and spellings seem to vary widely from map to map, I used the information on the Sonam Tsetan Trekking Map of Ladakh for this write up, peak altitudes were taken from the Leoman series map.
