roaming2: Markah Valley Trek

Old Mani Stones carved many 100s years ago -- maybe 100s years. Some are in a scanscrit language called Pani. Very old. These photo are mostly Tibetan language.

Markah Valley on the way to our next camp.

Stenzen - Cook - in his office,

At Chortens and Mani wall in Markah Valley

Young boy at the school next to our camp in the village of Markah.

Looking down on camp from Markah Monastery.

Drum in Monastery

Mani stone

Working her garden in Markah.

More and better photos on the way.

What a trek! Beautiful streams, valleys, narrow gorges, many many river crossings ( by rock hopping or wading - few bridges), High mountain passes, Cold rain, some snow, some really cold nights, wildlife including wolves in our camp, and a really good crew. Overall Great trip. We are now recovering in our nice guest house in Leh trying to remember all that we saw and did in the last 8 days.

Angchock of Ladakh Travel has put together some really good trips for us. He organized this trek and picked the crew he thought would be best.

I think what I will remember most are the sounds of the camp waking up and starting each day. The Buddhist prayer chants, the pony bells as the ponies were brought in to be prepared to be loaded, and the pony man in a very deep soothing voice singing softly and talking to the ponies while he checked their hooves, their skin and carefully placed blankets and saddles on each one. It was the most soothing amazing way to wake up. Then the camp helper would show up at our tent with what is called bed tea. A tray of tea, instant coffee, hot chocolate, and a pot of hot water so we could have tea before getting out of the tent.

The pony man would sometimes take the ponies up to a high pasture at night where the grass was good and go get them at about 4 AM. As they returned to camp their bells, which were of many different tones, could be heard as they approached camp. Other times he would source food for them in local villages and people would come into camp with huge bundles of alfalfa or barley on tump lines on their foreheads.

The Tibetan pony man slept in his own tent resembling a teepee but was the traditional tent for pony men. Who knew? It looked like a nomad's tent and was quite interesting. He travelled with everything he needed to live in the tent-cooking gear and all, even though he ate with the crew in the cook tent.

Our cook and guide also sourced fresh potatoes, cabbage, and carrots from local people with large gardens for us. Even at Nimaling at 4,730 meters our guide came to us saying the shepherd that lived up there had fresh curd (yogurt) and butter and things that good shepherds have to sell. So we had some wonderful fresh curd and butter on potatoes that night. Not that we could eat much. The strange thing at high altitude is even though your body is burning up a lot of calories and you've been climbing for hours, the thought of eating makes you feel sick and its hard to eat.

We ate in a dining tent with a plastic take apart table and chairs and were served our meals there with a little electric lantern hanging above. The crew ate after we finished and had gone to bed. Sometime in the fourth day we realized that the acquisition of locally made Chang was also part of this trek's goals as strangers would sometimes appear in camp with strange liquid in old soda or some glass bottle. We tried some very small taste and left it to the working men to consume.

Our first night in Rumbak was interesting and scary but only after we woke and got up the next morning. The night before our camp had been invaded by Tibetian wolves intent on getting a nice pony or food from the cook tent. The whining growls had awakened me several times but I didn't know what it was and nothing was bothering us. Our tent was 40 or 50 yards away from the main action where the pony man, helper and guide were fending off the assault. Maybe the wolves were regrouping around our tent for another run at their goal because the sounds close to our tent woke me several times? The cook did not join in the defense, telling us the next day that he had been terrorized and couldn't sleep all night. I guess the sound of the stream we were camped on and the distance kept us unaware. For that we are thankful or I may have unzipped the tent and crawled out to find a bad face to face surprise!

Our cook was the personality of the trip, wearing a long bright pink scarf wrapped in various ways around his head and neck and face and striking dramatic hilarious poses when photographed. He had such a huge mischievous grin that just looking at him made us laugh and lifted our spirits.

As remote as it felt there were still several other trekking groups, couples or individuals on the same route. We took a day off on the fourth day in the village of Markah to rest up and wash clothes etc. That night another set of Trekkers arrived in the surrounding camp sites. Most of the trekkers were Europeans and Israelis. We saw no one else from the US. There was also a Canadian group.

Our guide Stanzin, who was always wanting to help when there was a need, ran up and down the trail and acquired ponies for two young Israeli ladies and a Canadian, who is working in California, to be taken to the two person hand operated cable car across the river at Chilling where a car back to Leh can be hired. They all were doing home stays and had eaten some bad food and were in pretty bad shape. Stanzin is 25 and has done this trek more than 30 times and is always kind and helpful. So every village we passed through there were always ladies inviting us in for tea and snacks who loved talking with him and sharing the news of the area which he would share with us. He is a devout Buddhist and explained and showed us what the different stupas and monastery histories were. He always knew who had the keys to get into the monasteries in these remote areas where there was not always a monk.

The trek went from the Leh side of the Stok Mountains over a 15,000 plus or minus pass and down to the valley on the other side of the mountain range. ( Markah Valley). Then the length of the valley and over a 17,000+ pass back over to the Leh side of the range. There are no roads in the valley and it is part of the Hemis National Forest.

Approaching the last high pass we had to stay high and cold for several days. The last night was at Nimaling above 15,000 ft. Once we climbed the ridge we could see camp across a large plain. Great! We just stride out and walk flat to camp! No way at 15,000 nothing is really flat.. Ha! Then the next day was similar - we climbed a high ridge and were faced with a large plain then the last climb to the 17,000+ ft pass -Gongmaru La. Seemed to take forever just to get across that plain at 16,000 ft. All the while the view is getting better and better. The Zanscar range with the many jagged peaks and the Himalayas behind us. The snow covered Stok range all around us, and from the top being able to see the Ladakhi, Karakoram range in Pakastan including we were told K2.

Then the trail plunged down the scree slopes on the other side and into a narrow turquoise, red, green, brown colored steep narrow deep gorge. We crossed the stream rock hopping many many times. Sometimes the walls were so steep we had to rock hop down the stream to get by the high walls, other times we had to take very precarious steep narrow trails up and then down to the stream again. There were waterfalls, huge bolders and seemingly impassable places. After about 5 hours of this finally camp could be seen perched up on an exposed windy ridge/ledge above the gorge. Our last night in camp was windy and cold and it lightly rained all night making the next day's rock hopping a bit harder but Stanzin took rocks and placed them in the stream to make dry crossing possible. It was lightly snowing when we got up the last morning - we were glad it wasn't rain.

We walked out and met our car. Had a group photo and drove back to Leh. The pony man probably made it home with his ponies well after dark since his transport was on foot back home.

We are trying to recover from upper respiratory infections, taking antibiotics and sleeping a lot. A big festival starts tomorrow in town and we plan to attend for a couple of days and then head for the high lakes where we are told we will probably come in contact with some nomadic people. Sounds interesting.

Darryl and Susan.