Zanskar

Happy Monday from Leh (actually Thursday in Manali by the time I publish this post)!  We are back from about a week out in the woods, actually better to just call it the mountains because there really aren't any woods in this part of the world.  Its stark, stark and incredibly beautiful.  We left Leh about a week ago, days are definitely blending together here, for a trip on the Zanskar River.  They call it the Zanskar expedition around here, a trip that is generally done a few times a year as a multi day raft trip and when the odd group of kayakers journey their way here to do it.  The trip itself took us three days on the water, which was a very casual pace as the river is flowing about 8 miles an hour and the stretch is only 90 miles.  It could be done in just over a day but that's not why you come here, you come for a trip through one of the most amazing river canyons on earth - and the expedition also comes from the 30 plus hour drive to the put in, only 6-8 of which are on paved roads.  We start from Leh at 5am, see the town before anyone else gets up.  Its nice, this town is bustling in the middle of the day and we leave before all the horns and chaos.

Trash cleanup in Leh on our way out of town

The drive out of town is along the lower Indus.  It is a beautiful looking beast, the canyons gorgeous and the water huge.  We parallel it until the road crosses and we go over a pass.  From there, the Indus flows all by itself, big, burly and awesome, into Pakistan, which is only somewhere around 50 miles away.

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Doesnt look like too much but standing on the road, we all decided it was definitely a monster but I think it goes hey diddle diddle, right through the 25 foot crashing waves

We drove up a great little canyon and the road climbed high up to some cool towns and monasteries that are perched in absolutely stunning places.  The road was paved here and travel was quick.  We are loving life.  The photos are much more amazing than I can explain so Ill let them do the talking for a while.  

Then we made it to Kargil, which isn't as cool as it sounds.  Except for the big rowdy Class V rapids in the middle of town on the Suru River.  Kargil is about 20 miles from Pakistan and so the people are mostly Muslim.  It feels a lot different from our happy little Buddhist paradise in Leh and though the people are nice, we decide to get the heck outta Dodge.  After all, we still have something like 18 hours of driving, maybe more.  After getting some veggies and Apircots, switching a shuttle vehicle and going to the last gas station until our destination, we peace out and get back on the road.  

  

A little taste of Kargil.  It must be hot with your head all covered, right?  

Back on the road, the views are stunning again, we drive up and up and up and up.  We stop for some food and I elect not to eat, which I end up getting punished for.  Apparently when all your friends eat the rice from the pot that the dude is serving with his hands, you are supposed to go ahead and go for it.  Don't resist temptation to eat "safer" foods that were grown on trees, those will come back and haunt you.  Or at least they came back to haunt me.  

Driving out of Kargil

Stopped at the shuttle driver's house so he can grab a blanket.  Cute little girl his daughter.  

Lunch spot

Who's drug store?  Oh wait, its a chemist and druggist store, with a green cross.  I've seen a lot of those in Denver but don't think any of them have the same title.

Out of town we started gaining elevation, the valley continually more beautiful and the river way more rowdy.  At first we thought we could run sections, then we realized it was a little too steep for the flow, maybe for any flow.  

Just a pretty mountain shot, sorry. 

That crazy "rooster tail" wave thingy in the middle is like 30 feet tall.  

We keep driving up, the mountain are getting really big.  

Then we round the corner and get a view of this....its a real live glacier coming off of a 7000m peak, fully loaded with like a hundred plus foot waterfall coming from it and falling back into it.  The glacier is one of the major sources of the river.  It's quite the sight.  

Further and further up the Suru River valley, this thing is steep and huge.  The mountains are massive and the views are astounding.  I start feeling funny, like not good funny.  I attribute it to eating half a kilo of apricots, a mealy apple given to me by a Muslim guy, and two malt beers all day.  The road is rough and it’s shaking up my insides.  I feel good when we get to camp, mostly to have a break from the jostling journey but it is probably the most epic camp I’ve ever seen and it is well deserved after 14 hours on the road. 

Im actually here, just in case some of you thought I was hiding out at the bar the whole time

Camp is amazing.  That glacier defies physics by holding on to an 89 degree granite face.  No big deal.

At camp some folks want to make dinner, drink tea and have fun in this epic wilderness paradise.  I setup my tent (which is already a sign that things are going downhill) and I pass out.  Actually I don’t think I ever passed out, I laid there with some excruciating stomach cramps, curled in the fetal position, wishing I could sleep.  This is not good.  After a few hours, I get up because somethings gotta give.  I hurt and I don’t know what to do.  As soon as I get up, it all comes up.  I start throwing up, projectile style, like an orange crush but like a bunch.  All those damn apricots, they were so good when I overate my bagfull.  I feel better after that.  I look up and the stars are amazing, I watch them along the jagged mountain horizon in awe.  Unfortunately I can’t enjoy them too much, a few minutes after my vomit session, it comes out the other end.  With fury.  After a little while, everything is gone from me and I lay back down, I hope to rest - that just hurt.  Instead I lay awake in some crazy pain, not sure what is trying to attack my insides but is surely hurts.  The remainder of the night I take trips outside to have amazing explosive diarrhea between laying back down, crying for my mommy, and wishing I could fall asleep.  At one point I wake up, I must have been asleep!  Unfortunately, my wake up call is Jay Z and Alicia Keys belting out Welcome to New York (kind of a jam unless it comes on under these circumstances at 3 am and somehow it’s the 12 minute version).  I get up and realize one of our drivers had just hit the stereo and neither of them, sleeping in the truck realize what was going on.  I turn it off and lay back down.  Some more fetal position time and its first light, the drivers are freezing and they start the diesel engine, which due to the crazy wind up here is right next to me.  I guess its time to go.  At least I got to lay down for a while.  Lets keep going.  We reload the kayaks and journey on.  The views help distract me.  This place is unreal, totally worth the bone jarring ride even if you don’t go kayaking. 

Better reflection than when I look in the mirror

Could be the world's highest chapati stand - though there's no Big Man here

Zanskar Valley, we're almost there, right?  Ha ha, yeah right.  

These glaciers are just a dime a dozen up here in northern India.  

Look at them funny things,  Dzo, its a mix of a cow and a yak.  They can eat it because its not a cow and they burn the poo all winter to keep warm.  

The 10 hour drive from camp to the put in is amazing.  I am generally in awe of the scenery despite the excruciating pain in my belly.  What’s going on in there.  I am doing well and can generally keep it down if I can bear the pain.  Sometimes I make the rig pull over and I hop a little stone wall and let er rip.  After a long day, we make it to Rangdum, the put in town.  We are all amazed at the size of the town and amount of people here.  In the summer this place is happening, there are lots of people milling about, there is agriculture in the surrounding valley where there is irrigation and there are other tourists here.  Why? 

The town is completely shut off in the winter as the high mountain roads are closed.  The only way out is a 90 mile trek, called the Chadar trek – apparently in a BBC Planet Earth – down the frozen Zanskar.  It is a two week trek to the confluence with the Indus.  Tourists actually come to do it now, I have no idea why.  Maybe because they have a chance of seeing a Snow Leopard or and Ibex.  Maybe because they are totally delusional and it sounds like a legitimate vacation to walk 90 miles in a frozen box canyon for two weeks, maybe they get to see a Snow Leopard, worth it?  I think Ill watch the Planet Earth special and go to Mexico this winter. 

Once we make it to Rangdum, I cant quite control myself.  My diarrhea is explosive and uncontrollable, mostly.  At one point, we are trying to find a restaurant and I run off into someone’s driveway to let er rip.  Too late, it happens, I shit my pants.  The good thing is that I am so exhausted and used to shitting everywhere that I am comfortable changing my britches in the middle of town.  We find a restaurant.  I drink a liter of water and am proud of myself, happy to be done with the jostling and think this is my chance to get some nutrition.  I also decide that this sickness isn’t gonna go away on its own so I eat a cipro.  I order some butter naan and take one bite and get that feeling.  I slowly walk out of the nicest restaurant in town toward the hole in the ground they call a bathroom.  I make it almost all the way before I lose everything, all over the place.  I hold it back with my hands and in the process get it all over my face, shirt and the hallway outside of the poo hole.  No pride left.  I go wash up in the irrigation ditch, which is far from clean water and wander back in the restaurant.  I need to get out of here.  We are close.  

Putin!!!

I pass out that night at around 7 and am able to sleep all night, totally exhausted.  I wake up the next morning, eat another cipro and drink some water, cant quite stomach the oatmeal.  Right on time, I puke up the bile and cipro (which tastes quite terrible by the way) and pack up camp.  

On the water, I feel way better.  I decide its just a great way to lose weight, E Coli that is.  At least that's what my nurse friend Christy on the trip thinks.   

This place is amazing and this is the trip we came for and for the most part, the pain subsides as the put in fades away.  The scenery is unreal, we understand why they call it the Grand Canyon of the Himalaya.   We are on the river finally and life is grand.  

A little side hike at camp 1.  

FOTM on the Zanskar

They are building a road through this canyon, a totally insane feat.  No one knows why exactly they are doing it but its going to take a while, they are about 3 miles into a 90 mile vertical walled canyon.  Labor is cheap in India and we think they are probably going to build a hydro project in here.  

Holy tree

The pinch, it is said that this is usually an hourglass shaped section of river canyon that is somewhere between 3 and 10 meters wide, an impressive feature on any river with 25,000+ cfs.  

We camp at the Zanskar version of Thunder River.  An amazing spring with about 300 cfs gushing out of the wall.  Amazing ledge camp, hoping the river doesn't come up as much as it did the night before. 

Wow, this is rad.  

Near the commercial putin, some bridge construction gone awry.  Whoops.  

We make it through the Zanskar Gorge without any issues, in fact we are all awed by the beauty of this unique and beautiful river canyon.  We earned it after that drive.  I feel better a few days into the trip and life is grand.  The pain and agony is a small price to pay to be able to travel to such a special place.  Great crew, great camps, unreal scenery and five star trip.  The rapids weren't anything overly challenging but there were some fun ones and we are happy it wasn't too much crazier with the relatively high flows and the nature of the 50 mile long box canyon.