Day 15 – June 26 – Singge La and back

We got up at 5 and were on the trail by 6:30. The cold snow was hard as rock, leading me to grouse to our guide that if the donkey men weren’t willing to walk on this they should never work for his company again. The final switchbacks, however, did become steep and icy, though no real problem for us.



At least we made it to the pass and the weather was superb. At 4950 meters (16,000 feet), Sengge La is the highest pass on this leg of the trip, and it crosses the spine of the Zanskar range, which is higher than the Himalaya in this area. Below us we could see the deep Zanskar river gorge and the Great Himalaya range beyond. The trail beyond would have skirted arount the mountains to the right and crossed several lower passes before descending to Padum in the valley. It looked so close, but it will take us two days of backtracking and three days of driving to get there.


By 10:00, when we began descending, the snow was already starting to get soft. I broke through in many places but was able to keep bouncing down the slope without trouble. Passing through the base camp, we picked up our lunches and continued back the way we had come the previous day.

At least the weather was now nice, so we could see the mountains and valleys that we’d missed in the rain and clouds of the previous day.


To make arrangements for Plan B, we had to hike all the way back to the satellite phone at Photoksar, retracing the whole of Day 14 in addition to the summit climb. By the end of about ten hours of walking, Marcia and I were both dragging butt. We slept very well that night.

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