Showing posts sorted by relevance for query cold. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query cold. Sort by date Show all posts

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Drat..


Where did I put my down socks ?

Cold season in Ladakh comes in three different comfort zones : most rooms never get anywhere near warm in daytime , the south facing shelkhang room with large single pane glass windows quickly become about as cold as on the outside at night , but quickly heat up in the morning sun, and a few places , like the SECMOL campus , with solar heating it´s surreally warm long in to December : sleeping with a single blanket , and your hands on the outside.

When you start to have to sleep with the laptop in the sleeping bag it´s time to shift from sleeping in the shelkhang.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Cold ...

Cold morning , I take my cue from the yaks giving up grazing in a nearby dell and pack down my tent and leave for warmer places with thicker air.Breakfast on the go : the last of the dried apricots and tsampa.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Severe Weather..


Enduring the mind numbing cold in Skampuk , Nubra , on November 15th.

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Warm Night...






... and cold morning.Breakfast at SECMOL , after the first night with my hands outside the sleeping bag ( or in this case the blanket ). Tea with ngamphe/tsampa , and a quick trot to Phey , just catching the morning bus to Leh. On the dashboard : the 19th and 20th Bakula Rinpoche.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Lonely at the top

.. but a lot of company along the way : eagles, yaks, really! large marmots, a family group of very elegant Ladakhi deers : light grey on the outside,white belly and inner leggings, chock black tail stump.. and the ever present yellowbeaked ravens (thanks for the binoculars, dad !) .
I manage to tag along an elderly Ladakhi gentleman in goncha and huge sunglasses up to around 4900 , where he gently lets me off : maybe you should take it slower; he signs "yams , yams" : take smaller steps. He obviously has mastered the secrets a long time ago : walks very slowly but never ever stops.
The map can't really prepare you for the reality of Digar La, the most un-la-like la (pass) I've ever seen . A long ,huge, curving valley climbing ... until it ends in a sharp curved ridge. Boulders and stones that first appears as gravel in sharp slope up to the solid ridge , with a small notch crossed by prayer flags : the pass(age) . Hairpin bend thru the notch , where the trail slopes down in an equally crazy angle. Like walkin up to the rim of a moon crater. The thin air turns me in to an atlas of respiratory distress symtom; like everyone else : William Moorecroft notes the same in his passage 1822 and adds in awe " even the yaks were affected .. and needed frequent breaks". Hard , cold wind lashing into me the last hundred meters; grateful for the staff.