2007...A YEAR

2 Donkeys, a backpack and a notebook
Looking for my roots…and some new routes.

August 2006

This summer with time to spare between treks I went back to the way it was. Two donkeys, a sometimes sober muleteer, and me.

In days past I would sort out my food, forget something vital, and take off from Manali, Padum, Alchi, or Spitok into the hills.

It somehow never seemed to matter where I went – there were always friendly villagers or nomads, with curd, fresh veg, tsampa, or better, chang. The days were always full of beautiful vistas, delightful campsites and sound sleep under wheeling night skies that defied description.

Of course there were days when the horses got lost, when it rained, when the campsite was less then idyllic, but, as ever with memory, it all blended into one long summer – and on this trek as I hauled our mules through waist deep rivers and peered into insane canyons (down there?) I came to realize that those summers were my personal inspiration for our treks, an endless summer, a journey where time stood still, one day blending into another seamlessly, with every horizon crossed revealing more beauty – and every day was just so full of color, faces, sounds and smells that your senses were overloaded.

At journeys end you felt that you had been blessed with finding something special hidden away from the world, captured in so many moments – a pile of sun warmed fresh harvested barley you dipped your hand into, a moon rising over a still campsite. Capture that, and I believe you have something special.

Ladakh and the Himalayas have changed. More roads, more campsites, more garbage. But in the last 10 days I found again it is still a moving place to trek through. And again as two decades ago I found there are still hidden valleys and remote villages where few trekkers stray, villages moving with the cycle of the seasons that slow our steps as we pass to match their rhythm.

The dream for me was always to point, or lead, or maybe just stumble in a far too loud voice, with our trekkers into some of these hidden places.

And in 2007, we did...

Every year has its highs and lows as the seasons roll around and we get a year older; but from the viewpoint of new years day 2008 sitting in the sun outside a Pokhara cafe, 2007, for the natural highs we reach on every trek, just got better and better.

From January with Mark on the Chadar, through my wonderful custom trekkers from The USA and Denmark, and of course, Richard and Micah - coming back were Tom, Richard, Dave, Peter, Gaye, Dave, Corrine, Ali, Annie, Glen, John, and Steve and Lois, joining so many new trekkers experiencing their first Himalayan highs.

For me it is now my 20th Himalayan birthday, (20 since my first trek that is!) and here is a handful of photos, writing and memories from a year... see you soon!

Joel

KANCHENJUNGA 2008

The countdown begins...

For our Kanchenjunga 2008 Adventure...I am in kathmandu in the moment, having some long days getting the treks for 2008 up and running - and doing those other jobs, like ordering new and repairing old tents, looking over flight schedules and food, and answering many other new enquiries - so far Kanchenjunga is my only full trip, but the Kang La (see below) is going to come pretty close.

But this is just to introduce you to our little handy blog where you will find trek updates, book lists, gear lists, and a few pics as the year progresses.

Joel

2007 rushing to a close

And another year...too many memories, so many trekkers, and all very happy...here are some pics, and some words soon...above the Zanskar staff in Leh, Lobsang II, Stanzin & Norbu

Joel

Summer

To spend an afternoon in neraks or yelchung in august is to taste a little piece of himalayan heaven: between the two is the zanskar gorge spanned by a rickety bridge, and just four hours walking: both still are locked into the cycle of the seasons, and in august we camped among drying peas, ripening barley all around, and the scent of coriander and mint scented the air as we shaded with our tea and books from the fierce afternoon sun under willow and poplar...by mid afternoon with the sun on the retreat the fields are busy,and a walk along irrigation ditches reveals snapshots of a day; in the shade of the greenhouse picnic flasks of tea and tsampa spilt around where they sheltered for their lunchtime: a toddler left among a patch of peas that he chews the afternoon away with, and winter gonchas spread scarecrow like on balconies to dry in this all to short summer. A hoopoe, the classic sign of zanskari summer, swoops to snatch up stray crumbs from lunch, and all that is left to do is to climb to the village gompa with its centuries faded ochres and whites, and watch the sunlight filter through the airborne dust kicked up by, among others, our trekkers feet, illuminate the zanskar gorges, and reflect that this is an easy place to love.

Across The Great Divide

THE KANG LA PASS 2008

September 2008...we will be setting out again to make the exciting crossing between the two ancient Himalayan Kingdoms of Lahul and Zanskar, following an ancient trade route...here are some images from our 2007 journey..

Like a lot of wonderful things in life, we came to the kang La by sheer coincidence-I had been into the Udaipur (chenab) valley in the 80's but over the years we have concentrated within Project-Himalaya on the easier pass crossings (as easy as they get!) like the Shingo la into Zanskar.

This last summer we had tried to run a trek combining meditation with Ladakh - and simply no one was interested, so at the 11th hour we decided to take it off and take the one trekker, Irish friend Dave O'Leary, to the Umasi La pass; Leigh Blake From Australia went for it, as did Tom Lindh, who had trekked with us before - then at the last minute two of Dave's friends, Amy & Dan, booked.

And then the monsoon hit, wiping out the road to the base of the Umasi La...and thus we were left with the kang la, and a crazy time in Manali getting ropes together - as we knew that it was heavily crevassed.

Thus we set out up the Miyar valley in Early August...and were stunned by the incredible beauty of the green endless pastures, beautiful sunsets, and above all the incredible sheer scale of the glacial approach to the pass.

The trek is up;

http://www.project-himalaya.com/jladakh-kang-la.html

See you in 08

Joel

Joel

PATATAS FRITAS

Joycie and Joel are in Majorca for a quick break, and Joycie is shopping, eating and relaxing. We could not find a pic of DICK VAN DYKE so Joel put up the Johnny Depp pic, then it turns out we found one, so we left it up for the older viewers.

WELCOME

To my collection of writing and pictures, kicking off 2007 with our incredible Chadar trip, and a self portrait that manages to look nothing like me!

Enjoy...

Joel

Peace. The Chadar 2007

For my mother and father

Days on the Chadar are so full of images, colours and sounds, all in continuous motion, that by days end there is a feeling of fullness and completeness rarely found in the 'real' world.

Now as I write, the sounds are of warmth. The crackle of the porters fire, with the occasional woosh as the logs collapse, sending up clouds of glowing embers, offering like, to the sky where the stars shine unblinking here in the thin air at 4000 metres.

The Hauntingly moving sights and sounds of this trek are curiously dream like, with an incredible intensity that will inhabit my dreams when I have long abandoned this second childhood that has been my Himalayan life over the past decades.

In the dining tent there is more warmth, a humming stove, and candles flickering. Books, after dinner clutter, and from outside the rise and fall of the voices of Norbu, Lobsang and Stanzin, the crash of a plate and a high pitched laugh. And as the evening ends and the stars wheel overhead, the sonorous voice of one of the porters raised in song.

On such a night the worship of nature is easy.

Days on the ice I take a child like delight in - my early heroes were all polar explorers, and feeling my breath rasp against the face mask as I slide easily on good ice, wondering at all the intricacies of frozen water as I automatically feel out the way, childhood nightimes curled up with a torch and a book flood back, and I realise how blessed I am to be here.

In front a line of figures, black dots against the ice, could easily be a moment from one of those polar epics that enthralled the young me...but as they come closer,my reverie is shattered as they greet me in harsh Zanskari; Kamzang, Jule, Kamzang, all of them friends from Pishu and Zangla.

But no childhood dream could imagine this.

Powder snow that crunches gently beneath your feet, a million tiny particles caught at one point in the freezing process, perfect to stop sliding on the blue ice beneath.

A layer of fragile ice that shatters on contact, into jagged one foot shards you can shuusssh through like autumn leaves, leaving a trail of vandalism that no one will scold you for.

Ice, pure, thick, clear ice that you can look down to the river bottom through, with, there! a fish darting at the corner of your vision.

Ice that is layered with consecutive freezings, rocks once on the surface suspended below, hanging like planets in a schoolroom display, and around them air trapped with lava lamp like curves.

Blue green ice coated with thousands of leaf like ice crystals formed by some combination of wind, sun, and cold - and in the minus 16c (if you pre chill a gloveless hand) you can scoop them up and admire their delicate patterns for whole seconds at a time before your warming hands return them to moisture.

And then at corners of the river, jagged plates - dining room floors, ball room floors, hotel room floors, canted at bizarre angles by the pressure of water beneath, some seeming solid and unyielding, luring you into the middle with the promise of moving horizontally, but as they take your weight, gunshot like cracks echo from canyon walls, and the whole thing starts to bow as it breaks and the Zanskar surges up, sending you skittering back to the safety of the churned up expansion ridges art river's edge.

Tired and at days end, with camp just minutes away, you cross a flat expanse and feel a shift, and realise the whole surface is rising and falling gently with the surge of the river below. And tired not just from the strain of staying upright on all the varieties of frozen water, but with the sheer immensity of the Chadar straining your credibility, you simply stop and let the moment take you.

And the sound running through it all, of course, Siddartha like, is the so, so blue Zanskar sometimes roaring up in white and blue spray as the ice calves, sometimes a gentler background wash with hundreds of perfectly circular roundels of slush bobbing on the surface, piling into river bends to form a new surface, and sometimes jerking you awake in the early hours as huge chunks ice crash down river...and in the morning are frozen in rippling waves.

As you teeter gently on a foot wide ledge it surges past an inch or two from your nervous ice encrusted foot, it focuses the mind marvellously.

Then lift your eyes (making sure your feet are firmly anchored first) to frozen waterfalls that drop deep aquamarine claws over impossible black rock walls, wind whipped and water curved, that you despair of finding purchase on as you clamber away from bad ice to the sparse footing on an ibex trail above.

And the porters, always the porters as counterpoint to the river, the light relief. Smiling, laughing, smoking, cooking,collecting firewood, repairing their crazy soapbox sledges that skitter behind them on the ice. Washing their socks through a fissure in the ice, dipping their cups in the Zanskar to drink, and screaming with delight when one of them wipes out on slick ice, or another ruefully pulls off his boot to empty a pint of ice water.

At days end before the plummeting temperatures take you inside, look up from your darkling gorge and watch the sun pick out the heights that soar above you, red brown sheer faces lit golden, leading higher to glittering gunmetal summits picked out with veins of snow...and drop your gaze to pick out trails you have followed and will follow on balmy summers days both past and future.

Surely. as Kipling's Kim said, the Gods live here.

And just as you have made a cautious coexistence with this river, you turn a bend and here is a fresh delight, the snowcapped plateau of the old kingdom of Zangla, tiny dwellings with frosted prayer flags on every roof.

The narrow village lanes bustle with snot encrusted bubbling brown eyed children, red wool goncha clad, dragging makeshift sleds down to their local ski run to plunge shouting and with the breathless purity of childhood in the sharp thin air, spinning to a safe landing in deep powder, sobbing with laughter as they shout at you

Ju le Ju le Ju le

Evenings by stovelight and hot salt tea, in warm Zanskari homes as we cross the frozen plain towards Zangla, with every morning the Chu la, the frost mist, surging off the river towards us as we move, past ice encrusted briar and poplar coated in hoar frost glistening with that first-morning-of-creation light; look and you may see the tiny pink petals of a faded rose from a summer long gone.

Then before you, the end of our journey, and the beginning of many, the Great Himalayan Range rising sheer to 6000m and more, stretching glittering blue white across the horizon. The massed snows on the heights, come spring, will be irrigating the green oasis towns of this tiny land, this snow fed river will still be curving through it, and the childrens laughter and the Zanskaris joy in life will be renewed once more.

Would all endings bring such peace

"The scale, the purity, the unknowedness, these are characteristics that stimulate contemplation."

Sarah Wheeler

Winter at the Crossroads of High Asia.

When the seasons 'ad its day

And you're countin' up your pay

You can keep your fancy haunts(and I'll ignore your taunts)

Because there is a place I know I'd rather be

Where the Indus starts to freeze

And frost smoke wreathes the trees

We took the Chadar routeTo where Zanskar lay....

Pic, the freezing Indus and Tikse Gompa

NEW TREK DATES 2007

First up!
Zanskar Spring Traverse

As spring lays its magical hand over the passes and pastures, we set out again in a season and in a style we have made our own. This journey is a wonderful blend of challenging trekking and warm village welcomes, with insights into a culture that we love.
Dave Donaldson and 6/8 trekkers are booking, along with Corrine Keller.27 May-25 June, 33 days -- expedition style -- leaders: Joel and Lobsang

Caravan; a Mountain Passage - Ladakh to Spiti

Ten years after they first explored the region, Joel and Lobsang lead a short but stunningly beautiful trek from turquoise Tso Moriri (lake) on the Changtang to the Utah-like valleys of Spiti via the magnificent Parang La (pass).22 June-10 July, 19 days -- expedition style -- Joel & Lobsang

Custom trek for Per and family.
14 July/30 July, a custom trek for a family.

Ladakh Meditations
This trip combines trekking, meditation, and learning qigong in a high-altitude wonderland. We will traverse the highlands of Ladakh, going over passes and across land which is politically Indian but culturally and geographically Tibetan. We will trek to three ancient Buddhist temples, each of which has unique Buddhist art found nowhere else in the world. We will combine the trek with daily meditation practice, and each day learn some Dayan (Wild Goose) qigong, a 2000 year old form of movement which opens and heals the acupuncture meridians. Both the qigong and meditation are optional -- you can come to just admire the scenery and the art. But if you choose to participate, by the end of the trek you'll be able to do the whole form (which is part of traditional chinese medicine), and at each gompa, you'll have time to participate in a longer (half or full day) meditation retreat. All this with horsemen carrying your gear (you carry only a daypack) and Lopsang preparing delicious, healthy traditional 3-course meals every evening!
Dates; 1 - 25th August
http://web.mac.com/brosenbaum1

Jumlam *Exploratory

Our very favourite autumn trek; and this time we do the Jumlam gorges full justice with time to explore all the stunning canyons and passes where snow leopard and ibex roam.28 Aug-25 Sept, 29 days -- expedition style -- Joel with Lobsang -- US$2820
posted by Joel Schone at 8:29 AM 0 comments

A Third Decade...

Third? Yes, this week I officially enter my third decade of Himalayan trekking, and just because I feel like it here on new years day, some past pictures; I made my first trek in Pakistan in 1987, biking through from China and Tibet, and new years day seems a good time for it!