[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

...its these guys

Apprently somebody gave them biscuits, something which should not be done. Animals can get dependent. From their behaviour it seems they are accustomed to travellers, and from their health, they have been eating a lot of biscuits lately

No wonder they are called Tibetian snow pigs too.
Here is one eating.

Those are some wonderful pics of the Himalayan marmot. It is unfortunate that tourists, overrunning their natural habitat and feeding them processed foods, are actually encouraging their early extinction. I would hate to imagine the day when the government declares their natural habitat out of bounds for visitors to that region.

Looking at their health, one can assume that winter is just round the corner, and they have stored up enough body fat to hibernate through the next few months.

[tsk1979]

Heavy rain up there, and light down here

Northwest is all dark and ominous

However Northeast is pretty tame

Couple of more pics

And


In all this I thought of changing to 50mm so that I could take IR shots, but due to lack of grass and sunlight, the effort was wasted

I guess IR looks best with foliage




Time to switch back to normal lens
The clouds were leaving now, albeit temporarily. Here the conditions change every minute






When its cloudy the lake is not very dramatic, but the clouds are!




Finally it was around 12:30 when weather again started getting worse, and we decided to have lunch, and leave the lake behind.
We reach the army run canteen, and the officer manning the desk is shocked!
"Aap phir aa gaye" is his only question.

We just grin.
After rajma chawal and tea, its time to move on. Its raining quite a bit now and only near the nallah the rain lets up a bit, and becomes a very light drizzle.
On the top I can make out heavy rain, and where does this water go.... ?

Into the nallah of course.

And as I take the turn, engage 4L, quite a scene awaits us at the Nallah.....

[tsk1979]

There are 2 cars at the Nallah, a scorpio, which has not gone in yet, and a safari 3.0 taxi, which is sitting bang in the middle.
I can make out the wheel spinning and exhaust smoking.
No pics of that, took out camera late.
3 guys are trying to heave ho.
Then couple of them bend down, and appear to be removing some rocks,
Again some wheelspin and smoke, and the safari clears.
Next is the scorpio, he does not even wait for safari to fully clear, just goes zoom. I can see the scorpio jump as he hits a rock, but no other drama it also clears

This is what the nallah looks like. At night the water was more than this, so you can imagine. The scorpio moves on but as you can see in the pic, the safari has stopped for some reason.


Anyways its my turn.
No sweat. I slowly crawl at 4L, and I can see onlookers(there are quite a few) signalling me to go fast, as they must be thinking i will get stuck.
But with little drama I am also through
Infact I also stop in the middle to take pics












After that we stop so see why so many people. The answer is simple. There are a few hatchbacks waiting. Some guys in the swift say chuck it, and take back their swift, but the santro guy does not want to go back without seeing the lake.
A zen is also waiting, but that guy wants to see if santro does it.

The santro guy pulls up his trousers and walks through the nallah.

The water is more than his knees. Actually if it were a road, there would not have been a problem, but the big round stones can wreck a car.
He is double minded and waits for the scorpio to come through.
Thunk Thunk clang it bangs its way through.
I think this scared him off as he was almost going through.
They will probably wait for a cab or something?

The white elephant is parked at a height


As you can see from second last pic, while going to pangong its tougher because gradient is slightly uphill.
The Santro guy asks me if he can make it and what if he gets stuck. I tell him clearly, if you want to try go ahead, I will pull your car out if you get stuck, but if you hit a rock, you will damage your oil sump, and will be stranded here.

So sense prevails, and he decideds to wait. Zen guy will also wait for a cab. Today its field day for taxis. I am told they charge 200rs for the 4kms trip.

As for us, as the rain picks up we race towards changla. The road is not meant for speeding, but there is no choice. If chang La closes, we are stuck here. Thats the only pass connecting North Chang La to Leh.

So on the twisty narrow track we climb uphill slowly towards changla and little after 3pm we are there. Our fears were unfounded. Looks like rain Gods were benovelent only near Pangong.
changla is dry as a bone, though the army chaps tell us it snowed last night.


Apart from the snow and rain I had another worry. Now, if you remember we tanked up in Leh, and carried 30 liters of fuel with us.
With that we had done Nubra(Panamik Deskit) and also M.La.
So we were low on fuel. Karu was 50kms from changla, and I reckoned if I hit reserve at changla. I will make it to karu.

Well we did hit reserve near Changla. With Karu less than 100 away, and it all being downhill, fuel should not be a problem. But I guess it was our closest call till now with fuel!

MEanwhile, there is another thing pending. Team-bhp meet...........

[anujmishra]

Again Pangong? So, you are mesmerized with the beauty of Pangong (also we are after looking you photographs).

It is indeed a beautiful lake and everybody wants to go again and again but only problem is, it is there in world's toughest trail.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by anujmishra

Again Pangong? So, you are mesmerized with the beauty of Pangong (also we are after looking you photographs).

It is indeed a beautiful lake and everybody wants to go again and again but only problem is, it is there in world's toughest trail.

It was a spur of the moment decision. I am glad we took the decision to go back!
The lake is indeed too beautiful. Everything else, in my opinion, just pales in comparison.

[tsk1979]

Now if you remember, I had been communicating with ksm-vtec (Kaushik) for past few days over sms, as phone connection(BSNL in tangste) had been very flaky.
He was near karu around 2pm, and we expected to meet him at changla. However, he was slower than I anticipated, and it was after changla, around after 4pm, that we met him on the way.
We exchanged notes, and I warned him about the nallah. Well he had quite an adventure there, which I am sure he will write in his travelogue, I will no spoil the suspense.
After that it was smooth ride back to Leh

Evening we reached Karu, and filled 55.93 liters of fuel.
The FE?
8.84!
Pretty shocking considering offroading at lake and also M.La
The white elephant was sipping fuel rather frugraly. I expected 7.5 for this adventure!

Late evening we were in Leh.
Our hotel was not the same,
West bengal had invaded. As for us it was a quiet dinner, and sleep.

Leg 1 of our trip was over. Time to go to sleep, and enjoy the city tomorrow

So friends, with this ends 1/3 of this travelogue.

Sign off for now............!

[KSM-Vtec]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Now if you remember, I had been communicating with ksm-vtec (Kaushik) for past few days over sms, as phone connection(BSNL in tangste) had been very flaky.
He was near karu around 2pm, and we expected to meet him at changla. However, he was slower than I anticipated, and it was after changla, around after 4pm, that we met him on the way.
We exchanged notes, and I warned him about the nallah. Well he had quite an adventure there, which I am sure he will write in his travelogue, I will no spoil the suspense.

Sorry abt coming late for the meet tsk it was hunger "paapi peet" that held us back at karu and we were forced to start only at 3 from karu.

Well that was a great team bhp meet we had up there at 4k mts ASL

ya the bad connection, but your sms's were a great help trust me. thats the advantage of a tbhp member running 1 day ahead of you

Will post the details in my log(which i will start soon)

[suman]

Nice to see this one is marginally ahead of the "other".

Good going & awesome pictures....but as I said elsewhere, give me Pangong by day & bright sunlight! A cloudy backdrop spoils the colors of the lake (in my opinion).

[tsk1979]

Yes, Pangong looks different in clouds, but sunny is definitely better.
Some day we hope to drive along the 45kms of the lake(if they make something even remotely resembling a road) and go all the way to Rezing la and Tsaga La and return via Hanle/Nyoma/Tso Moriri etc.,

[lordofgondor]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

As you can see from second last pic, while going to pangong its tougher because gradient is slightly uphill.

I can never forget the incline towards Pangong at the exit of Pagal Nallah. Keep wishing it wasn't there.

Did you find any Army recovery vehicle parked in there?

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Some day we hope to drive along the 45kms of the lake(if they make something even remotely resembling a road) and go all the way to Rezing la and Tsaga La and return via Hanle/Nyoma/Tso Moriri etc.,

Amen to that mate! Would be one helluva drive. Dreaming about that now

[tsk1979]

No no army recovery vehicles there. Its "at your own peril" kind of nallah

[satish_appasani]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Deky I will post full details, my question was that is the number of pics a little too much, if so I will post less pics

tanveer, if you upload pics with EXIF information, it is easy to read the data using Exif viewer : Opanda IExif - Professional EXIF / GPS / IPTC Viewer & Editor in Windows, IE & Firefox.

[tsk1979]

Satish, I post 800x600 pics which do not have any EXIF info as smugmug keeps that only in the originals(3-5MB each).
If you want info about a specific pic then holla

[KSM-Vtec]

@ tsk1979 - we should have clicked a snap with our rides together up there man, lets not forget that next time

[gt_bhp]

WOW tsk1979, its been wonderful to read and see your experience in full color. This trip now goes to the top of my list of 'Must See' places. Waiting for the remaining story.