THE PHOTO SERIES RETURNS ON-LINE
FROM LADAKH-'01
Greetings in the hot and humid subtropics to which I return from three miles
up!
I am uncertain if you had received the emails that were tentatively sent from
Leh, Ladakh on my arrival, or the wrap up email from the park hotel in Delhi
on departure, since all electronics is tentative at best. I had made up an outline
of the daily events of this superb Ladakh excursion, going to four remote sites,
and treating nearly 1800 patients of the unique peoples of the Chang-Thang Tibetan
plateau along the High Himalaya/ Chinese border. In the map (attached), you
will see clearly the village of Tangtse and the Lake Pangong in which a few
of our intrepid swimmers took the salty cold Pangong Plunge. You will also see
the Shyok River we had followed after crossing through the highest pass on earth--the
Khardungla Pass at 18,380 feet, to arrive at Panamic, for our final clinic venue.
It seems the clinics have been so successful, and the trek has been so popular among my medical students, that there will be a proliferation of several more beyond those already done this year scheduled for repetition, including a January mid-winter Ladakhi trip in the sub-zero icebound Tangtse Village, brought in by military convoy over the second highest pass on earth we had crossed on its best day of the year--the Chungla Pass, only 130 feet lower than Khardungla.
In addition, there will be added treks into Lingshed (to which I did not go this time due to the crash of the helicopter that was supposed to be chartered to get me there), and new trips into Sikkim and into Meghalaya above Assam and below Nepal, site of my October trek this year.
Following return from the last of our medical clinics, I went through the White Water Rapids of the Indus River canyon through the Himalaya--some part of that trip being without benefit of the raft. You might have seen additional spectacular photos of the river scene and the wildlife near this stark ribbon of glacial meltwater, were it not for the fact that the ancient Indus River has claimed the camera on my brief swim through the rapids!
In September, I lead the trek into Spiti Valley, scheduled for a repeat trip in June of 2002. The Chief Medical Officer of Ladakh, Dr. Devla, has been so enthusiastic about the results of our medical missions into remote clinics, he is asking for many more on a nearly monthly basis, which has added up to nine treks for next year---not including the other plans I have for Africa and Mindanao!
You will see a couple of rolls of the picturesque settings in which the medical missions are carried out, and a number of the participants and patients in the attached on-line photographs which you can access from the on-line album you can click on (attached.) If you enjoy this review, you can continue to check back through events that range form Dharamsala and the Boston marathon in April to Kazakhstan, Kamchatka Siberia and the Brooks Range Alaska in prior rolls, or wait another few weeks for the next rolls from the Siberian ring of fire along the Bering Sea in northern Kamchatka, where snow-capped mountains belch bright red lava and steam amid the snow sheep and brown bears that will be my next companions on the adventure travel into this virgin wilderness in a week.
Enjoy the "Photo Tour" with a more complete text to follow as captions for the cascade of photos returning already from this latest excursion along the "Roof of the World."
Cheers!
GWG