More Alive Update~
In Chandigarh and feeling much, much better:
Chandigarh is the richest, cleanest, greenest city in India. It is the only planned city in India and was designed by a famous British architect. I am not here for any of these reasons of course.. I had to leave the cradle of the Kullu valley eventually because the entire state decided not to have support for my atm card :<
The rickshaw drivers are crazy, the climate is suffocating, but the city is really pretty. Palm trees and giant derelict buildings everywhere with people sleeping all over the place... in giant geometric patterns! It's all very western commercially and I can't wait to leave tonight back into the shelter of the Himalayas... I now have to carry an extremely large sum of rupees around.
I want to give a better summary of the trekking. Since we had some ideas that this was going to be like going on an adventure into the unknown we decided to give ourselves classes and made many D&D references throughout the trip to keep our morale up and because it was as probably as close as any of us will ever come to the .. real thing :) It's really long so only read if you feel like it~
The party:
Steven
Class: Paladin
From: New York & Israel
Description: The leader. He's Jewish and the oldest member of the party at 33 years of age. He cuts coloured diamonds for a living. He's very wise, serious and loves opium :) He also always took the longest to put his backpack on and get ready! :<
Kirin
Class: Ranger
From: Southern Scotland
Description: He was the perfect ranger. He spent his entire life living on the farm in the country and knew so much about plants, injuries and well... a lot of things! Always good-natured and always the first to do the scariest things with great dexterity.
Holly
Class: Druid
From: Manchester, England
Description: I don't know what class Holly would've done best as, but probably a fighter. Holly was small, dexterous and has been in India for 8 months so she doesn't take crap from anyone and wouldn't let anyone deceive or take advantage of her. Her physique was her great weakness however, as she had to take many breaks.
Sky
Class: Bard
From: London, England
Description: Sky is the perfect Bard. He plays a bunch of instruments really well and is such an energetic and flamboyant character, as well as a poet. (You could always find him with his little book out writing thoughts down!). He was usually in the front (along with me or Kirin) and kept morale high and saved people from dangers.
Myself
Class: Illusionist
Description: No coordination, confidence or dexterity. I held up the group many times on the first few days out of fear or lack of confidence in my physical ability. I had the best endurance, took good control of the rations and never tired though, so during many times I could stand up on my own and by the end I did everything on my own as I gained some much needed levels and point or five in dexterity :)
Day 1: Everyone running around Manali trying to find camping gear, Sky and myself took up the buying the food. I did it mathematically which ended up working out perfectly, and there were few complaints about the food (except maybe the maggi noodles). Eventually we find everything and by the time we reach the trailhead at Prini it's about 4:00. Late start for the 5 day trek. The first day is rainy and is spent mostly hitching rides with locals in their tractors up this endless zig-zagging mountain road before passing a couple of mining communities and this strange tunnel. We were allowed in as long as we wore hard hats, the tunnel had tubes running through it and was full of water.. it wasn't very exciting but very surreal. No problems that day. We camp by some miners and have a fire. We recite poems (I recite some of those silly battlereport classics like 'Hole In One'. Not really trekking that.
Day 2: Sunny, the first two hours spent passing mining communities until we finally find and reach 'the bridge'. The bridge marks the end of civilization and the beginning of the real trek ahead... little do we know it's going to be a very, very long day. We go through fields of cows and through this breath-taking swampy forest and meet a hardcore solo Australian trekker, he tells us that he heard the snow hasn't melted at the pass yet and that we're coming to our first river crossing, but fortunely there is a bridge. River crossing with a bridge... sounds easy right? We keep on going until the mountain swallows up the path and turn right and realise we must now cross the river. The river is about 10 metres across, 3 feet deep and moving extremely fast. They're rapids, if you try to cross them on foot and you slip you're in big trouble.... so good thing there's a bridge. We look at the bridge and our hearts sink, mine drops into the river... the 'bridge' as the shepards call it (shepards have a very bizarre and twisted conception of what makes a bridge) is essentially a wet log sit on half of the river, the OTHER side of the river. In order to get onto the log you have to get wet and make an extremely fast and accurate combination of moves in order to safely get onto it. You have to hop some rocks, then lodge yourself behind this big rock (underwater in the thick of the blistering current) and then with your right leg make jump for this little rivet in the bottom right of the log while grabbing the log with your hands. The hardcore trekker just nonchalantly jumps onto it and walks on top of the the log over. Kirin tries then realises that the giant 30 pound backpack isn't going to help so he gives the Australian his backpack (who was a great help). After the two most fearless peope cross, Sky and Holly go. Both miss and get caught by Kirin and the Australian before they get devoured by the river in the nick of time. Steven and myself are peeing our pants. We go back... convinced that Shepards do in fact know what a bridge looks like, especially one over a deadly white rapid river. Some locals come and show us a second route, it's even scarier but doesn't require any leaping or bounding. It's a fallen log that you have to climb up, it's on the other side which is essentially a mountain. If you fall off at any time you are definitely dead. Steven, more confident in his balance than dexterity goes for it and suceeds. So now me... path #1 or #2? I despair and try #1... I chicken out twice before I almost start crying on the bank. The locals come over and tell me there is a third way. I'm open for a third way... so what's the third way? The guy puts this rubber boots on and enters the river on foot. I watch him... he has clearly done it thousands of times as he does this bizarre robot walk with his eyes nearly in the water looking at the water bottom for the shape of the rocks. He then comes back and everyone across the river is shaking their heads, 'Don't do it, you have to practice for a long time to do it safely!' So the guy points to me and then his back. He wants me to go on his back over the river. He's like 120 pounds at most. Anything is better than the other two options I think so I do it. He lifts me up and then goes in the water, the first half isn't is hard as the second half, it's not as deep or fast moving. I'm clinging for my life and then about at the halfway point he missteps and falls into river. The next thing I remember is being extremely cold (the water is ice cold from the glaciers) and the guy breaking from under me and screaming, another local rushes into the water to help him out and everyone is screaming. The water is extremely powerful and wants you to join it. We run, it was madness... I just ran for my life across the river. Every step it tried to pull you under, I just tried to put my feet behind rocks and fight the current and I safely made it across but it was sooo scary. I cut a bunch of cuts and bruises on my feet. I thank the guys and we proceed, to another river crossing. This time we don't know if there is a bridge, but the river is about twice as wide and even stronger since comes directly down from the mountains now. We spend hours searching the river for the safest route. They make a few attempts and nearly kill themselves, I find a split in the river and get more cuts as I crossed more river until I realised it wasn't possible to safely cross any further. We make lots of bad plans until Kirin shouts, 'I found a bridge!'. And surely enough there is a bridge... so we don't have to kill ourselves! We finally set up camp, terrified of bridges.
Day 3: A cow wakes us up. There is a herd around us but one in particular that takes a liking to our clothes lying out to dry (we were totally soaked from the last day). Eventually he sneaks behind us and gets one of Sky's shirt so we have to throw rocks at it. Cows are so used to it that they don't really care, it just dropped the shirt and then walked off! We then cross a real bridge (although it's extremely scary and manmade) involved two thin slimy logs with a layer of rocks on it. This day is easiest... we just go and go. We do find an ice cavern of sorts.. so beautiful. Kirin and myself go in and just as we do it breaks on the other end and falls into the river.... very scary! It makes such a deep bassy rumble... We sleep in this beautiful unnamed valley, by night clouds come and fill the valley with mists and fogs... it was so beautiful! We sleep at about 3500 metres.
Day 4: We reach the pass today, at an altitude of 4270 metres. The day is supposed to be really long (7-8 hours of straight trekking) as you can't rest at the highest altitudes as they are dangerous. The climbing starts getting hard and precarious. Literally just stretches of rocks, big rocks, it's sort of like being an ant and climbing on gravel, and walking on narrow hills and a few other scary jumps. Everyone keeps on tiring and stopping, especially Holly. She starts showing signs of AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness), so the trek starts getting a serious tone as everyone is starting to feel the effects. Essentially you get a headache first, and then you start feeling nausea and dementia... you start losing your mind. Everyone is reaching that stage and the social climate starts getting really agitated and desperate. I have been titled, 'The Food Nazi' by now by the group as I carried all of the food at this point and tried to stop people from eating more than I thought they should. Our food reserves are running low at this point and we are starting to worry. We make three long stops where Steven and Holly trail really far behind.. by the third wait only Steven comes back. 'Where is Holly?', 'She told me to go on ahead, she lost our water bottle and has to find it.' We are worried..., 'Is Holly still acting really weird?', 'She was pretty hysterical and delerious when I left her..' Everyone starts getting really worried as an hour passes and no Holly. Two hours. The Sun is getting low and we still haven't reached the pass. So Sky goes scouting for her, half an hour later we see him on a hill unsure of where she is. He leaves again.. half an hour later he comes back with a crying Holly. As it turned out she went crazy and was wandering around the river in a delerium crying. We reach the pass and things are amazing... the pass is absolutely breathtaking.. on one side crags, another the Spiti range and the Indrasan and Deo Tibba (both 6000 peaks), another a glacier and behind us the entire valley, a bending fold. We descend and set up camp on another valley inhabited by shepards and some trekking group with a name like, 'The Time Setters'. Essentially 15 trekkers made out of GoreTex and 15 porters, cooks, guides and 30 horses/ponies to carry them. We sleep. I wake up in the middle of the night with a fever. I'm panting, shaking, shivering, out of breath and really, really hot. I'm really dehydrated. I go out to find some water but it's too dark and I almost fall into the river. I sit outside shivering for an hour before I brave up and wake Kirin up, 'What's wrong Jamie?' 'I'm sick, I need water but I can't find any, I don't want to fall into the river.' 'Find my torch(flashlight)' It's no more than 5 degrees out by the way, so I look for half an hour... the sickness is worsening really fast.. I can barely think, I'm burning up and shaking. I find it eventually with his detailed directions from the tent and I go and fetch water... the water is muddy and gritty, really gross. I come back and fall asleep sort of.. I wake up a little later feeling even sicker. I sit there for an hour or two shaking in fear as it worsens. I can barely walk now, I am really dizzy, out of breath as if I just ran, weak and the fever is now really bad. I start lapsing in and out of consciousness until I get the strength to wake up Steven and actually tell someone I'm sick. No more worrying about being seen a weakling. 'Steven, can you feel my head? I think it's hot'. He feels it and yells out, 'Holy shit, that's hot, are you okay?' He and Holly get really scared and give me a bunch of pills, I'm really out of it at this point and am scared to take the pills and am pretty much crying. We have almost no food, in the middle of nowhere, 4 hours of very hard trekking away from our destination... I eventually fall asleep. We wake up in the morning and the GoreTex group is gone... no help. I have to do this on a handful of raisins. I am really sick.
Day 5: This day was really hot. It was just pure willpower, to make matters worse it had the scariest and most difficult parts of the trek. We follow the rivers looking for a pass for two hours, no pass. We spot some shepards in the distance, a man and woman. We point across the river, they make the motion for us to follow them. I'm really sick and want to just sit there, but I they pull me up and make me follow. We follow them for about two hours and Steven finds out how to do it: There is no way to cross the river, you have to cross a mountain and a glacier instead and avoid the river until the destination town where there is a proper bridge. The path reaches the mountain and then becomes extremely narrow, really narrow. The entire day I am about thirty minutes behind and by myself because I'm going too slow for everyone else. Kirin comes back to me at one point motioning to take my backpack. 'Why?', 'You're not going to want it on'. I know what this means... we're coming to something really scary. Essentially the path becomes... a quarter of a foot wide, 200-300 metres above a river. You have to hold onto the wall of the mountain and even do climbing. The male shepard comes back to help me out and show me where to put my feet and the motions to make. We eventually cross this part to have an hour long descent which involves climbing down a pile of massive rocks for a really long time. By this time I'm extremely thirsty and see the river in sight... I have eaten only a handful of raisins in the last 12 hours and it's about 30 out I have a flu essentially I haven't drank for hours. So this whole is just spent looking at the river and the path making sure I don't slip and kill myself. Oh gosh... when I got to the water I just laid in the wet sand with my head in the water for a minute. It was amazing... Holly almost died while I was running down, but the shepard and Sky saved her (she fell off a rock that she couldn't fall off and was holding on for life with her legs). The final stretch... and the scariest. The glacier crossing. It's hard to explain... I guess just imagine a giant snow/ice hill, at about an angle steeper than 45 degrees, with a path cut into it by human feet about the width of two footprints width-wise (the shorter way). About 30 metres long. To get onto it you have to cross a melting walkway with a rushing river below you, there are big holes in the path... it's really scary and is about two days away from behind gone. Crossing it is really scary. The path is so narrow and slippery, you can't help but slip at many parts, you just have to dig into the snow good and hold onto the snow/ice look for the safest places to place your hands and feet. It eventually ends and so does the trek. Phew!
Sorry for it being so long :)
I'm doing better now.. and the party disbanded. I left Sky last, last night in Chandigarh. I am ready for Ladakh finally! Sorry for talking in such a dry bitter matter-of-fact it-was-so-bad tone.. I had to do it fast! It's goodbye time.
Goodbye~
Chandigarh is the richest, cleanest, greenest city in India. It is the only planned city in India and was designed by a famous British architect. I am not here for any of these reasons of course.. I had to leave the cradle of the Kullu valley eventually because the entire state decided not to have support for my atm card :<
The rickshaw drivers are crazy, the climate is suffocating, but the city is really pretty. Palm trees and giant derelict buildings everywhere with people sleeping all over the place... in giant geometric patterns! It's all very western commercially and I can't wait to leave tonight back into the shelter of the Himalayas... I now have to carry an extremely large sum of rupees around.
I want to give a better summary of the trekking. Since we had some ideas that this was going to be like going on an adventure into the unknown we decided to give ourselves classes and made many D&D references throughout the trip to keep our morale up and because it was as probably as close as any of us will ever come to the .. real thing :) It's really long so only read if you feel like it~
The party:
Steven
Class: Paladin
From: New York & Israel
Description: The leader. He's Jewish and the oldest member of the party at 33 years of age. He cuts coloured diamonds for a living. He's very wise, serious and loves opium :) He also always took the longest to put his backpack on and get ready! :<
Kirin
Class: Ranger
From: Southern Scotland
Description: He was the perfect ranger. He spent his entire life living on the farm in the country and knew so much about plants, injuries and well... a lot of things! Always good-natured and always the first to do the scariest things with great dexterity.
Holly
Class: Druid
From: Manchester, England
Description: I don't know what class Holly would've done best as, but probably a fighter. Holly was small, dexterous and has been in India for 8 months so she doesn't take crap from anyone and wouldn't let anyone deceive or take advantage of her. Her physique was her great weakness however, as she had to take many breaks.
Sky
Class: Bard
From: London, England
Description: Sky is the perfect Bard. He plays a bunch of instruments really well and is such an energetic and flamboyant character, as well as a poet. (You could always find him with his little book out writing thoughts down!). He was usually in the front (along with me or Kirin) and kept morale high and saved people from dangers.
Myself
Class: Illusionist
Description: No coordination, confidence or dexterity. I held up the group many times on the first few days out of fear or lack of confidence in my physical ability. I had the best endurance, took good control of the rations and never tired though, so during many times I could stand up on my own and by the end I did everything on my own as I gained some much needed levels and point or five in dexterity :)
Day 1: Everyone running around Manali trying to find camping gear, Sky and myself took up the buying the food. I did it mathematically which ended up working out perfectly, and there were few complaints about the food (except maybe the maggi noodles). Eventually we find everything and by the time we reach the trailhead at Prini it's about 4:00. Late start for the 5 day trek. The first day is rainy and is spent mostly hitching rides with locals in their tractors up this endless zig-zagging mountain road before passing a couple of mining communities and this strange tunnel. We were allowed in as long as we wore hard hats, the tunnel had tubes running through it and was full of water.. it wasn't very exciting but very surreal. No problems that day. We camp by some miners and have a fire. We recite poems (I recite some of those silly battlereport classics like 'Hole In One'. Not really trekking that.
Day 2: Sunny, the first two hours spent passing mining communities until we finally find and reach 'the bridge'. The bridge marks the end of civilization and the beginning of the real trek ahead... little do we know it's going to be a very, very long day. We go through fields of cows and through this breath-taking swampy forest and meet a hardcore solo Australian trekker, he tells us that he heard the snow hasn't melted at the pass yet and that we're coming to our first river crossing, but fortunely there is a bridge. River crossing with a bridge... sounds easy right? We keep on going until the mountain swallows up the path and turn right and realise we must now cross the river. The river is about 10 metres across, 3 feet deep and moving extremely fast. They're rapids, if you try to cross them on foot and you slip you're in big trouble.... so good thing there's a bridge. We look at the bridge and our hearts sink, mine drops into the river... the 'bridge' as the shepards call it (shepards have a very bizarre and twisted conception of what makes a bridge) is essentially a wet log sit on half of the river, the OTHER side of the river. In order to get onto the log you have to get wet and make an extremely fast and accurate combination of moves in order to safely get onto it. You have to hop some rocks, then lodge yourself behind this big rock (underwater in the thick of the blistering current) and then with your right leg make jump for this little rivet in the bottom right of the log while grabbing the log with your hands. The hardcore trekker just nonchalantly jumps onto it and walks on top of the the log over. Kirin tries then realises that the giant 30 pound backpack isn't going to help so he gives the Australian his backpack (who was a great help). After the two most fearless peope cross, Sky and Holly go. Both miss and get caught by Kirin and the Australian before they get devoured by the river in the nick of time. Steven and myself are peeing our pants. We go back... convinced that Shepards do in fact know what a bridge looks like, especially one over a deadly white rapid river. Some locals come and show us a second route, it's even scarier but doesn't require any leaping or bounding. It's a fallen log that you have to climb up, it's on the other side which is essentially a mountain. If you fall off at any time you are definitely dead. Steven, more confident in his balance than dexterity goes for it and suceeds. So now me... path #1 or #2? I despair and try #1... I chicken out twice before I almost start crying on the bank. The locals come over and tell me there is a third way. I'm open for a third way... so what's the third way? The guy puts this rubber boots on and enters the river on foot. I watch him... he has clearly done it thousands of times as he does this bizarre robot walk with his eyes nearly in the water looking at the water bottom for the shape of the rocks. He then comes back and everyone across the river is shaking their heads, 'Don't do it, you have to practice for a long time to do it safely!' So the guy points to me and then his back. He wants me to go on his back over the river. He's like 120 pounds at most. Anything is better than the other two options I think so I do it. He lifts me up and then goes in the water, the first half isn't is hard as the second half, it's not as deep or fast moving. I'm clinging for my life and then about at the halfway point he missteps and falls into river. The next thing I remember is being extremely cold (the water is ice cold from the glaciers) and the guy breaking from under me and screaming, another local rushes into the water to help him out and everyone is screaming. The water is extremely powerful and wants you to join it. We run, it was madness... I just ran for my life across the river. Every step it tried to pull you under, I just tried to put my feet behind rocks and fight the current and I safely made it across but it was sooo scary. I cut a bunch of cuts and bruises on my feet. I thank the guys and we proceed, to another river crossing. This time we don't know if there is a bridge, but the river is about twice as wide and even stronger since comes directly down from the mountains now. We spend hours searching the river for the safest route. They make a few attempts and nearly kill themselves, I find a split in the river and get more cuts as I crossed more river until I realised it wasn't possible to safely cross any further. We make lots of bad plans until Kirin shouts, 'I found a bridge!'. And surely enough there is a bridge... so we don't have to kill ourselves! We finally set up camp, terrified of bridges.
Day 3: A cow wakes us up. There is a herd around us but one in particular that takes a liking to our clothes lying out to dry (we were totally soaked from the last day). Eventually he sneaks behind us and gets one of Sky's shirt so we have to throw rocks at it. Cows are so used to it that they don't really care, it just dropped the shirt and then walked off! We then cross a real bridge (although it's extremely scary and manmade) involved two thin slimy logs with a layer of rocks on it. This day is easiest... we just go and go. We do find an ice cavern of sorts.. so beautiful. Kirin and myself go in and just as we do it breaks on the other end and falls into the river.... very scary! It makes such a deep bassy rumble... We sleep in this beautiful unnamed valley, by night clouds come and fill the valley with mists and fogs... it was so beautiful! We sleep at about 3500 metres.
Day 4: We reach the pass today, at an altitude of 4270 metres. The day is supposed to be really long (7-8 hours of straight trekking) as you can't rest at the highest altitudes as they are dangerous. The climbing starts getting hard and precarious. Literally just stretches of rocks, big rocks, it's sort of like being an ant and climbing on gravel, and walking on narrow hills and a few other scary jumps. Everyone keeps on tiring and stopping, especially Holly. She starts showing signs of AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness), so the trek starts getting a serious tone as everyone is starting to feel the effects. Essentially you get a headache first, and then you start feeling nausea and dementia... you start losing your mind. Everyone is reaching that stage and the social climate starts getting really agitated and desperate. I have been titled, 'The Food Nazi' by now by the group as I carried all of the food at this point and tried to stop people from eating more than I thought they should. Our food reserves are running low at this point and we are starting to worry. We make three long stops where Steven and Holly trail really far behind.. by the third wait only Steven comes back. 'Where is Holly?', 'She told me to go on ahead, she lost our water bottle and has to find it.' We are worried..., 'Is Holly still acting really weird?', 'She was pretty hysterical and delerious when I left her..' Everyone starts getting really worried as an hour passes and no Holly. Two hours. The Sun is getting low and we still haven't reached the pass. So Sky goes scouting for her, half an hour later we see him on a hill unsure of where she is. He leaves again.. half an hour later he comes back with a crying Holly. As it turned out she went crazy and was wandering around the river in a delerium crying. We reach the pass and things are amazing... the pass is absolutely breathtaking.. on one side crags, another the Spiti range and the Indrasan and Deo Tibba (both 6000 peaks), another a glacier and behind us the entire valley, a bending fold. We descend and set up camp on another valley inhabited by shepards and some trekking group with a name like, 'The Time Setters'. Essentially 15 trekkers made out of GoreTex and 15 porters, cooks, guides and 30 horses/ponies to carry them. We sleep. I wake up in the middle of the night with a fever. I'm panting, shaking, shivering, out of breath and really, really hot. I'm really dehydrated. I go out to find some water but it's too dark and I almost fall into the river. I sit outside shivering for an hour before I brave up and wake Kirin up, 'What's wrong Jamie?' 'I'm sick, I need water but I can't find any, I don't want to fall into the river.' 'Find my torch(flashlight)' It's no more than 5 degrees out by the way, so I look for half an hour... the sickness is worsening really fast.. I can barely think, I'm burning up and shaking. I find it eventually with his detailed directions from the tent and I go and fetch water... the water is muddy and gritty, really gross. I come back and fall asleep sort of.. I wake up a little later feeling even sicker. I sit there for an hour or two shaking in fear as it worsens. I can barely walk now, I am really dizzy, out of breath as if I just ran, weak and the fever is now really bad. I start lapsing in and out of consciousness until I get the strength to wake up Steven and actually tell someone I'm sick. No more worrying about being seen a weakling. 'Steven, can you feel my head? I think it's hot'. He feels it and yells out, 'Holy shit, that's hot, are you okay?' He and Holly get really scared and give me a bunch of pills, I'm really out of it at this point and am scared to take the pills and am pretty much crying. We have almost no food, in the middle of nowhere, 4 hours of very hard trekking away from our destination... I eventually fall asleep. We wake up in the morning and the GoreTex group is gone... no help. I have to do this on a handful of raisins. I am really sick.
Day 5: This day was really hot. It was just pure willpower, to make matters worse it had the scariest and most difficult parts of the trek. We follow the rivers looking for a pass for two hours, no pass. We spot some shepards in the distance, a man and woman. We point across the river, they make the motion for us to follow them. I'm really sick and want to just sit there, but I they pull me up and make me follow. We follow them for about two hours and Steven finds out how to do it: There is no way to cross the river, you have to cross a mountain and a glacier instead and avoid the river until the destination town where there is a proper bridge. The path reaches the mountain and then becomes extremely narrow, really narrow. The entire day I am about thirty minutes behind and by myself because I'm going too slow for everyone else. Kirin comes back to me at one point motioning to take my backpack. 'Why?', 'You're not going to want it on'. I know what this means... we're coming to something really scary. Essentially the path becomes... a quarter of a foot wide, 200-300 metres above a river. You have to hold onto the wall of the mountain and even do climbing. The male shepard comes back to help me out and show me where to put my feet and the motions to make. We eventually cross this part to have an hour long descent which involves climbing down a pile of massive rocks for a really long time. By this time I'm extremely thirsty and see the river in sight... I have eaten only a handful of raisins in the last 12 hours and it's about 30 out I have a flu essentially I haven't drank for hours. So this whole is just spent looking at the river and the path making sure I don't slip and kill myself. Oh gosh... when I got to the water I just laid in the wet sand with my head in the water for a minute. It was amazing... Holly almost died while I was running down, but the shepard and Sky saved her (she fell off a rock that she couldn't fall off and was holding on for life with her legs). The final stretch... and the scariest. The glacier crossing. It's hard to explain... I guess just imagine a giant snow/ice hill, at about an angle steeper than 45 degrees, with a path cut into it by human feet about the width of two footprints width-wise (the shorter way). About 30 metres long. To get onto it you have to cross a melting walkway with a rushing river below you, there are big holes in the path... it's really scary and is about two days away from behind gone. Crossing it is really scary. The path is so narrow and slippery, you can't help but slip at many parts, you just have to dig into the snow good and hold onto the snow/ice look for the safest places to place your hands and feet. It eventually ends and so does the trek. Phew!
Sorry for it being so long :)
I'm doing better now.. and the party disbanded. I left Sky last, last night in Chandigarh. I am ready for Ladakh finally! Sorry for talking in such a dry bitter matter-of-fact it-was-so-bad tone.. I had to do it fast! It's goodbye time.
Goodbye~