Route: Spituk—Shingo—Markha—Hangkar—Nyimaling—Shang Sumdo
TODO: this diary is missing the last 3 days.
Up early to take the Alchi bus to Phey....except for whatever reason, today the Alchi bus only goes to Spituk. And not only that, it doesn't even go to Spituk village but to the army camp on the main road just beyond Spituk. So I have to get off at the Spituk junction and schlep all the way through the village to the bridge.
I leave previously-trodden ground at the junction beyond the bridge, where the road bends right. It passes through fields and then mounts up onto the desert fans. Quite a few trucks come my way laden with gravel.
Three or four km further on I am gamely hiking along when a contract carriage stops beside me and asks if I am going to Rumbak. Well---it saves a whole day of walking, so why not? The carriage turns out to be carrying two men based in Rumbak, bringing a selection of rugs to the village for sale. The sort of gaudy fluffy rugs you get in Balkhang. Probably precisely where they came from in fact.
After Phey the Indus quickly drops into a gorge, or we climb up one side, one or the other, and the next 10 km or so are scenic but very dry. I spot the SECMOL campus spread out above a bend. Can tell by the solar installations and various other eco-stuff, otherwise I would have taken it for a luxury hotel.
We round a bend and enter the Zingchan valley. It's surprisingly green, and Zingchan itself is pleasantly situated among groves of larger trees than I've seen elsewhere---not just poplars, but proper thick-trunked trees. But we don't stop here, and for a moment I entertain the thought that the road has been completed all the way to Rumbak. But no more than three km further on the road peters out by a stream crossing and we are all disembarked. The rug wallahs retrieve their produce from the roof of the vehicle and I take my leave. They say it will take them 8 hours to get to Rumbak, what with the 50 kg of rugs they need to carry. Hopefully with my trusty Laufbursche I will be somewhat faster.
The track continues on the other side of the stream, with a collection of stranded vehicles parked nearby, waiting for the road to be repaired. I pass through a rock gate and up the valley. There are people working on the road, making it difficult to find the proper way: I see a terrace further up and make for it but the workmen shout and point out a bridge slightly upstream.
Eventually the track peters out completely, and I have to retrace my steps to discover the place where the path continues, dropping down to cross the stream and continuing on the other side. I pass a group of a dozen or so westerners coming the other way. Is there a lot of snow? Only right at the top, they say.
The gorge continues with occasional glimpses of the Stok range. At one point a large side valley comes in from the left, and there's enough space between the valleys for a small wood, a field or two and a house; I carry on up the main valley and eventually it opens out, filled with autumnal shrubs, and steep pasture-slopes above, with Stok Kangri looking on. It's a complete contrast from the last ten km. Here I find a tent-restaurant, sadly closed, and occupied only by an inquisitive cow (dzo?). A sign has been erected with a sketch-map of the vicinity: left goes to Rumbak and the Stok La, straight on to Yurutse and the Shingo La. I take the latter.
Not far onward I stop for lunch and to refill my water bottle. A small pony-caravan passes by; I thought I'd stopped off the track but they go straight through my scattered belongings to follow a path that mounts up the hillside. It's evidently a shortcut to Rumbak village, avoiding the cow tent.
I carry on up the braided valley, now beyond any vegetation excepting grass, until the point where I am to turn right for Yurutse. This is an obvious valley fork. A single house watches from the other side, guarding its two or three tiny fields.
The path climbs up to traverse the true left side of the valley. I spot a small group of trekkers rounding a shoulder in front of me, but when I turn the corner and Yurutse's single large house appears they are nowhere to be seen. A couple of blue tents have been pitched beneath the house: but it's a bit early to turn in. I pass by.
Passing a chorten I nearly end up following an irrigation channel rather than the path which runs above it, but realise my mistake just in time. The traverse continues, ascending slowly. A group of chukor, startled, gaggle across the path and up to the safety of the boulders.
The path climbs a side valley and before long I am surprised to see the parachute tents of Lartsa Ganda La---surprised because the map seemed to mark it further up. There is nobody around so I only stop to fill my water bottle. From here I can see the flank of Stok Kangri all the way to the summit, very close by.
The next camp is also surprisingly close, and I make the decision to get over the pass tonight and save having to camp. The book says it will take three hours which is comfortably before sunset. The path steepens, climbing another side valley before contouring round onto a high shoulder. I spot the group I'd been behind, way below me at the camp. They must have stopped for lunch at Yurutse. On the shoulder I get out my own trail food: dried sultanas and Ladakhi Fine Foods' barley/apricot kernel mix.
From here the path is less steep but there are still a few zigzags to climb before I get to the top. I get progressively slower until by the end I'm stopping every few steps, but it's only temporary tiredness: when I finally reach the summit (and organize the obligatory selfie) I feel much better. From the top the Shingo valley stretches dead straight in front of me, with the village of Shingo just visible before it bends. The mountains of Zanskar are spread out, though I am looking into the sun I think the highest (noticeably higher than the others) will be Nun-Kun, a proper giant with both peaks over 7000 m.
While resting at the top the group behind me catches me up. It turns out to be two Ladakhi men and one woman, not tourists, although they do take the opportunity for a photo on their phones. I leave them to this and yomp down the track. On this side the pass is much less steep: it's a long, steady descent to Shingo down a sandy slope dotted with shrubs. It takes two hours before I approach the first chorten in the village, having passed a couple of deserted camping grounds on the way, and the sun is about to set. A woman is washing kitchenware in the stream but is to engrossed to say jullay.
I follow a makeshift sign painted onto a rock that advertises a homestay on the opposite side of the stream from the village. Sure enough there is a single house with an encouraging number of pairs of shoes outside the door. The family seem to be extending the building. Already here are a quiet German(?) guy; a couple from Israel (at least, he is from Israel and she speaks Hebrew, but she also speaks English with a Canadian(?) accent); and a travel photographer from Indore. This is the first time that I have had any fellow homestayers, showing how popular the Markha trek is even at this time of year: although the Israeli couple have only come from Chilling, not Markha, and are heading in the opposite direction from the rest of us. It'll be a long slog up the Ganda La for them tomorrow.
Dinner is dal rice and subji as usual. The photographer goes out after dinner to try and get photos with stars, but I hit the sack almost straight away. It's been a long day.
Early breakfast to get going before 8, but the travel photographer is already gone. The valley is much narrower below the village, and the path crosses the stream a few times before settling on the left side to descend. The stream drops down and the valley becomes almost a gorge with the path occasionally running along the bottom, occasionally on one or other side. The sun hasn't reached down here yet, but from time to time there is a glimpse of sunlit rocks ahead, either a bend in the valley or, later, the wall of the Markha valley's left flank.
After two hours or so, just past another abandoned tent-restaurant, I catch up with the photographer, who is standing at the edge of the shadow of the mountain in order to get a 'sunrise' effect. I'm not sure if he sneaks in a picture of me going down the trail after I've passed, but I snuck in a picture of him taking his sunrise picture, so fair's fair.
From this point the valley starts to widen and the golden wall at its end becomes more and more prominent. It's impressively high, probably over 1000 m, with no side valleys or even chinks, just a series of steep rock chutes alternating with crags.
Finally I reach the village of Skyu at the end of the valley. As is traditional, the gonpa is locked and there is nobody about, but I manage to take advantage of the facilities, being located in Ladakhi fashion in a separate building. The village has no more than ten houses or so but there is an 'Eco Cafe' and three tea tents, one of which surprises me by actually being open. The proprietor seems to double up jobs as the local blacksmith: he has some kind of metalwork in hand on his kerosene stove, but he is happy to sell me some tea as well.
In the homestay at Shingo I'd been reading an archaeological survey of the Markha valley that I'd found on the internet. This valley is full of ruins, most of which predate historical records---but in Ladakh these only go back three hundred years or so. It can be hard to spot ruins on top of crags as they are built from the same stone as the crags, and quite often crags do a convincing impression of fortresses in themselves. The 'castle' at Skyu is a case in point: a rambling collection of walls decorating a rock buttress. If I hadn't been looking out for it I would probably not have noticed it was there.
The buildings at Skyu are spread over the alluvial fan of the stream from Shingo, and so are slightly higher than the valley floor: here the fields begin, with the path squeezed between the thorn hedge and the rocky slopes. The Markha valley is a good 500 m wide, and its flat bottom is covered with trees and cultivation. I pass under trees starting to lose their leaves with autumn and between reddening bushes. Every house seems to advertise homestay, though it seems not to have affected the general tone of life, just a little extra cash windfall from time to time.
A few km up the valley the cultivation has petered out and the scenery is more austere, with trees giving way to spiky seabuckthorn bushes. Here is another ruined fort, more compact, on a protruding rock. Further on again is the camping spot at Pentse. The guidebook says that apart from the shop run by a women's development group---now closed---there is no village here, but in fact there is, in ruins, on a shelf 20 m above the path. This is the end of the stage in the book, but it's not yet noon, so I refill my bottle and carry on.
For the next few km vegetation is limited to thin lines on one or other side of the valley, the slopes bare and the valley floor covered with braided channels divided by pebbly islands. The path sticks to one side, passes a spring marked with prayer flags, then starts to pick its way down between the river channels. An older version of the path climbs up and traverses along the cliff 20 metres up; this path had been partially supported on birch poles and rocks, but these have washed or slid away in places and not been repaired, leaving the path unusable. Here also is a large boulder with ruins perched on top, supposedly the site of the cunning despatch of a demon (or maybe king) by an old lady with an adjustable fire.
Approaching a bend in the valley a huge rock spike dominates the view. This is the end of a sharp ridge which divides the Markha valley from a tributary. There is supposedly a route along this valley (I doubt it goes across the ridge, despite the map: it's a good 500 m high) which leads to the Rabrang La, serious isolation, and ultimately Zangskar. Perhaps one for my next visit...
Round the bend, the path is hemmed in between the river and a low cliff, but this is by design: going a short way up the cliff the path then launches across the river by means of a sloping wooden bridge, the use of the cliff having effectively saved the builders almost half of the work.
I'm now going due south, but not for long: the valley bends the opposite way to regain its previous course and the path climbs up onto a low terrace decorated with chortens. Here, beside a side valley coming in from the north, is Umlung Gonpa, improbably situated 300 m up a rocky shoulder. Ruins of a fort or village are visible on the opposite shoulder, below which are sitting a European woman and her two Ladakhi guides. Evidently not intending to visit the gonpa however, as they soon move on. I discover that the trail up to the gonpa has been blocked by a large tree branch, not an insurmountable obstacle but likely to denote that the place is deserted, as apparently it normally is. I suppose I could have climbed up to see the view, but I settle for taking pictures of it from below.
The gonpa is only just visible from Umlung village, from where it decorates the rock wall blocking the view downstream. Also from here I get my first view of Kang Yatze, the mountain which watches over the whole upper Markha valley. At 6400 m it's a pyramidal hulk somewhat higher than Stok Kangri, with large snow fields on every side.
The next tiny hamlet (whose name I forget) is opposite what the archaeologists call the most important Buddhist site in the valley, a group of caves and chortens almost camouflaged on a dry terrace across the water. There is a small tea tent here and a villager stops her occupation (making mud bricks using a mould, and preventing her small son from stepping on the wet ones) to entice me to stop. She says next season they will build a path up to the place for the tourists.
Beyond here the valley continues in much the same way, the path crossing the river to visit various villages, most of which advertise homestay accommodation. There is a place called Lhatho with a (closed) tea-tent and large piles of red-stained horns. Another place advertises homestay but proves to be entirely deserted. A river crossing proves to be simple despite the reservations of the guide, though a passing horseman pauses to check I don't fall in. Another empty homestay, but finally as the light draws towards evening I find an open place. The family are mostly out harvesting, the man baling up grass and the woman carrying the bales up to the threshing(?) ground, so it's the daughter who shows me round and permits me to dry my shoes by the stove, and the cat who decides to pin me to the mattress by curling up on my lap.
Before dinner I am offered a little chang for the first time. It's good, somewhat sour, taken with a lump of tsampa powder. I hadn't planned to come all the way to Markha today, but at least that makes tomorrow's stage shorter. The family think I could get all the way to Nyimaling tomorrow at my current rate, but I think an easier day is called for.
