Saturday, April 01, 2006
India trek: some background
To understand this India trek idea that I'm pursuing, I'll explain how this came about, first.
A few years ago, I was at my ex-girlfriend's house for Christmas dinner. I met her family friend Pierre, who it turns out is an accomplished traveller and worldly man. We got to talking about interesting places to visit. He made up a short list of worldwide destinations that an adventure-seeking young person like me would appreciate. The list included Kailash, Ladakh, Zanskar, Snow Lake, Mustang and maybe a few others.
A few months later, I started thinking about what would be a good way to celebrate being done university, an event that was two years away at the time, and is less than two weeks away right now. I looked into the various destinations, and the one that caught my eye was Kailash.
Kailash is a mountain. A big, holy mountain. It's really, really beautiful - picture on the right, see for yourself. Buddhists consider it a representation of Mount Meru, the centre of the universe. Hindus claim it is the home of Shiva. It's also very important to Jains and Bonpo.
It is said that walking around the mountain clenses the sins of a lifetime. This is very appealing, especially if it's prospective as well as retroactive: I'll probably do a fair bit of sinning in this lifetime.
The downside to Kailash is that it is really, really far. It's located in far Western Tibet and there's nothing around there except for a few villages. The only way to get there short of parachuting in is by bouncing around in a jeep for a while.
Anyway, I found that Project Himalaya ran some pretty cool treks to the area. They also have a very comprehensive website with all kinds of interesting travelogues and pictures and things. I made a mental note of this and obsessed about it for a while.
A year rolled by, and I contacted Project Himalaya last May to see what the're doing this spring. I heard nothing for a while, until this email came in:
From: jamie on expedition
Subject: RE: interest in trekking - April-May-June '06
Hi Alex
Thanks for your enquiry and apologies for the delayed reply, I was thinking Joel might have replied to you, but perhaps he hasn't?
He is now in the UK and should be in touch soon; I am on Everest using satellite email hence the intermittent communication. We are about to begin our summit push...
...
I thought getting an email from Everest was Pretty Cool.
Anyway. It looked like the dates for the trek they were running to Kailash wouldn't work with my school & work schedule very well, and besides, I came to the realization that bouncing around in a jeep for a week or two might be a bit painful. The Everest High Passes, which looked like it was going to fit into my schedule, turned out to be moved up to the beginning of April (it's going on right now) and thus wouldn't work.
The suggestion from Kim & Joel at Project Himalaya was for me to go to Ladakh, and in particular on the Zanskar Spring. Both "Ladakh" and "Zanskar" are on Pierre's infamous list of destinations. I thought "hmm, why not?"
Trek itinerary
The upshot is that this works well from a timing perspective - I'll be in China (hopefully) before it becomes stiflingly hot, and I'll get to spend a month trekking in India, instead of Nepal or Tibet.
Maybe more on the trek later.
A few years ago, I was at my ex-girlfriend's house for Christmas dinner. I met her family friend Pierre, who it turns out is an accomplished traveller and worldly man. We got to talking about interesting places to visit. He made up a short list of worldwide destinations that an adventure-seeking young person like me would appreciate. The list included Kailash, Ladakh, Zanskar, Snow Lake, Mustang and maybe a few others.
A few months later, I started thinking about what would be a good way to celebrate being done university, an event that was two years away at the time, and is less than two weeks away right now. I looked into the various destinations, and the one that caught my eye was Kailash.
Kailash is a mountain. A big, holy mountain. It's really, really beautiful - picture on the right, see for yourself. Buddhists consider it a representation of Mount Meru, the centre of the universe. Hindus claim it is the home of Shiva. It's also very important to Jains and Bonpo.
It is said that walking around the mountain clenses the sins of a lifetime. This is very appealing, especially if it's prospective as well as retroactive: I'll probably do a fair bit of sinning in this lifetime.
The downside to Kailash is that it is really, really far. It's located in far Western Tibet and there's nothing around there except for a few villages. The only way to get there short of parachuting in is by bouncing around in a jeep for a while.
Anyway, I found that Project Himalaya ran some pretty cool treks to the area. They also have a very comprehensive website with all kinds of interesting travelogues and pictures and things. I made a mental note of this and obsessed about it for a while.
A year rolled by, and I contacted Project Himalaya last May to see what the're doing this spring. I heard nothing for a while, until this email came in:
From: jamie on expedition
Subject: RE: interest in trekking - April-May-June '06
Hi Alex
Thanks for your enquiry and apologies for the delayed reply, I was thinking Joel might have replied to you, but perhaps he hasn't?
He is now in the UK and should be in touch soon; I am on Everest using satellite email hence the intermittent communication. We are about to begin our summit push...
...
I thought getting an email from Everest was Pretty Cool.
Anyway. It looked like the dates for the trek they were running to Kailash wouldn't work with my school & work schedule very well, and besides, I came to the realization that bouncing around in a jeep for a week or two might be a bit painful. The Everest High Passes, which looked like it was going to fit into my schedule, turned out to be moved up to the beginning of April (it's going on right now) and thus wouldn't work.
The suggestion from Kim & Joel at Project Himalaya was for me to go to Ladakh, and in particular on the Zanskar Spring. Both "Ladakh" and "Zanskar" are on Pierre's infamous list of destinations. I thought "hmm, why not?"
Trek itinerary
The upshot is that this works well from a timing perspective - I'll be in China (hopefully) before it becomes stiflingly hot, and I'll get to spend a month trekking in India, instead of Nepal or Tibet.
Maybe more on the trek later.
# posted by Alex Perel @ 6:41 PM 
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I didn't go on the '98 Rocky Mountain Training, so I guess for me it'd be the 2000 Rocky Mountain Training.
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