Day 13

Wednesday 10 Oct 2018

We walked out of Laya in very different weather to the day before, swirling cloud revealed some lower rocky peaks but we were not hopeful of as much sun. Our third set of horses were now due to take us on the next leg of the journey.
We passed through the main archway that welcomes visitors to the village and at the time we were blissfully ignorant of its significance- we were told the full story that evening.

We descended the trail alongside the Mo Chu to about 3400m before the turn off to Rodophu. From here, the ascent was steep and winding, through mixed shrub and coniferous forest by the side of a tributary of the Mo Chu. It cut under steep cliffs before finally opening out to the camping place at Rodophu (4160m), a single yak herder’s hut just above the tree line.
Again it seemed the New Zealander’s had the best of the new horses and camp pitch, as a snow flurry drifted up the valley towards us, it became clear that all was not well with our horses again. It transpired that as they left Laya fully loaded, they got as far as the welcome arch and then dispersed in a desperate attempt not to be dragged up to high, bleak and impoverished pastures. Tshering said we were lucky, on a previous occasion, a Yak with both gas bottles went missing and only returned to Laya two week’s later- with no gas bottles! In spite of all this our team worked tirelessly and got us sheltered and fed as if nothing had gone wrong.


Distance 14km 8hrs

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