Day 17

Sunday 14 Oct 2018

At midnight, the sky was a blanket of stars with a beautiful Milky Way. Again we woke to a very cold but clear blue sky, Tshering was visibly shocked at how clear it was as, in six Snowman Treks, he had never actually seen both Kangphu Gang and Jeje Kangphu (7300m), both of which glowed in the early morning sun.

We made easy progress up to the Keche La (4661m) and great views unfolded behind us, Teri Kang emerged from a notch on the horizon and resembled a breaching humpback whale. The frost seemed to vaporise from the rhododendron leaves as the shadow descended into the valley. After a short stop on the pass, a young family of brothers and sisters arrived from Laya, they had loaded their horses and walked to Lunana to sell their goods and were now going back home with a total return trip time of 6 days.


The descent track was well built and was just a year old. It had been constructed by representatives from each local village and was fully funded by the government. The descending zig-zags flattened out to a wide track where we met a lone 15 year old boy with a small bag on his back. After bowing at us all reverently, he explained that he was on his way to Woche to meet his parents and would then return to Tege in back tonight- a journey of 10km and 700m of ascent each way! As we cross this pass it marks the transition from the Mo Chu meaning female river to the Pho Chu which is male river and, although electricity lines are now far behind us, the fine architecture remains in every village we encounter. The people have become increasingly inquisitive and we are greeted on our descent to the Pho Chu by a family constructing a new water supply for their village of Tege, they point out a short cut traverse to the river saving half an hour and we eventually arrive at our camp at Lhedi (3728m).



Again we had issues with horses, one group had gone missing and we still had some of our equipment back at last night’s camp!

Distance 12km 8hrs

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