Over the Kangla Pass - trek 4

Namaste
In order to leave the Nar valley we had to cross the Kangla Pass at 5310 metres.  This involved a very long days walk, with nowhere to stay between Nar and Ngawal on the other side.  I don't think we would have made it carrying our rucksacks, but luckily we managed to hire a pony to carry them on the ascent, and then he and his cheerful owner returned to Nar, leaving us to carry them down the other side.

We left Nar before daylight - but not before the threshers had begun their work. Their rhythmic beating woke us around 3.30am!  We walked by torchlight for the first hour, then watched in awe as the sun gradually lit up the mountains around us.

We could see in the distance the position of the pass on the mountain ridge - it looked so far away!

Looking back along the path we followed

It took us 6 hours to reach the pass, and we climbed 1212 metres to get there.  Towards the top breathing was hard because of the altitude and we had to make regular stops. There was snow and ice on the ridge and we passed a half frozen small lake near the top, fed by a tiny glacier.

Our pony man had reached the top well before us, and offered us a cup of hot tea from his flask when we arrived. The pony was munching on a nosebag of oats. The pass was a rocky ridge, covered in ice and snow, with steep drops on either side.  Many of the prayer flags on the chorten there had been weathered to rags by the wind and ice.

What we had not expected was how difficult the descent from the pass would be.  We thought the hard part would be getting up to the top, but going down was equally hard, as the first two hours was on loose scree, and the first hour of that on icy loose scree! From the pass we could see the path winding and zig-zagging through the snow - but there was nothing in this view to give perspective, and it felt a very long way on tired legs.

View looking back at the pass and our decent into the valley.

The descent took us 5 hours and we dropped 1662 metres. Our toes were sore from the constant pressure into the front of our boots.

By the time we reached the village of Ngawal, where we were to stay, we were both exhausted, as this picture of Helen shows!









The one bright point of the descent was the small patch of gentians growing on the hillside. How beautiful they looked amongst the dry brown grass.