A few days deeper into the mountains, and things get much less developed. These are a few yak farms on the edge of Dole village, which in addition to the smattering of private homes, consisted of two bare-bones lodges. At this altitude, too, wood-burning is prohibited due to extensive deforestation, and so our only source of warmth, the common-room stove, used dried yak dung as fuel. Sustainable, but acrid as hell. Makes for a much earlier retreat to the sleeping bag. But it don't matter, cause mountains!
Do you see that horizontal line about village level on the far side of this valley? Is that a trail of some sort?
ReplyDeleteYes it is. And if you see the greenish area that it passes through, stuck to the side of the mountain's shoulder about 1/3 of the way from the left of the image, that is another teeny, teeny village. One even more precariously situated than Dole.
ReplyDeleteDid you have to cross gigantic washouts like are in that one? How do they get across a slope that is critical, especially after a slide? It looks like a rock could roll two miles and hit 100+ mph going down those slopes. Stepping onto a rock slide area is like fatal. That must be one of those skills you learn by non-doing what killed the six guys before you.
ReplyDeleteIts not as bad as it looks. Plus, the trails are well-used, get repaired/re-routed/re-worn pretty quickly after a washout, and the mountains are quite stable in the areas without active glaciers. We did have to cross one washout that was a bit dicey, but that was our own fault due to poor route-finding.
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