There are 11 photos below:
A hillside in the mist along the trail.
This is our trekking lodge manager in the pink hat. Somehow the people in this valley cooked some spectacular meals over wood fires. This was around 10,000 feet elevation, and it was COLD when it rained, and down to about freezing at night.
Some big snow-covered mountain. I don't pay that much attention to the names. It was probably around 23,000 feet at the top, which makes it over two miles vertically above our heads.
The valley just as we approach Pindari Glacier, which can be just seen in the upper middle of the photo. At the bottom of the rockfall in the center, you can just make out some buildings, which are an ashram that a very friendly and sturdy Hindu saddhu (holy man) started 20 years ago. He lives there, at 12,000 feet, year-round, and for four or five months a year he couldn't get out of the valley if he had to because of the snow. For a couple of months he doesn't even come out of the small ashram. He just meditates, eats very little, and according to him, doesn't sleep at all during the winter.
Me with the glacier moraine behind me. The knife-edged hill to the left of me is what the glaciers leave when they recede. Two feet to the left of me is a several-hundred foot cliff, also left by the glacier. These areas are notoriously unstable, and make for some great rock-rolling! I mean, if you're into that kind of thing.
Jennifer, facing back down the valley we'd come up, along with the mountain dog who'd followed us for a few days.
One of the chai stalls along the trail.
Bamboo is cultivated in the area, and is a big business, of sorts. It's cut when it's small, split into slits (which this boy is doing,) and then woven into floor mats or baskets.
The village of Kathi, where we stayed for a week total. Great food and really nice people. This was taken on the way back from the glacier, which is down the valley that you see in the center.
This girl was washing her hair under a natural flowing tap of water.
Love,
Dave
(The End)
