Trekking to the Indrahar Pass

Jason stops for a break from his heavy rucksack. A beautiful view to air his sweaty vest.

We are following our guide, who has ants in his pants and is walking very fast.

The weather is not being that good to us, and you can see the clouds are coming in.  Claire is finding the altitude and rucksack weight a lot to get used to (this can't have been helped much by the relaxing week in Delhi, hardly moving! )

The changing seasons. Here farmers dry out grass to feed the animals. The first of the winter snow appeared on the range a few days ago, and this place will be snowbound shortly.

These poor horses get taken up and down the valley so some sad trekker can enjoy a coke. That brand does get everywhere though.

We made it to Triund that is a flat green area just at the foot of Dhaula Dhar, some 8kms up the hill from Mcleod Ganj.

We camped here for a chilly evening listening to Tibetan locals partying all night to the sound of three American Kiddie Pop CD's that they kept repeating.

As the sun came down, a shepherd brought these goats and some sheep to the camp. Birds would land on the goats and look like they were trying to peck their eyes out.

This little goat was two hours old and its mother had abandoned it. The night time temperatures are now approaching zero so it is not a place for a new born kid.

We think it was spending the night with the Gaddi Shepherd as it does get very lonely and cold up here.

Not a bad sunset shared with the sheep.

The final view of the pass up above our camp and the dhaba where we had Chai.  The next morning we woke up to light rain that didn't break for the day.  We kept on walking up to 3,600 metres, where we got shelter in (Lahesh) Upper Cave. The cave is just beside a few small remaining chunks of glacier that used to fill the valley less than 10 years ago.

George W "there is no global warming" Bush should come trekking with us because we haven't been to glacier that is advancing in the last 2 years. There are plenty of them shrinking and disappearing.

The cave varied in height from 2ft at the back to 5 ft in the front so you don't get to stretch out. It was also very cold and wet with wind blowing from either side. Not one of Claires favourite places, but it was better than being outside and we did get a little fire going. We had a bit of sleep despite the cold, rain, thunder and lightening.