Sept. 19, 2008. Sneaking across Zalung Karpo La.

Danger. We crossed the Zalung Karpa La today in deteriorating weather. The ascent was certainly less effort than either the Kang La or the Char Cha La. We started climbing out of a defile immediately above Rubrang, but then there was a broad upper valley that gave a bit of a respite, and a long bare upper slope that allowed a reasonable view forward to what looked at first glance like the summit ridge. The total elevation gain was something like 750 meters, noticably less than that required for the Char Cha La. Even though the summit was a little higher (read out as 5170 meters on our fancy Swiss map and corroborated by GPS), by this time most people were not really bothered by the altitude. It started snowing shortly into the climb, lightly at first. W. and I tried to keep pace with T. and the kitchen staff on the upper stretches. I found that having another person in sight provided a scale factor that kept everything in perspective and made the effort seem less. We topped out on the false summit ridge in high wind, light snow and poor visibility. The true summit was another 5-10 minutes to the North, marked by prayer flags. After hanging about for a little while, W. and I decided to drop into the Markha drainage and find a more sheltered spot to wait for the rest of the group. So we missed the group summit photo. Sure enough, within a few minutes our horse crew and L. dropped down out of the weather, followed shortly by the whole group. By this time it was really snowing and everyone really moved, intuitively understanding the need to get down.

The Zalung Karpo La is actually a double pass. Three routes meet at the top: from Hankar, from Dat, and the side path we ascended from Rubrang. The true summit, shown at left, was the "meet up point" with my 2006 trip, which traversed from the Hankar to the Dat sides.

The rest of the trek day is a bit of a blur as we dropped down to about 4400 meters in ongoing snow, with maybe a 1 inch accumulation by the time we hit camp. We stopped at the logical transition point to beginning tomorrow's planned ascent over the shoulder of Kang Yatze to Nimaling. However, there was already serious doubt among our leadership about the ability of the horses to negotiate the step side-hilling required for this route. We pitched the tents in worsening weather about 2 PM and hunkered down. By midnight, as I write this, there is 6 inches of fresh snow and Nimaling seems out. The total amount of snow is the key variable. Everyone's health is acceptable, but again footware and foul weather clothing are being tested to the max and not everyone has full-on mountaineering gear. Dining tent conversation as usual devolved to a fairly low common denominator, featuring M.'s story about her friend's animal husbandry duties in the pork industry. 1940's and 1950's British TV and especially radio theater were an endless source of fascination to certain guides and trekkers but left some of us shaking our heads.