24 January 2018, Hemis National Park, Ladakh, India

 

We are in the cars and heading towards Hemis National Park, where we are to camp for eight days.

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On the way we pass a bridge festooned with prayer flags and banners.

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We stop at a cairn near the side of the road festooned with prayer flags and white silk.

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Our drivers are conducting a ceremony to bless our trip with good fortune.

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Down below in the Indus River, a bank of ice has formed around a gravel bar.

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Even before getting into the National Park, the view is wild and barren.

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… and the mountains are majestic.

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I stopped to take a picture of this footbridge which I surmise has seen better days…

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… when some of the ponies came wandering down the road.

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These are to take our bags from the cars to our camp.

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It was not a long walk to the camp and here is the yak Tashi hanging around near the kitchen.

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All the catering and organising is done by villagers from the nearby village Rumbak.  We are beside a small river and here a hole has been made in the ice for our water supply.

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A dramatic rock headland towers over the camp.

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After lunch, we head off to look for snow leopards and encountered some of the ponies along the way.

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We climb up to a ridge and some of our guides search for snow leopards in the mountain sides with spotting scopes.  This is a view from there showing a large stone pen in the valley below.

We didn’t see any snow leopards though earlier we passed a spot where a snow leopard had rubbed against a rock, marked the spot and left an indistinct paw print.  I didn’t think to take an image though it would have been fairly prosaic.

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Nonetheless, we enjoy the play of the late afternoon light.

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