October — the last open weeks before the world's most dangerous winter road closes. Frozen rivers, copper-coloured cliffs, Phuktal monastery glued to rock.
For a few weeks in deep winter the Zanskar freezes hard enough to walk on, and the gorge becomes the only way out for the villages upstream. That was a necessity for a very long time before it was a trek.
Nights are spent in caves along the bank, and the temperature does what the altitude and the permanent shade would lead you to expect. Warming winters have made the ice less dependable year on year, which is its own kind of loss.
Stay with us — A Monpa-family wooden house in Tawang town.
13,700 ft, the gateway to the eastern Himalayas, snow-blocked half the year. Special permits, three cultures, the highest monastery in India at the end.
