The morning was cold and not so good for our doctor friend Vishwanath. He didnt sleep all night due to pounding headache. It was time to get down to a lower altitude, Leh. We decided that he will go back to Leh with one of our support guys and try to reach base camp in 2-3 days. Spending a night in Leh would get him back to normal. It was unfortunate but his decision was wise, the next thing for the day was a climb to Stok la 4900m which was a gain of 700m which was surely a big risk when you are already altitude sick.

We started the day with a man down as they say it. First casuality of altitude. With such events the team moral might get disturbed, but since all were experienced and knew what AMS is,we took everything in our stride, literally. Arun set pace as usual and we trudged towards Stok-La. The climb is awesome and well laid. the switchbacks are perfectly placed and though you feel the altitude you dont get tired. Also our 25 min time out schedule was working great. All climbed up to the paas in somewhere around 3 hours. The view of ladakhi terrain the cold desert as it is known was jaw dropping. Was the view jaw dropping or was it the altitude making us gasp for air was the question <giggle>. Jokes apart, the meaning of the word huge was actually visible. Arun said, 'I think that reddish greyish mountain over there probabaly carries the earthly material for all of Pune city <laughes>'. The experience of nothingness in front of mountainous grandeur, is something all should feel once and Himalayas is the place to be for this experience.

Stok-La is a saddle of loose rocks and is almost a double pass. The second saddle is a so 500m away and 150m below the actual pass. The down hill is really steep and one should be touch careful if a horse train moves along with you. Its better you let the animals [sure footed creatures] to pass first.

Standing on the second saddle you can see the manikarmo stream somewhere toooooo faaaaarrrr down and away.. You could actually see all the saddles on the trail. There was 1 more to cross further down. Its like getting back to 'Patal' from 'Aakash' <laughs>. We took a break on the second saddle, clouds were gathering over saddle, and so we had to shorten our time-out. A group of westerners was climbing up the La from Manikarmo side. Man that looked like more hard toil to me. The descend was fast but very long and not so good on knees, I had picked up blisters on both my heels by now. Blisters with around 500-600m to descend is not a good combination. On the third saddle we were greeted by small playful hail, and thanx to rain Gods it was not hail-storm which this area is pretty famous for. I collected a few in my cap for the road. We stopped futher down when sun break out and had the daily fruit break, today apples. We saw our horses way up on the third saddle descending down towards us, we wanted them to overtake us so we would have atleast the kithchen and dining tents set at Manikarmo. .

Cursing my blisters, I was pulling myself towards manikarmo, I was dead hungry, thirsty and my head strangely had started to bang. This cannot be altitude sickness as I was ok at 4900m and we were almost at Manikarmo some 800m below. It was my regular hunger-headache. Once I got in the dining tent I drank almost a litre of my fav. hot orange juice and Prem served us pasta, potato fries and rice dal. The headache instantly died out. After lunch we just sat out the afternoon, doing nothing. Much required rest and contemplating the climb ahead. Stok kangri is clerly visible from here and mind you, it looks tall.

In our dinner briefing we came to know that we had a easy day tomorrow. 2-3 hrs max and a gradual altitude gain of 700m to stok kangri base camp. We planned to set out early so we can spend more time at base camp altitude 4900m. From base camp the summit is still 1200m up, man thats really high especially here. Go away bad thoughts go away, I want to reach there, on the top of stok kangri.

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