(city of Leh, Buddhist monasteries, Markha valley trek, Stok Kangri ascent).
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In the city of Leh, capital of Ladakh.
Below Leh palace. Location (uses google maps).
View of Leh.
Cows are everywhere in Leh, even just below the palace.
Power failures occur often in Leh. One night I took that opportunity to make a night sky panorama
on the roof of the hotel.
Hemis monastery.
Thikse monastery.
Some images made at a festival at Phyang monastery.
Markha Valley trek.
The trek started at Spituk, from where we followed the Indus river.
Our luggage was carried by horses (2nd day, somewhere between Jingchan and Yurutse).
Mani wall near Shingo (3rd day).
The tiny village of Shingo (3rd day).
Horses passing through Skiu (4th day).
Town of Skiu (4th day).
Inside the gompa at Skiu.
Between Skiu and Sku.
Sku campsite (4th day).
Somewhere between Sku and Markha (5th day).
Markha campsite (5th day), with ruins of a fortress in the background.
Inside the ruins at Markha.
Landscape near Hankar (6th day). Note rainbow around the sun.
Mani wall near Hankar.
Passing through the village of Hankar (6th day).
Mani wall and local kid in the village of Hankar.
View of the plain of Nimaling. Mountain Kang Yaze (or Yatse) (6400m) is mostly hidded by clouds (8th day).
They say that the views are great from the Konmaru La pass, at 5290m (9th day).
But not for us ....
Some animals met during the trek.
Note the 'swastika' on the horse's collar. In buddhism and hinduism, this is a symbol of good luck or welfare.
Chukirmo campsite (10th day).
Pillars of erosion near Chukirmo.
Crossing a river near Chukirmo.
The trekking group near Sumdo (10th day).
Sunset at Sumdo.
Getting wet feet in Shang Valley (trekking to Stok Kangri base camp).
The horses just arrived at the campsite at Shang Phu.
Sunset at Shang Phu.
autorotating version
Approaching Stok Kangri (summit in the distance, in clouds).
Climbing Stok Kangri (6140m).
Sunrise during the climb.
Approaching the summit (ca. 5900m).
On the summit of Stok Kangri (6140m). Location (uses google maps).
The massif of Kang Yaze (Yatse) is visible towards the south (just left of the center in the above image), at a distance of ca. 30 km.
viewfinderpanoramas.org shows how Nun-Kun looks when viewed from the summit of Stok Kangri (North, South modeled panorama).
The massif of Saser Kangri (100 km) is marked in the fourth image.
Night sky panorama
Under the stars near base camp of Stok Kangri (4900m). Milky Way is clearly visible.
Can you find The Archer? Big Dipper? Northern Star?
The (full) moon just started to rise during acquisition of the images.
Annotated version.
This panorama was built from 7 images (6 along horizon, 1 zenith). Each image was acquired 10 times, exposure time 20 seconds
(Nikon D60, 10.5 mm fisheye @ f2.8, ISO 400). A static (non-motorized) setup was used.
Each set of 10 images was registered and stacked with DeepSkyStacker.
The effective exposure time therefore is ca. 200 sec. DeepSkyStacker was also used to correct for hot pixels.
It took ca. 30 minutes to acquire all images, halfway during which the moon started to rise, resulting in uneven illumination of the landscape.
Note that stacking of star-registered images results in blurring of the landscape.
The route between Stok Kangri BC and Stok offers spectacular landscapes.
[© P. van de Haar. This page was last updated on December 16, 2008]
