Nomads, Lakes & High Passes Trek (Pangong Lake & Festival)

Kim is the founder of Kamzang Journeys and leads almost all of the Featured Treks as well as a few Himalayan bike rides. She is also a partner in Project Himalaya Treks. She has been based in Kathmandu for the past 12 years and takes care of everything from creating & upkeeping the website, writing & researching the trek itineraries, taking the photos, answering emails and doing the accounting to creating the Kamzang dining tent decor and even shopping & packing for the treks. She also manages the Kamzang Fund.

Kim has been looking for a spot to build the perfect bamboo hut since graduating from Colagate University in 1988. Her search has taken her on many years of travels throughout Asia, Africa, Australia & NZ, the South Pacific and cross-country in the States, but although she now has a basement (her parents') full of ‘curios’ to fill several houses, that idyllic dwelling still eludes her and her semi-nomadic lifestyle continues. She now spends most of her time in the Himalayas, often in her 'Kamzang Style' tent (gur) ...

Kim grew up in the East Coast of the US, but lived afterwards in Hawaii, California and Colorado, where she spent most of her time outdoors biking, hiking, windsurfing, surfing, skiing and, of course, collecting funds for further travels. After trying out the corporate world of marketing for Geographic Expeditions in San Francisco and briefly volunteer teaching in the Everest region of Nepal, she met the Project Himalaya team, Jamie & Joel, and has been creating and leading treks in Nepal, India, Tibet and Bhutan ever since.

Our Kamzang Journeys cutting-edge (and NEW) trek is an adventure into the high nomadic regions of Ladakh (Indian Himalaya), the green plateaus of the idyllic Tsomoriri & Tso Kar salt-lakes. We follow the old Silk Route caravan trails over high Himalayan passes of the Changthang plateau as we trek through remote valleys, populated with Tibetan-style villages, to Pangong Lake on the border of Tibet. This is a remote region reminiscent of western Tibet, with the snow-peaks of the Ladakh, Zanskar and Pangong Ranges providing a spectacular backdrop.

Highlights are spending several days trekking along the shores of Lake Tso Moriri in Ladakh during the peak of nomadic migrations, camping next to the nomads in their yak-hair tents on the banks of this incredibly scenic 26-kilometer lake, surrounded by snow-capped peaks. And crossing a small pass to arrive at the salt lake of Tso Kar, once an important source of trade and income for the local Ladakhi villagers and nomads, now a wetlands preserve, home to a vast array of migratory birds and rare wildlife. The kiang, or wild ass, run wild in big herds through these watery realms.

Our green Ladakhi campsites are backed by the snow-capped Himalayas and the grasslands are peppered with colonies of yak-hair nomadic tents. We visit several small semi-permanent villages with ancient Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, sacred lands. We camp along the meandering rivers that feed into the lakes, an exciting entrance into the fading world of Tibetan and Ladakhi nomads. The nomadic Ladakhi population has traditionally transmigrated from the high plains of Tibet in search of nutritious grass for their livestock, salt to trade, and a market for their butter and wool, a difficult and tenuous existence. This unique way of life, sadly, is quickly dying as the nomads find an easier existence to this harsh life in the cities …

Once past Tso Kar Lake we trek though our favorite exploratory routes of years past, camping at far-flung and idyllic Ladakh villages which hardly, if ever, see Westerners. We finish this epic trek with a few days of relaxing on the shores of sublime Pangong Lake …

Kyang (wild donkeys) roam these wide valleys of Ladakh, guarding their territory, and red fox, blue sheep, argali, marmots, pikas and Himalayan hare. It is a truly awesome, wild landscape of wide plateaus and craggy snow-peaks but also a gentle world of grassy meadows, delicate flowers, blue skies and meandering streams.

**This year we discovered a local Buddhist festival near Pangong Lake which will be incredible & not visited by Westerners! **

Join our wonderful journey through a piece of ‘old Tibet’!