At the top of the world, in the throne room of the mountain gods, somewhere between mystery and imagination, a river runs through a deep crack in the Himalayas, a wild river of Buddhist temples, monasteries, ibex, and snow leopards.
In 1979, John Yost and I, along with a team from Sobek, made the first descent of the Indus River, spilling from the Holy Mountain, Kailas, and splitting the Karakorum, the most spectacular range on earth (see the account here: RichardBangsIndus). Our partner, George Wendt, stayed at home to man the office, and act as a lifeline in case of emergency. We began at the Pakistan-India border, and floated and portaged to the base of Nanga Parbat, the Killer Mountain. With success…which really just meant that we survived, after a number of close calls…we thought about what lay upstream, in the forbidden realms of “Little Tibet.” A tributary of the Indus beckoned, the Zanskar, rumored to be the golden river of Shangri-La.
Not long afterwards, John Yost made it to Ladakh, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and ran the Zanskar, and returned to announce it among the most stunning in Sobek’s catalogue of wild rivers. He returned again and again; but for reasons we can’t remember or justify, George Wendt and I never made the passage…until now.
For the first time since Sobek was founded, the three surviving partners, George Wendt, John Yost and I, are setting out to run the Zanskar this August...and we’d like to invite you to join in this remarkable passage.
Sincerely,
Richard Bangs
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