My first update for a while, as there were no phone communications in Ley and very limited access to the internet. Ley was hit by a freak cloudburst in August which wiped out a segment of the town during the night, causing considerable devastation. However, as so often in India, the inhabitants have rallied round and business continues as usual for the survivors. Most of the city is unchanged; it is a beautiful place.
For the last 3 weeks I've been working in Ladakh with 2 colleagues from the UIAA Training Standards working group. We've run 2 courses back-to-back with the long term intention of producing a basic trek leader's course for local residents to work towards. This will eventually be managed by the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, but the set-up logistics have been financed by the Petzl Foundation, a charity introduced by Paul Petzl to organise cultural and environmental projects in India.
The first course was delivered to a group of very keen young trek leaders working for a large private company called Rimo Expeditions. This was based in Ley in Ladakh, sometimes known as little Tibet. Indeed we were privileged to attend a ceremony presided over by the Dalai Lama, an unforgettable experience. The course was tiring but highly successful, including various short practical outings including a snow skills day at over 5,500 metres! The 2-day journey from Ley to Manali for our second course was bumpy but exciting, especially as the following day the road shut down for the long winter! Here in Manali, the second course was for mountaineering instructors from 3 national centres, with widely differing backgrounds. The course content and presentation was therefore very different, involving a lot of replanning "off the cuff". However, it was also successful, and now we are about to start packing for our return journey to Delhi, which is currently largely under-water by all accounts, so this may be quite eventful as well!
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