Flora of the Zanskar

When you hear "Himalayas", you could be forgiven for picturing mountains, snow, and not too much else. You don't generally imagine valley floors carpeted with wild flowers, with butterflies overhead, or scree slopes held together with thistles, geraniums, and other flora we get back in the UK. 

One of the science projects on the Ladakh expedition looked at the Amchi system of Tibetan 'medicine'. It is one of the most ancient living medical systems in the world, and until the early 60s was the only medicine available to Ladakhis. Locals believe Amchis to be representatives of the Medicine Buddha, so they are highly respected in both a social and spiritual sense. Many plants in Ladakh are becoming and have become endangered and rare because of their use in Amchi medicine. 

I was somewhat cynical and wasn't particularly interested in supporting the Amchi research. However, I found the plants fascinating, and enjoyed getting back to sketching and taking photos of the plants and flowers. 

According to the few books we had on the subject, which detailed the locations and elevations of most plants in Ladakh, some of the flowers we saw were at unusually high altitudes. Seeing the impact of global warming in such a unique way was incredible. As well as this, seeing the same plant at base camp going to seed but at a higher altitude only just flowering was also pretty cool to see.

Here are a few examples of the plants we saw and some of my drawings.

A sketch of Meconopsis aculeata, the rare Himalayan Blue Poppy

Meconopsis aculeata, the rare Himalayan Blue Poppy - endangered due to over picking by Amchis

Chrysanthemum pyrethroidas

A sea of Bistort - the flowers changed from pale pink through to deep magenta as they went to seed

A sketch of Bistort

I'm yet to identify most of these - please tell me if you know!

This was seen outside of the Zanskar valley, by the side of a river just before ascending to the Kanji La

Thymus serpyllum - Wild Thyme - we used this a few times whilst cooking at basecamp 

This was everywhere around base camp and the surrounding valleys

Explore Ladakh (without leaving your sofa)

For this blog post, I thought I'd use some cool satellite images to make it more interesting and to show you the region we'll be exploring during the expedition.

If you're reading this thinking "what expedition?", take a look at this post: What's this blog all about?

We'll be approaching our base camp from Leh, along the Pensi La. Type 'Pensi La' (La means 'pass' in Tibetan) into Google Earth or Bing Maps and do some exploring of your own from the comfort of your sofa! (A great excuse for procrastination for those of you revising for exams..).

I love maps. Stuff like this makes me very happy indeed. (So does this, but that's not really relevant..)

The overall region we'll be in is Ladakh - as you can see, this region is in the sticky-outy bit (v. technical term) at the top of India, with Pakistan close by to the west, China to the North and the Tibetan Plateau to the east. We'll fly from Delhi to Leh, where we'll spend a few days acclimatising and sourcing food and equipment to take with us to base camp.

We’ll then approach base camp via the Pensi La (the Pensi Pass), which is nicknamed the ‘Gateway to Zanskar’. It connects the Suru valley (NW of Zanskar) to the Zanskar valley region, which is where we'll be exploring. The region is a high altitude desert, with many glaciers and un-summited peaks.

You can see the Durung Drun glacier flowing NNE from the bottom/centre of the image. Hopefully we’ll spend some time on this glacier (and others) measuring melt rates at different points on the glacier, its retreat rate, and take some ice cores. It’ll require technical skill negotiating our way onto and over the glaciers, so by the end of the expedition the whole team will be pretty proficient at ice axe and crampon use (hopefully we won't still be tripping over our own feet every couple of steps and ripping holes in our waterproof trousers!). The TL team will do some recces whilst the rest of the team makes their way up to Basecamp and acclimatises. We’ll explore the area for dangerous places to avoid, good tracks to follow and safe places to cross rivers. We’ll also have a good chance of seeing some of the varied fauna of the Zanskar, before scaring everything away with our presence before the other fires reach them!

The exact final location of our Basecamp is still undecided, as it'll depend on the ground when we arrive and what looks best. Our ~5 day expeditions out from Basecamp will explore the surrounding region - and these will be decided properly once we're out in country.

It's all getting very real and our flights are drawing ever closer... only 11 weeks, 5 exams, 1 half-marathon and a canoe trip across Scotland to go!