SAVED BY THE TOKPO RIVER

next Pour imminent

…

a three-pronged muck-up of a yesterday

the second, a fall in the river

the third, a heavy fall in the street

but first

a can’t-go-forward, cant-go-back, scenario

where my only way out is

maybe

a 5-6-7 k river gorge

in some remote mountains

i can’t know i can get safely through

and where there’ll be no people

...

all in all

a proper schtuck to get oneself in

another hairy descent

...

the way South

...

at this point i think i’m obliged to mention

the next Pour

into The Bucket Of Unused Ideas

is very imminent

...

33 new pieces

will be added

for the 1st of June

...

six months after it first went live

it will now be 799 pieces in all

presented at total random

one after the other

at a pull or refresh of your screen

something no-one ever did before

...

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and more

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some folk have made it a daily part of their life

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for constant or occasional perusal

a permanently available stock of new thoughts

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...

the undoable way forward

…

...

back to my predicament in the mountains of Ladakh

which occurred after

one hard-trekked day of leg-aching ascent

in the bleakly beautiful, stark rocky mountains and valleys and gorges

on the winding trails from Likir to Yangthang

on the three night Sham Valley Trek

the easiest available trek up here in Ladakh

...

and so

after a nice night in a Homestay

room, dinner, breakfast and packed lunch

not bad for 1500 rupees

i started the next day with a steep descent

down to the river

with the bigger steeper climb visible ahead of me

yet when i get down there to start the ascent i

can’t do it

go up that is

because ... altitude sickness

in the form of dizziness and a physical uurrgghh in my carriage

and

after three attempts at just twenty metres of climb

each making me feel weak, woozy and terrible

i realise i

errrr

can’t go forward

or back, up

or right, North, which is just a rock face

i can only go left, South

down the gorge of the Tokpo River

while the only real remedy for altitude sickness is to go down

so that’s what i have to do

turn left, go South, down

except its an unknown

barely mapped

...

yet

do i have a choice?

especially when, as long as i’m not going upwards

i feel good

and hey

its an adventure

could be brilliant

an off-piste wander

while i have a litre of water

and the packed lunch

so, why not?

yet

i don’t know if its doable

...

...

while thinking now, next morning, achily safe in Leh

i guess i coulda got someone in Yangthang

to somehow get me a taxi

but that woulda taken hours

and been failure

and no-fun

whereas trying the deep river gorge is not failure

keeps the adventure rolling

...

…

yet i don’t know what’s in the gorge

and there’s no internet anywhere here

and the Maps.me App cannot be trusted

for things that do exist aren’t on the App

while trails that don’t are

so i don’t know if its dangerous

stupid

impossible

perilous

i can’t know and i don’t but

keyly

its down

and down i have to do

and down i can do

is the chief thing i can physically do

except, after i make the decision

and begin

the tarmac road soon disappears into a stony trail

which disappears

so, yes, Maps.me is wrong
…

and so i start making my way along the rocky stony bottom

right next the thin, shallow, gently descending, winding river

the Tokpo river

as i enter into its deep gorge

of colossal high rock-faces yawing way above me

of jutting geological striata

some twisted back on themselves

of huge rocks defying gravity

and its bottom of boulders and river-rounded stones

with a scree of tiny slithers on every side

often a slope of scree hundreds of metres high

while there’s little chance i’m going too see anyone

and there must be 5k of this to do

but its not even eleven

so i got plenty time

to pick my way

then stop to breathe it in

to enjoy the stark splendour

plus i’ve no exhaustion in the legs

and any dizziness has gone with the descent

like its supposed to

...

while this, here

i shoulda said

this is one of the bleakest landscapes i ever saw

while everything seems pulverised

broken into bits

by time and gravity

as i dicily pick my precarious way down

and down

the shallow gorge

stepping on

or on the sand between

these ankle-busting stones

and crossing the river five, ten times

not one of which is easy

on the smooth stones

as i find my slow way

stopping now and again to drink in just how

desolate

bleak

this beauty is

where the Southern horizon is high snow-covered peaks

then, ahhh, falling off a slippy stone into the river

half drenching myself

but rescuing my tablet

then soggily eating my packed lunch

while looking at a pair of tidily-set small trainers on a stone by the river

surrounded by scattered ragged clothes

???

…

progress

…

…

while, all the time

i cannot know if this is doable

if there’s a waterfall?

if the gorge thins, with cliffs both sides

so there’ll be no way through

and i’ll have to go back up

which is the one thing i can’t do

so i battle and pick and struggle

and ascend a little slope to a car-wide trail

flat and easy

with old car-tracks

which is a sign of reachable civilisation

and thus good

yet the track then disappears

has fallen, sloughed, been washed-away

into the river

which is not good

though there are then two thoughtfully placed cairns which

if i pass between them

bring me to the lip of a doable slip-slidey path

back down to the river bottom

where i descend for one river bend of rocks and stones and crossing

and then ascend again to another flat easy trail

which again, after one long bend

disappears, sloughed away once more

while i’m forced by the winding of the vast valley-side

to again cross

and recross the river

with a growing sense that this is doable

this is a great thing to be doing

that this is about as good a Plan C as i am going to get in a hurry

and that soon i’m going to come to...

and i do

with, first, a concrete irrigation channel on the left side

which i walk on

then see an abandoned house

and, up the other slope, a crumbling white stupa

[Buddhist shrine]

then a decent trail on the right side

with motorbike tracks

recent ones

which means i’m safe

i’m good

and then

as i hoped it might

but kinda hoped it might not

for it means the real tricky bit of the adventure is over

then, after say 5k

of the intrepid perilous know-nothing river bottom

there’s a proper road in from a gorge to the West

the one on Maps.me

which i guessed was real

and tarmacked

and is

wending down the valley

so the walk now becomes a sunny stroll

a saunter

as i see some poplar trees

which are the sign of a fertile patch

which is likely the sign of habitation

as i descend into the green

to pass the Rizpong Buddhist Nunnery

where there’s a fleet of government SUVs

?

and head on down to the National Highway

to the village of Uleytokpo

have a chai in a friendly cafe

and another

then get my thumb out for the lift back

from Uleytokpo

and wait for half an hour

my longest roadside wait in Ladakh

where often the very first vehicle has picked me up

yet in the end its one of the fleet of government cars

not an SUV

which takes me the 60k or so

back up the beautiful and starkly majestic valley of the Indus River

yes the Indus

the one i’ve been intrigued by since the age of seven

to Leh

...

where i just have time to get one more crashbangwallop in to the

succession of ballsups

because my stiffening limbs are so unwieldy i

get a sudden cramp in the thigh getting out the car

and fall very heavily on the downslope

in the busy Leh street

and am very fortunate not to bang my head

or get hit by some form of traffic

after which

more than disappointed by the cutting short

the failure

of my first attempt at a trek

the easiest trek available

i

get back to my guest house

where i left this laptop

and lie flat and still on the bed

so that nothing else can fuck-up

fall-over

feel wrong

flatline

or fuck-up again

...

...

…

safety in Uleytopko

…

…

…

by the way

i do have a history of unwise and hairy descents…