Surgery and Healing in the Developing World - Dartmouth-Hitchcock

Field Notes on a Typical Day in a Himalayan Medical Mission
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This almost happened. In what seemed like record time for this group, we got everyone
into a lunch room by 2:20 and packed out by 3:15, until we had to stand at the
door of the locked bus and await the last of the good-byes and last straggler climbing
aboard to leave by 3:40 PM which still made it touch and go for our clearance of the
four o’clock cutoff for the Karakorum Highway considering one more loitering stop
at he Hotel Khangri.
As High as Anyone Other Than I Had Ever Been, We Make
it Up and Over Leh, Along the Karakorum Highway to
Arrive at the World’s Highest Road Pass for Any Motorized
Vehicle—The 18,380 Foot Khardungla
We made it to the police checkpoint where we all had to produce passports and
get checked in and were grateful that it did not seem that the guard noticed that we
were after 4:00 PM. While waiting I had punched in the GPS for the Checkpoint
CHEC 34* 15.17 N, 77* 37.12 E This makes the checkpoint 7.08 miles from Leh
at 194*, most of that short distance being nearly straight up with a lot of miles in
zigging and zagging on Himank’s masterwork Just beyond the checkpoint as we
zigged and zagged on switchbacks up and over spectacular views of the valleys and
barren dry mountains of the Karakorum Range with a backward glance at the Himalayan
Range and the dominant mountain Stok Khangri facing us across the Leh
Valley, we passed a depot for the Himank equipment. There is a monument to the
men who died in the construction of the Karakorum highway= a total of 1594.
As we went higher and the air got cooler, we pulled on sweaters or jackets. We
saw some endemic birds—the snow pigeon I had seen in Nepal with its extra wide
and long wings with a broader surface area to support flight in this high mountain
country, and the Chukar Partridge—-native to this area of the Himalayas and which
I have hunted as exotic imports on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and in other
hunting (and tasting) pursuits. We also saw yaks and Zoes, that cross between the
bull yak and the female cow. Like mules, these hybrids are sterile, but they do a lot
of the heavy hauling up at this level.
Our ears were popping and our throats parched, but our eyes were wide open,
agog at the splendors of the sight below us. I told Jonathan Schoen who was sitting
behind me, that now all the vaunted “Fourteeners” of Colorado were below us, and
we had almost a mile to go to get to the highest pass through this Karakorum Range.
A few of the newcomers to this sport got a touch of mountain sickness, and went
straight to bed upon our return home to our Hotel Khangri. We passed through a
carved niche in the rocks, the “Gatung of Nabia,” which means the “garden of
Nabia.” If “Nabia” is someone out there, he must be chuckling all over, since the
“Garden” is a sheer rock face wall below, with three truck carcasses lying in ruins a
long way down. It would seem that I could see these wrecks quite easily without
help, and the additional black flags on poles hung over the crash sight were redundant,
although they were there to warn off all evil spirits, which had obviously visited
this place at least several times judging from the wrecked truck bodies representing
tombstones down at the slope’s downside.
We arrived at the pass KARA 34* 16.80 N, 077* 36.04 E, making it only 7.80
miles by the numbers of miles from Leh as the crow flies, and at 18,380 feet the site
of the world’s highest temple. There were other designations there-such as the site of
the world’s highest motorcycle raid, military action, etc. But there were other signs
pleading for harmonization. We got out and even ran around a bit, to get the experience
of what it is like to be at the highest point any of the group (with the excep-
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