After the first opening in 1974, only about 500 foreign tourists visited Ladakh. Most of the tourists were interested in the mystery of the Buddhist monasteries. The first groups were of research scholars, art lovers of wall paintings, and a few adventure sports lovers. Slowly the numbers increased in geometric progression and Ladakh, especially Leh was visited by thousands of tourists. The most challenging adventure sports area of Suru and Zanskar was not very much frequented. Japanese were the first to visit the area for mountain climbing. I accompanied a team from the Himalayan Alpine Association of Japan (HAAJ) for a reconnaissance of Nun-Kun area.

They were planning to send an expedition to climb Nun peak. Kargil-Zanskar road which was under construction had reached Parkachik below the ice-fall of the Khangri glacier of Nun. We stayed in the Parkachik village. While the Japanese slept in their alpine tents, I stayed with the local overseer of the Public Works Department. He shot a couple of pigeons with his double barrel gun for my dinner. Next day we crossed Suru River early in the morning and climbed over a small ridge to descend on the glacier which went straight up to the 8,000 feet vertical west wall of Kun. It was a fantastic sight. We could see Nun in its full majesty with a plume at the top. After this first trip dozens of foreign expeditions visited the area for climbing. However, Nun received worldwide publicity only after Sylvain Saudan, the Swiss born French skier called the “Impossible Skier” came here. His coming is an interesting story. In 1975, Captain M .S. Kohli, the leader of the first successful Indian Everest expedition, who was then the Regional Manager (Adventure Tourism) in Air India gave me a free ticket to visit London, Paris, and Rome. In France I went to Chamonix at the base of Mont Blanc. This is the hub of mountaineers in Europe. I had earlier met in May, 1973 during the International Mountaineers Meet at Darjeeling a number of French mountaineers including Maurice Herzog of Annapurna fame, Gaston Rebuffat, Jean Coudray, and Maurice Gicquel. Those days Maurice Herzog was the Mayor of Chamonix. He invited me to the screening of a film on Rebuffat in the town hall. During the show he introduced me to Sylvain Saudan, the “Impossible Skier”. Next day I had a chat with Sylvain. He was a champion of the most difficult first descents on skis. He had already skied down Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in North America. He was now looking for a 7,000 meter peak in the Himalaya. The word Himalaya has a great attraction for foreigners.

I showed him the photographs of Nun and he was immediately in love with it. He requested me to arrange permission for him to ski down Nun peak in 1976. We remained in touch and he finally came with his team to climb and ski down Nun. Unfortunately, he had underestimated the Himalaya and failed to climb the peak. This was for the first time in his entire career that he had been beaten by a mountain. On his return he gave a press conference in Paris which was widely covered. For them the defeat of Sylvain Saudan, the Impossible Skier was a big story. However, he was not the person to give up. He came back in 1977 fully prepared and ultimately succeeded in climbing and skiing down Nun. This gave tremendous publicity to this area especially to Suru and Zanskar valleys. During my visit to France, I had also met Michel Peissel, an explorer and a writer who had been extensively travelling in Himalayan countries especially Nepal. He was keen to visit Zanskar. After Sylvain’s feat he came to Kashmir with his friend Peter Montagnon of BBC TV. They had planned a series of programmes on Zanskar valley. We went for a reconnaissance of the area but could not proceed beyond Parkachik because of snow. From here they trekked to Zanskar. On return to London they made out an elaborate programme of filming in the area for about 3 months or so. However, initially they did some filming in Srinagar to establish the way to Zanskar. This was also to help promotion of Kashmir tourism. While the team was filming in Zanskar, I was co-ordinating various arrangements with Mark Tully of BBC in Delhi. Once they had some problem with a portable generator. A new one was flown from London and sent by Mark Tully to me for onward transportation to “remote” Zanskar. The theme of the programmes was very interesting. It showed Zanskar as a remote valley in the distant and difficult Himalaya. However, in spite of their remote location and primitive life style, they had much better values than the people in the west.

It was in that sense the last place on the Earth as regards the values! There had been no murder in the recorded history of Zanskar. People did not lock their houses. They were self-sufficient in food. After completing the filming the team left and it took almost a year for editing of the programmes. These were finally slated to be released throughout the world on almost 60 TV stations in the spring of 1980. The BBC TV invited me to visit London during December, 1979 for a pre-view of the programmes. Before going to London in December, I decided to make a short trip to Zanskar by road which had just been completed to Padum, which is the main administrative station of this remote valley. In the first week of November, three of us, Anoop Kannaw, Deputy Director Tourism, Asaf Mehmud, Assistant Director Tourism, and me took a Jonga driven by Ghulam Mohammad Khan of State Motor Garages to Zanskar. After spending a night in Kargil we started very early in the morning on the road to Padum. Driving along the Suru River with fantastic views of Nun Kun massif we enjoyed our maiden journey by jeep to this area. We had earlier gone to the base camps of Nun and Kun several times by a vehicle as well as trekking but had not gone beyond. This was our maiden journey to the mysterious Kingdom of Zanskar.

(To be continued ……)