Mt. Chola - Trekking in Dege 2009

Mt. Chola is the heart of this marvelous trekking tour. By the way: There is a funny story about this name: Chola (speak juola, letter "j" as in jungle) is just another name for snow mountain, given by local Tibetans. The Chinese phonetic transliteration for CHOLA uses two characters: Que Er, and written so on offical maps. Hence, many foreign guide books use the literal translation of the Chinese Characters: Sparrow. So, mistakenly CHOLA became "Bird Mountain"...
Much better than the story about the name is the panorama view of the Chola Massif photographed from the south:

(click the image to enlarge)

typical view of pastures and rolling hills of the Dege area.

Tagong March 2010

This trip was just a quick survey for trekking tours in this area, and end of March is a pretty cold month especially at night. However, it was a brilliant and successful 3day hike to a series of lakes and remote monasteries.

Here is a panorama from the area. This photograph was taken from a pass of the G318 National Road towards Litang.

The first moments of the hike part began with a stunning view on Mt. Zhara Lhatse (5820m) - a mountain I was talking about in an earlier post.

Winter in Lhasa

This winter (January 2010) I did my first trip to Tibet proper. Though intensive traveling through Amdo and Kham, this was a completely new experience, not only because of the required Tibet entry permit and the related hassle.

Temple building at Dengsatil Gompa

Birds in Lhasa, Winter 2010

The Lhasa River and the Yarlung Tsangpo host thousands of ducks in winter. Most common were

Bar-headed Geese and...