Manali, May 16
The 475-km Manali-Ladakh road, closed since December last due to snow, has opened to vehicular traffic, official sources said today.
After clearing the snow and necessary repair work, the road via Rohtang Pass was opened to tourists vehicles yesterday, Naresh Mittal, commander of 38 Border Reserve Task Force of General Reserve Engineering Force (GREF), said.
In 2004 the
world started to become aware that the the ralway to Lhasa indded was becoming a fact. The near-completion started a chain of reactions : in some Chinese netizens it became an object of national pride (some would say chauvinism) , and among others it was seen as one more nail in the coffin containing Tibetan culture. The Wikipedia article soon became a battle ground along predictable lines , starting with What is Tibet , anyway ?
In the media , a lot of attention was centered on the engineering challenges of worlds highest railway , running over 5000 meters high , and the brand new , shiny thing : the worlds first train with a pressure cabin . Everyone – the BBC, Guardian etc went aah .. – so did I .
The one question that would have blown this story to bits was never asked : so what happens when we pop off for a nice cup of tea in the restaurant car that looks so nice ? No air locks ..
The pressure cabin myth has acquired a life on it´s own : you still hear of people boarding the train with that thought , being awakened by the sound of hard drives going clunk! . Bye , bye , iPod.
What eventually materialised was a train with oxygen generators , spiking the atmosphere up to 23-24 percent (according to the latest issue of High Altitude Medicine), and nasal cannulas with low (undefined ) flow of pure oxygen.
Oxygen enrichment was not a new concept , it has been used in high altitude observatories up to 5000+ meters for a number of years , but the train solution is obviously a compromise between comfort/safety and economy : the observatories run by Caltech University use for example 24 % in their observatory at 3800 meters , and 27 % in their highest facility the Cosmic Background Imager at (corrected for difference in air pressure) around 4800 meters , very close to the long high run of the Tibet train.
So how does these numbers work out ? Well , in the context of travelling to Lhasa : surprisingly well . Assuming these figures are correct , you will breathe the same effective oxygen concentration at 4500 meters as in Lhasa – with the added benefit of having access to the supplemental oxygen by nasal cannulas.
This is if everything works as stated – I would expect the whole car dropping down to 21 % more or less immediately every time people get off the train, for one thing .
Not worse than flying in , with a very limited advantage in the time spent before Golmud . Basically the first twenty or so hours on the train is a dead loss , acclimatisation wise , you need to reach something like 2000 meters to start effective acclimatisation. If your motivation to take the train is to be gentle on your system , you will profit a lot more by flying in to Xining , and take train the next day . Golmud would be even better , at 2800 meters , but by all reports it´s harder to arrange your travel onwards from there.
Minimising your time in Beijing , if you have flown in , will also a give a subtle advantage , tying together the time at cabin pressure (2100 meters, at best ) with the second half of the track.
Water. Lots of water. If there is one thing you´ll hear again and again , it´s the importance of drinking . A lot.
“I havent peed that much since I was in diapers”
“one litre for every thousand meters..”
Some go on to mention other aspects of fluid balance : thin , clear urine is a good thing , so is a high urine output.
There are some funny aspects , though : this maxim is for one thing never repeated by medically trained .
The end results of altitude sickness are called edema : excess of fluid in the tissues , mainly the brain and lungs. So this is a way of preventing accumulation of fluids in one place , by pouring in more of it in another.
If you find this hard to folllow , join the club.
The basics of fluid balance are exactly this complex : what goes in up here (the mouth) must come out down here (your urinary outlet of choice) . If not , you will bulge in the middle , i.e. the tissues.
There are modifications to this : a minor part comes out via the lungs and feces , and these losses will grow at altitude, but not multiply.
There is a valid observation here , though : some headaches are caused by dehydration , and they will go away when you push fluids. Dehydration is also linked to AMS : loss of appetite is a precursor of nausea. Treating dehydration is good , preventing it is better (keep track of how much you drink , and the color of your urine) but pushing fluids after you´ve cured your headache will not give any better results in preventing AMS.
The fundamental flaw in the water myth though is that you are working against the bodys way of adjusting to altitude : the elevated red blood cell count that takes place the first days are achieved only through concentration – i.e. diminishing blood volume by higher urine output (see myth #2). This is a shift in fluid balance , technically mild dehydration - if you get headache , the mechanism is out of whack and you should treat it.
There is a simple test for dehydration : check pulse after lying down for five minutes , and then again after standing up. Dehydration will givea marked increased in pulse rate. Or just push a litre of fluid. Headache gone : fine , dehydration , now cured. Persisting headache : AMS , stop or descend.
The really fascinating thing about the water myth is the notion of ” the white coats may scoff at us , but we´ve come up with a really great idea.. ” Leaving the medical profession aside , the method has been tried and tested , over oand over again : pilgrims , Silk Route merchants , Gurkha soldiers and many more have struggled to cope with the same problem for more than a thousand years , walking along rivers and sacred lakes and tried everything at hand . If it worked , it would have caught on.
This might seem like a petty point to make , but it is intimately linked to myth # 3 , so we´ll do it anyway.
Rapid ascents start physiological responses , and , after the higher respiratory and heart rate, the increased red blood cell production is the most commonly mentioned.
It seems straight forward : the body senses the lowered oxygen saturation as you ascend (more on that later) , orders some more hemoglobin , which is delivered.
One of the stumbling points here is delivery time : the unspoken assumption here is this a more or less Fed Ex-like process : sign the order and start looking for the mail man . This would be more like Indian mail , though : a blood cell is a complex product , and will take closer to a week to produce.
As with other myths , there is a valid observation at work , with the wrong explanation .
Red blood cell concentration does go up , but it´s the same old blood cells still going around : concentration goes up since the blood volume decreases after increased urine production. After descent the blood quickly goes back to normal values : don´t count on having a higher hemoglobin level a week after descending below 2000 meters.
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Myths are are explanations of our world, based on experience. Today´s myths play out on the net , and woe unto the ones that question not the experience , but the explanation.
So , before trusting the experience , some quick reality checks when you hear someone cheering people merrily on to a quick jaunt up to a high camp , close to heaven :
1. Been where ?
You will be surprised at how many actually can´t describe where they´ve been – vertically. Discussing itineraries , especially the first inroads, is all about ascent rates : if the advice comes without a clear description of sleeping altitudes firstly , and max altitudes secondly it´s just not workable info.
Been where ? also includes another question : coming from .. ? – again , vertically . If that information is missing , get a good map , or go to Google Earth. Place limited trust in web searches : there is a lot just plain wrong intel out there : like the persistent myths of the worlds highest road , for instance.
2. Done it , really ?
Suggested itineraries often represent ..plans and dreams , not experience. The thing you´d want to do next time. Listen carefully , and you´ll hear that telling , far away voice talking about unfulfilled goals . Which is a form of poetry , well worth listening to. Make it another reason to go – but don´t exchange the map , with the elevation curves, for the poetry when you actually set out.
3. Done what ?
Going thru , and staying at , are two radically different things. There are vast numbers of travellers convinced that they -and you- can handle the altitude of x meters after having traversed a high pass. What can be learned from this is if you were able to handle that ascent profile : a long high plateau below a pass can , often will, hit harder than the high point of the journey.
Ever more important , sleeping poses a bigger challenge than staying awake , and upright.
4.Did it when ?
People will often react differently to rapid ascents , which feeds a perception that it´s a random process . If you look to the time before setting out , a lot of this randomness evaporates, and becomes consistent with the time spent acclimatising before setting out. The one time it started to go horribly wrong the difference between me and the unconscious fellow traveller next to me was the time spent at moderately high altitude before, a pattern that repeated itself in the rest of the group.
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The Tribune reports that the first first supplies and skor-jangspas have been sent in , and that the road should be fully open by the end of next week :
“
Dharamsala, May 3
Rohtang Pass will be cleared of snow by tomorrow evening. However, the normal traffic will be allowed by Thursday next week.
Naresh Mittal, superintendent engineer of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), who is in charge of the 38-BRTF at Manali, said the Keylong-Leh road had already been cleared of snow and access to the landlocked snowbound Lahaul valley from Leh had been permitted for the tourists.
However, only a small portion remained to be cut through major glaciers on way to Rohtang Pass from Manali. He said the repair work was going on the high-altitude road and emergency supply of gas, food grains and other essential commodities would be allowed from Saturday morning.”
IANS reports that Nathu La , the border pass between Sikkim and Tibet has re-opened earlier than planned , and will stay open longer :
“
‘Trading was earlier scheduled to begin June 1 and last until Sep 30. But the two countries agreed to demands by traders to allow business from May 1 to Nov 30,’ Sikkim Director of Industry and Commerce Saman Prasad Subba said Thursday.
India and China in July last year reopened trade across the 15,000 feet Nathu La Pass, 52 km east of Sikkim’s capital Gangtok, as part of a broader rapprochement. The move marked the first direct trade link between the neighbours since a bitter border war in 1962.
‘A total of 29 Chinese traders came to the Indian side with tradable items, while 13 people from India crossed over to China to do business in the first two days of trading,’ Subba told IANS.
Latest figures released by Tibet’s commerce department said bilateral trade in the first season through Nathu La saw business worth 1.49 million yuan ($190,000 million).
In the same period from July 6 to Sep 30 last year, Indian traders did business worth Rs.1.2 million ($26,109).
Although two-way trade was slow last year, about 900 Chinese traders crossed the border separated by a rusty barbed wire marker to the bazaar of Sherathang, five kilometre below the pass on the Indian side. About 400 Indian traders headed to the Renqinggang interim market in Tibet on the Chinese side, 16 km from the border.
–
The Sikkim government has also urged New Delhi to sing a pact with Beijing to allow tourists to use the border pass.
‘At present only traders are allowed to cross over and if tourism is opened it would be economically beneficial for both the countries,’ the official said.”
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