MilestoneHimalayas

16/12/2019

Milestone Books in USA

Milestone guidebooks and maps will soon be more easily available in the US, with an American distributor now stocking our publications. Buyers won't now have to wait for 2 weeks or more -- the time it takes for shipping from India -- after ordering from Amazon; our publications should now be on shelves in travel bookshops (and also online), like they are in the UK and Europe through our British distributor

22/05/2019

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/2019/05/first-everest-expedition-kanchha-sherpa-nepal/

86-year-old Sherpa has seen tourism change life at the foot of the world's tallest mountain

07/11/2017

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155875449683343&id=676938342

In 'Khumbu Since 1950' Alton Byers tells the visual story of how much the land of the Sherpa people has changed in the past 70 years

04/07/2017

LADAKH's fragile environment may NOT SURVIVE its TOURIST BOOM

"Outsiders now outnumber residents during peak summer months, and Ladakh is fast approaching its breaking point.... “[We] used to drink from the streams – now you wouldn’t even want to put your hand in them, let alone your mouths,” says Yangchan Dolma...(of the NGO) Women’s Alliance.... “People are not aware of the fragility of the ecosystem,” says Dr Tsewang Namgail, director of the Snow Leopard Conservancy-India Trust. “They just drive everywhere in their cars … Some crazy people drive their SUVs in the water.”.... In Leh, half-built guesthouses crowd the poplar-lined streets, adding to the city’s thousand or so existing hotels.... Outside the city, fleets of white Mahindra vans, all bound for the same destinations, chug up trash-lined mountain roads."
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1586380738053549&id=100000449155045

A new Indian middle class, thirsting to travel, now has the means. As they flock to their favourite big screen backdrops, Ladakh's fragile ecosystem bears the brunt of Bollywood tourism.

24/04/2017

http://thediplomat.com/2017/04/reinhold-messner-on-the-future-of-climbing-mount-everest/

The legendary climber talks about the evolution of the climbing industry in Nepal.

23/04/2017

JUST OUT

New revised and updated editions of the Milestone Himalayan Series guidebooks on the two most popular treks in the Himalayas. The Everest trekking guidebook, first published 2006, is now in its 4th edition while the Annapurna guide is in its 5th.

Order online from our website www.milestoneguides.com or through amazon.com, amazon.co.uk or amazon.in

15/03/2017

After the avalanche that killed 16 Sherpas, the human cost of Everest peak fever has become inescapably clear.

01/03/2017

Did Radhanath SIKHDAR ACTUALLY calculate Mt EVEREST's height? And was Sir George EVEREST opposed to naming the peak after him?

EXTRACTS from "EVEREST: Trekking Map and Complete Guide
www.milestoneguides.com

“Sir! I have discovered the highest mountain in the world!”
The year was 1852, and the “discoverer” Radhanath Sikhdar, an Indian officer working for the colonial administration's Survey of India department. Rushing into the office of Sir Andrew Waugh, Surveyor General, Sikhdar, the story goes, could barely contain his excitement.......But did Radhanath Sikhdar actually rush into Sir Andrew Waugh's chamber exclaiming he had discovered the highest peak in the world? The story, related by Sir Francis Younghusband, the English explorer who led the British mission to Tibet in 1904, has been dismissed by some Survey of India officers as folklore. Sikhdar, it has been pointed out, had moved to the Survey's Calcutta centre in 1849 while Waugh's office was in the department's Dehra Dun headquarters. It seems likely though that Sikhdar, a Bengali whom Sir George Everest regarded as 'his right arm', did the initial rough calculations in Calcutta (and a clerk in Dehra Dun possibly rushed up to Waugh with the communicated result). The final calculations, completed in 1856, were apparently conducted in Dehra Dun by John Hennesy, the Anglo-Indian chief computer posted there.

In 1865, Peak XV was renamed Mt. Everest by the Royal Geographical Society in London, on Waugh's recommendation. Sir George Everest was still alive and had earlier opposed the proposal, first mooted by Waugh in 1857, “in testimony of my affectionate respect for a revered chief, and to perpetuate the memory of that illustrious master of accurate geographical research.” Everest had pursued a policy of assigning all geographical features their local names; the name Everest (pronounced eve.rest), he said, “could not be written in Persian (then an Indian court language) or Hindi, and the natives could not pronounce it.”
But Waugh argued that the mountain had no known native name, dismissing the claim (rightly, it turned out) of the British Political Officer in Kathmandu, Brian Hodgson, that it was locally called Devadunga. The claim of three German brothers, all explorers, that XV had the native appellation of Gauri Shankar was also not accepted; the peak Gauri Shankar actually rises 56 km/35 miles to the west of Everest. Waugh must have known, though, that XV was called Jomolangma/ Chomolungma by the Tibetans, but it has been argued that that name referred to the entire Everest massif and not just the peak. The diary entry of the head lama of Rongbuk monastery in Tibet, south of Everest, is cited: “In the southern part…there is a mountain called by the general name Jomoglanma.”
The Chinese government today insists on calling Everest Chomolungma, a corruption of Jomolangma; the word is popularly translated as 'Mother Goddess of the World'. But the actual appellation, Jomolangma, refers to the 'Goddess of Long Life', the deity who rides a red tiger and is one of a group of five divine sisters Tibetans believe reside on five high mountains of the region.
In 1956, the Nepalese government thought up a name of its own for the world's highest peak: Sagarmatha, 'Head of the Sky,' or 'Head in the Sky'. Coined by the historian Babu Ram Acharya, the name however has few takers.
The first time Everest appeared in a map, it was labelled ‘Tschoumou Lancma’. Published in 1733 by the French cartographer Jean Baptiste D’Anville, the map was of Tibet and the location and name of the Everest massif on it was based on reports from a group of French Capuchin monks who were stationed in Lhasa between 1707 and 1733. The monks were probably the first Westerners to have seen Mt Everest. And since it is from Tibet that Everest’s true height and bulk can be best appreciated, the monks must have been greatly impressed."

22/02/2017

ORGAN PIPES

That's what they call these furrowed snow-clad mountainsides. This is the Nuptse-Lhotse ridge, that hems the Western Cwm, the glacial valley below the towering massif of Mt Everest. You can photograph it like this, up close, on your way up the Everest Base Camp. A 15-day trek that isn't as demanding as you might imagine. Get a day-by-day guide to this classic trek from the Milestone Himalayan Series handbook 'EVEREST: Trekking Map & Complete Guide'. www.milestoneguides.com. You can even watch a short film about the trek on the site.

19/02/2017

LADAKH: The ESSENTIAL Guide (4th Edition 2016), by Partha S Banerjee (Milestone Books)

BROWSE SELECTED PAGES. The 277-page detailed, illustrated handbook, packed with maps and colour photographs, is the most comprehensive guide to the region. Described here in exhaustive detail :
# the stupendous road journeys to Ladakh from Manali and Kashmir, with entire sections on these two regions
# the major monasteries or gompas that are the repositories of Ladakh's religious culture
# the amazing regions of Zanskar and Nubra, and the high-altitude Pangong and Tsomoriri lakes.
Plus a guide to the TREKS in the region and in-depth sections on the people, history and religion of Ladakh.

ORDER from www.milestoneguides.com (Paypal/CC Avenues) or Amazon.com/ Amazon.in/ Amazaon.co.uk

19/02/2017

LADAKH on your mind ?

Plan your trip with this detailed, comprehensive Milestone guidebook. To order, go to www.milestoneguides.com or amazon.com / amazon.in / amazon.co.uk

19/02/2017

BREATHTAKING!

In May, if you approach Ladakh from Kashmir, this is how the road looks beyond the ZojiLa mountain pass, that is snowbound for almost six months

19/02/2017

Early Season: Approaching Ladakh from Kashmir in May: Stupendous scenery near Dras

19/02/2017

In May, if you approach Ladakh from Kashmir, this is how the road looks beyond the ZojiLa mountain pass, that is snowbound for almost six months

19/02/2017

LADAKH ON YOUR MIND ?

The Season Starts in Three Months !