At the top of the Miyar Valley in the high Himalayas, a chain of seven tiny turquoise pools nestle below the snout of a formidable glacier. Each one looks deceptively inviting. We plunge in and our shouts, as we brave the icy water, echo off walls of rock into empty air; there is no one but our group around to hear. For miles in every direction there are only mountains; their white peaks, sheer slopes and pockets of high hidden valleys are filled with wild flowers for just a few months of the year, mainly June and July, when their cape of snow melts away. Most stunning are the fragile, brilliant blue Himalayan poppies, which inspire such devotion that there is a book, Blue Heaven, dedicated to them. Some are scattered among the rocks around the pools, above the grassy meadows which feel like our own private heaven. We rest here for a day to acclimatise before heading up on to and across the glacier, playing cricket at nearly 4,000m and reading in the sunshine. Mobile phone reception had petered out beyond the last village several days earlier, so even the most anxious have gradually settled into the rhythm of unconnected days, blissfully cut off from the rest of the world. In the week after leaving the highest village in the long Miyar Valley, we see yaks and horses roaming half-wild, and marshy lakes filled with migrating birds, a joyful patchwork of red, pink, white, yellow and blue flowers,but fewer than a dozen other people. Most are nomad shepherds who spend the summer guiding their flocks to seasonal grazing grounds along ancient paths invisible to the uninitiated, dotted with tiny stone huts that provide shelter from the elements. We set off on our trek early the next morning through pine forests with a soft, fragrant carpet of cones and fallen pine needles, tracing field boundaries beside the raging torrent of the Miyar River and its tributaries. There were some bridges, but twice we crossed the old way, in iron baskets suspended from a wire, hauled back and forth by fellow travellers. They sway from wind and movement as you inch over freezing water, stirring up fear and exhilaration like a good rollercoaster. By that evening we had left civilisation behind, setting up our first campsite on the edge of the wilderness. We were not roughing it. It might not be “glamping” as recognised by anyone who likes to commune with nature accessorised with fresh sheets and deep baths, but to me it seemed as close as you could get deep in a pristine Himalayan valley at 3,000m.
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