The different colours of the hills, the light and shade from the clouds, all formed a charming picture. Once over 17,000 feet, I met my old friend the dwarf blue poppy (_Meconopsis_) and many pretty white, blue and yellow saxifrages that grew on the rocks. Descending from this hill into the Kyetrak Valley, we passed a number of goa which were quite tame, but unfortunately they were all females. We had two more big glacial torrents to cross which later in the afternoon would probably have been impassable as by that time they would have risen another 2 feet, due to the melting of the snow and the ice by the hot sun in the morning; indeed, we only just managed to get across when we did. The main Kyetrak stream comes from the great glacier that descends from Cho-Uyo and the Khombu Pass. Opposite the village of Kyetrak it is luckily divided into a number of small streams, so that it is usually possible to get across it, though in the afternoons it is always somewhat difficult. This village lies at a height of 16,000 feet, at the foot of the Khombu or Nangba Pass and the Pusi Pass. The former is a high glacier-covered pass, about 19,000 feet, that leads into the Khombu Valley in Nepal. The other, the Pusi Pass, is a much lower and easier pass that leads into the Rongshar Valley. Between these two passes lies a very beautiful glacier-covered peak called Chorabsang. Here at Kyetrak I met Heron and Wheeler encamped in the shelter of some walls close to the village, which consisted of a few dirty stone houses and a big Chorten. The people told me that they lived here all the year round, and that they owned the grazing for many miles to the North and possessed herds of yaks several thousand in number. Traffic could be kept up over these passes, they said, at all times of the year, though only with great difficulty, and with much danger, whole convoys being sometimes wiped out by blizzards when trying to cross the Khombu Pass, as the fine powdery snow is blown down into their faces from every direction and they finally get suffocated by it. That night there was a sharp frost, and the following morning Heron and I started to go up towards the Khombu Pass, following at first the East side of the Kyetrak Glacier. For about 6 or 7 miles we rode beside the great moraine that extended along the East side of this glacier; every now and then we climbed up on to a mound on the edge of the glacier in order to take photographs of it. The ice was all torn and riven into wonderful shapes and opposite us was the finely crevassed peak of Chorabsang. I pushed on, leaving Heron to come on at a slower pace, as I was anxious to get to the top of the pass before the clouds should have come up and hidden all the views. Every day it cost us a race to get up to a point of vantage before the clouds should have come up and hidden everything. Leaving the pony behind, with one coolie, I pressed forward for some 4 miles up a very stony and slippery moraine on the glacier.