Soliloquy of a Wandering Pilgrim

  Whispers on Stone: Discovering Ladakh’s Uncharted Petroglyphs We were trudging down a dusty trail by the frozen stream near the little village of Lato when something caught our eye: a curious carving on a sun-bleached boulder. At first it seemed like a simple scratch, but as we knelt closer the outlines emerged – faint figures, perhaps animals. Our hearts raced. A closer look revealed many more carvings on adjacent stones, their pale lines surviving in the red-brown patina of the rock. In that quiet Himalayan afternoon, we had stumbled into the remote gallery of ancient hands. We had been in that area for exploratory mountaineering, prospecting a remote valley for potential future climbs. It was March 2025, and all of Ladakh had just experienced a late winter storm that had blanketed the mountains in fresh snow. On our way out, tired but content, we took a side trail above the river – and that’s when we found the carvings. The discovery felt accidental, but significant: a re...