India
Ranthan Kharak
A meadow ridge above Namik in the Kumaon Himalaya, where the treeline gives out and the Panchachuli wall stands up across the valley.
30.0567°N, 80.0331°E
Ranthan Kharak sits at about 3,900 metres in Pithoragarh district, at the far eastern end of Kumaon. A kharak is a grazing meadow — the shepherds’ word for the clearings that punctuate the climb — and the trek is essentially a walk from one to the next, gaining height each time until the forest stops and the ridge opens out.
Getting there
The usual approach is from Namik village, a Bhotia settlement at around 2,230 metres that was once a staging post on the salt road to Tibet. Gogina, over in Bageshwar district, is the other way in.