In the Himalayas the elements are the enemy

Veterans of the India-Pakistan conflict on Siachen Glacier in Kashmir do not tell stories of battle, but of battling subzero temperatures, the wind and the altitude.

Pakistani soldiers and others take a break from post-avalanche recovery efforts on Siachen Glacier. More than a month after the disaster, crews continue to dig up snow and ice in search of bodies. (B.K. Bangash, Associated Press / April 18, 2012)

By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times
May 20, 2012

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Icy wind whipped Lt. Nauman Ahmed's face as he plodded up a barren expanse of snowfields and crevasses. Woozy and spent, he reached a Pakistani military outpost 20,000 feet above sea level and slumped down on a cot in one of the camp's fiberglass igloos.

The next morning, the peril of waging war in the world's highest conflict zone began to take its toll. His head throbbed, and he was coughing up blood. When he tried to speak, he couldn't form words.

"I thought to myself, 'What is happening to me?'" Ahmed, now 30 and a retired captain, says eight years later. "It's such a difficult place to live.... On Siachen Glacier, we never know whether we will be around the next day."

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