The lake of Skeletons

[Sky727]

High in the Himalayas at approximately 16,000 ft there exist a lake called Roopkund or the lake of skeletons; I heard about this lake many years ago and wondered what might have happened to all the people who were killed ?

Looks like a satisfactory answer to the mystery has been found. 

[Tecate]

When I worked in Kyrgyzstan in the Tien Shan mountains, which are the tail end of the Himalayas there was something similar. We were working up high at 12,500 feet above sea level.

I had an interpreter buddy who would take me around on downtime and show me interesting things about the area. Things like the Silk Road, the Davidoff Glacier etc.

One day he took me down an old road and said he was going to show me some horrible history from the Soviet era. We got to a narrow valley that was scattered with jumbles of white piles. They were human bones and there were a lot of them…

Apparently in the past the gold had been found and the authorities knew it was there but with existing technology it was impossible to properly extract it. So, in Stalin’s paranoia he had any of the locals and labourers who either worked there or knew of it killed and left in the valley to feed the animals that were there.

It was horrible and humbling. Up to that point I had just assumed that the people had just gone on to another project.

Tecate