Adventure into hidden world of Zanskar

Mark Boyden’s early upbringing near San Francisco gave some hint as to how his life might unfold.

In this modern age of easy accessibility the opportunity to visit somewhere largely untouched by modernity is rare. In 1981 Mark Boyden was one of the first westerners to visit the remote and isolated province of Zanskar in Western Tibet. Now, 32 years later, he has written the compelling story of that expedition in his first book Travels in Zanskar. It is, in many ways, a classical travel book which chronicles an adventure in an unknown and hidden world.

Although he has lived in West Cork since 1974, Boyden’s early upbringing near San Francisco gave some hint as to how his life might unfold. “The first time I camped by myself I was only nine or ten, and by the time I reached my early teens I was travelling into the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains. I would bring some cheese, some flour and a rifle and stay up there for weeks at a time tracking caribou and just observing eagles and grizzlies. After a number of different jobs — apprentice dairy herdsman, merchant seaman and stage designer — I became entranced by the spate rivers of West Cork and their salmon populations. I set up the Streamscapes aquatic education programme and have been detained here ever since.”