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Then the landscape begins to change. The ice-encrusted peaks disappear. In their place, rows of bare cliffs jut skyward like the half-excavated ribcage of some monstrous dinosaur, simmering red ochre in the early morning sun. As we cross one final ridge, the city of Leh comes into view, a lone streak of green tucked into the arid mountains.

This is Ladakh, northern India's oasis of the unexpected. Since the 9th century nobleman Nyima Gon founded the first kingdom in this remote corner of the Tibetan Plateau, Ladakh has been a land all its own, a place where Tibetan Buddhism holds sway and monsoon floods give way to high-altitude scrub desert. It is a region so desolate that one Mughal historian deemed it the most “useless place” on earth, yet so breathtakingly gorgeous that tens of thousands of travelers have braved dizzying alpine roads and the pall of border violence in neighboring Kashmir just to glimpse it for themselves.

After touching down at Leh's airport and filling out the mass of paperwork that seems to accompany any trip in Jammu and Kashmir state, we rendezvous with our guide, Phuntsog Spon. As director of Kailash Travels, Phuntsog has spent years organizing sightseeing excursions and fortnight-long wilderness treks for visitors.