One Last Synthesis, Before the Revision Plan

If there is a single exercise worth doing once, cold, after finishing this book for the first time and before starting the 7-Day Plan below, it is this: without looking at any table, draw (mentally or on paper) a rough west-to-east line representing the Himalaya, and place on it, in order, every pass this book has covered — Banihal and Pir Panjal, then Zoji La, then Ladakh's cluster (Khardung La, Chang La, Karakoram Pass, and the quieter Fotu La/Namika La/Pensi La/Shingo La/Chorbat La/Digar La/Wari La group), then Himachal's cluster (Rohtang, Baralacha La, Kunzum, Shipki La, Pin Parvati, and the Chamba-Kullu-Kinnaur secondary group), then Uttarakhand's cluster (Mana, Niti, Lipulekh, Kuari, and the trekking-only Auden's Col/Bali Pass/Rupin Pass/Traill's Pass group), then Sikkim's cluster (Nathu La, Jelep La, Donkia La, Cho La, Chorten Nyima La, Naku La), and finally Arunachal's cluster (Bomdi La, Se La, Bum La, Pangsau Pass, Yonggyap La, Tulung La, Diphu Pass). Doing this once, purely from memory, is the single best diagnostic this book can offer: any pass you cannot place without help is precisely the pass to prioritise on your very next study session, and any region where you stumble through several passes in a row (rather than just one) tells you which of this book's regional sections needs a full re-read rather than a quick patch. The same exercise works equally well run a second time for peaks (west to east: the Karakoram giants, Nanda Devi's massif, the Panchchuli group, Kangchenjunga's massif, Kangto and Gorichen) and a third time for glaciers (Siachen and Drang-Drung in the west, the Garhwal-Kumaon cluster in the centre, Zemu and Rathong in the east) — three passes through the same single mental map, each testing a different category of this book's content against the same underlying west-to-east geography.