We get either too little or too much. And it does not come at the right time for the crops any more. We have to now look for other ways to make a living.'

He drives a taxi and runs a small hotel in his village Kanihal near Manali, the big tourist centre near Rohtang. 'But none of this will work if we keep interfering with nature.'

Manali-based high-altitude trekking guide Kapil Negi found the same when he took two Americans and two Australians to the Parvati and Spiti valleys a few weeks back. 'I used to keep going to those places regularly 17 years ago. Then I stopped, and this time I went after a gap of 10 years.'

Negi told IANS: 'I was shocked by what I found. All the lovely glaciers in Parvati and Spiti valleys have moved back. There is moraine (rock and soil deposited by receding glacier) where I used to regularly see ice before. And even the glaciers have become more dangerous to cross. The ice is softer and there are more crevasses. Obviously it is melting faster.'

Drawing his four-year-old-son close, Negi said: 'If it goes on like this, I'll not be able to walk in the forests and the glaciers with him. He will not know this world.'

The receding of the Himalayan glaciers due to global warming is reducing water supply to the rivers that serve all of South Asia and much of China, putting at risk 1.3 billion people who are dependent on these rivers that flow from what has been described as the Third Pole, since it is the world's largest storehouse of freshwater after the north and south polar ice caps.