The Himalayan apricot harvest, in 9 photos

The road from Leh to Hunza climbs through ten thousand feet of cold rock and silence. Then, without warning, a valley opens — and it is the colour of butter.

Ramesh Singh has been farming apricots on this slope for thirty-one years. His father did before him. His son will, if the glacier holds.

We arrived on the third day of the harvest, when the trees are heaviest and the family works from before sunrise. Apricots are gathered by hand, sorted on cotton sheets in the courtyard, and laid out to dry on the flat slate roofs that catch the high-altitude sun.

The dry mountain air does the rest. There is no sulphur, no machine, no shortcut. Ten days later, what you eat is the same fruit, only smaller and sweeter and the colour of old gold.