In 1893, Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore, in his daily records of his travels with Major Roche through Ladakh, Tibet and Pamirs, wrote of seeing musk deer, kiang, Tibetan antelope and a butterfly in the region in and around the Depsang Plains. Dunmore noted that K2, the second highest mountain in the world, could be seen from the plateaus. In 1906, Sven Hedin had travelled east from Burtsa to the Aksai Chin lake on the traditional silk road. The traditional route to Shahidula passed through the plains; Kizil Jilga to Haji Langar to Shahidula.