Himalay ki God mein
Post dedicated to Cavvy, who taught me climbing down is just as easy as, if not easier than, climbing up; to Vora, the selfless dufus who covered five days worth of climbing in two days in spite of taking an ailing brother to safety; and to Sangram, who unselfishly shared his A/C during the sweltering BTP days.
******************************** PROLOGUE *************************************
When we were traveling in Europe, we always used to travel by train during the night. This saved us the cost of accommodation. But whenever we needed to stay in cities like Amsterdam or Paris or Munich, we booked youth hostels, which, apart from providing economical accommodation, are wonderful ways of making acquaintances and learning what people do around the world. I only recently came to know that such hostels exist in India too, and moreover, organise treks at several places across India to promote national integration. What's intriguing is that this organisation, Youth Hostels Association of India or the YHAI has been in existence for over 30 years. The trek was a should-have-been-there kind of experience and this post hardly does any justice to the fun we had during the trek.
*********************************************************************************
I say today's kids' minds are corrupted by watching mindless cartoons like Ben10 and Oggy and the Cockroaches. But the good old days were when we used to watch Small Wonder and it was since then that I always dreamed of camping... sleeping under the starry skies... erecting tents... cooking on an open fire... This craving was ever more fueled when I read The Famous Five or The Secret Seven always camping, sleeping on heather. You can imagine my dismay when I came to know almost none of it happens in India...
Circa September 2010. Cavvy tells me the past year's Mech B.Tech batch had been to the Sar Pass trek organised by YHAI and we should do something similar. And so after endless hours of debating over Sar Pass, Roopkund or a Leh Ladakh bike trip, we finally settled for Sar Pass sometime mid February. Gearing up for the trek, we started running crossys across the insti and timing quite a few laps of the insti grounds. In due course, the tickets were booked, reservations done. We were to halt at Delhi for a couple of days, then set out to the YHAI base camp at Kasol. Delhi was quite uneventful. We did all touristy things that tourists do. Perhaps the most memorable thing would be our stay at the youth hostel and the trip to Paranthewala gully at Chandni Chowk for which I claim full credit :P. Everybody out there in Delhi is on their toes to dupe you and make a quick buck, but more on that some other time. We reached Kasol on the 17th of May - Us 12 cowboys with our cowboy hats!
The real adventure began on day 6, when we moved from Padri to Ratapani. It was Suyog's birthday, and he had a war cry - Oho Ratapani, aaj chalegi apni manmaani - from the video-that-must-not-be-named. The trek till the lunch point was excruciatingly steep with loose soil and stones all over the path. This part was a real test f stamina. I realised quite a few things - I, for the first time in my life, wasn't the slowest in the group for a physical acivity; the small stint we had in insti for improving fitness was a life saver at those high altitudes; there shall always be people slower than you, but if you are the slowest, there'll always exist people like me, who'll thank you for getting the group to wait for you. And so, we reached the lunch point, which was almost at cloud level and had a breath-taking view and with an airtel range! We SMSed home that all was great and we had reached the camps safely. The guide who had come with us went back and we were supposed to follow the arrows.
As soon as we set out, it started to hail. Rain and hail in the himalayas last for about 15-20 minutes tops, but the Gods had something special in store for Suyog on his birthday. He gifted us 2 hours worth of hard-hitting hail with the wind taking the temperatures to as low as 10-12 degrees. Since we were moving, none of us had our thermalwear or gloves on. Hands numb and almost freezing to the point of frostbite, we wore our gloves while all the while trying to protect ourselves from the unfogiving hail. We had already climbed a decent bit and it would havee been too risky to go back to the lunch-site or even to continue ahead, where trees had fallen and one slip of the foot and we'd be tumbling down into the unforgiving valley. People (I) started to remember their loved ones. But staying there would mean imminent and definite death by frostbite. All the while, we had Suyog saying "I don't want to die on my birthday." It was with great nerve and perhaps 2 gulps of Romanov each that Nilesh, Raakesh and Dinesh went ahead, with great risk of life amidst extremely slippery melting hail beneath their feet and guided everyone else across the perilous path to the next camp - Ratapani - bilkul nahi chali apni manmani - where soup and bataate wade were awaiting us. The entire camp site was picturesque, covered with snow with only a few green patches visible. It was here that little Nandan Vora contracted a very bad bout of altitude sickness and we had to leave the Voras behind. The 43 strong group was reduced to 41, much to everyone's dismay.
Slowly and steadily, we made our way through the slippery melting ice and eventually climbed up a slope which I would guess to be no less than 75 degrees. Now came the interesting part. You basically climb about 6500 ft from the base camp in 4 days and slide down some 1500 ft along a ~2km stretch of snow in roughly 10 seconds in a matter of three slides. We, that is to say Nilesh, Sarang, Rakesh, Dinesh, Ansh and me were last amongst the group (me being the slowest); the others already having reached lunch point. The first slide was pretty mundane, but the second one had jumps that could rival even the most dangerous rides in a huge water park with several jumps. Rakesh, Dinesh and Ansh went ahead, I went across next, jumped badly on the first jump, landed horribly on my left knee, lost balance and went rolling off-course about 300 metres through the unforgiving ice. I didn't dare open my eyes fearing my spectacles to be damaged. (Snow blindness is highly painful.) I lay in a heap almost unable to move my left leg in the cold. And then suddenly I heard a scream from behind. I squinted and saw Sarang rolling towards me. He had landed on his back and lost control. He collided against me and we braked together. I got up; my sprain was only minor (though i still cannot bend my knee completely), Sarang had taken the brunt of the fall on his spine and found it difficult to walk without support. We moved very slowly towards the lunch point.
After this tremendous (in/ac)cident, the rest of the trek was extremely mundane with just a descent to look forward to. We reached Biskeri on the same day and then Bhandakthatch-the most beautiful campsite-beautiful because there was no snow in sight and because it was on a plain lad rather than on a slope. Here we met Vora! He had escorted his brother back to Grahan and joined SP17 on day later and reached us after covering 5 days worth of gruesomely steep trekking within 2 days!
On the whole, I learnt quite a few things from this trek:
1) Trust is extremely important during a trek - you need to trust your shoes, your stick, your friends and yourself. You need to believe that you can finish the trek.
2) The stick can be a huge help - especially with an injured knee.
3) Climbing down is easier than going up. Always mimic the dogs - they move their bodies first and legs later.
4) Where there is shit, there is a village nearby and you are on the right track.
5) Reiterating, there shall always be people slower than you, but if you are the slowest, there'll always exist people like me, who'll thank you for getting the group to wait for you.
6) I do not need my cell phone or the internet or my laptop or an enclosed toilet to survive; just get me enough toilet paper roll and maybe some food.
******************************** PROLOGUE *************************************
When we were traveling in Europe, we always used to travel by train during the night. This saved us the cost of accommodation. But whenever we needed to stay in cities like Amsterdam or Paris or Munich, we booked youth hostels, which, apart from providing economical accommodation, are wonderful ways of making acquaintances and learning what people do around the world. I only recently came to know that such hostels exist in India too, and moreover, organise treks at several places across India to promote national integration. What's intriguing is that this organisation, Youth Hostels Association of India or the YHAI has been in existence for over 30 years. The trek was a should-have-been-there kind of experience and this post hardly does any justice to the fun we had during the trek.
*********************************************************************************
I say today's kids' minds are corrupted by watching mindless cartoons like Ben10 and Oggy and the Cockroaches. But the good old days were when we used to watch Small Wonder and it was since then that I always dreamed of camping... sleeping under the starry skies... erecting tents... cooking on an open fire... This craving was ever more fueled when I read The Famous Five or The Secret Seven always camping, sleeping on heather. You can imagine my dismay when I came to know almost none of it happens in India...
Circa September 2010. Cavvy tells me the past year's Mech B.Tech batch had been to the Sar Pass trek organised by YHAI and we should do something similar. And so after endless hours of debating over Sar Pass, Roopkund or a Leh Ladakh bike trip, we finally settled for Sar Pass sometime mid February. Gearing up for the trek, we started running crossys across the insti and timing quite a few laps of the insti grounds. In due course, the tickets were booked, reservations done. We were to halt at Delhi for a couple of days, then set out to the YHAI base camp at Kasol. Delhi was quite uneventful. We did all touristy things that tourists do. Perhaps the most memorable thing would be our stay at the youth hostel and the trip to Paranthewala gully at Chandni Chowk for which I claim full credit :P. Everybody out there in Delhi is on their toes to dupe you and make a quick buck, but more on that some other time. We reached Kasol on the 17th of May - Us 12 cowboys with our cowboy hats!
Base Camp - Kasol
Our first stay at Kasol was quite uneventful, marked with a lot of Mafia, judgement and a lot of innuendos from Gunda, the Mumbai girl abusing boyfriend audio clip and a third video whose name shall not be revealed, but all the "pachees pachees" references come from it. We went for an acclimatisation walk on top of a nearby hill on the second day, where we met Padam, the guy who owned the base camp area. In the afternoon, we were guided about altitude sickness and the various problems that Himalayan trekkers face. We met the rest of our SP-17 group, which comprised of people from a variety of professions, mostly engineering, but quite a few businessmen and a choreographer! Demographically, the group consisted of people from Mumbai (us and girls from St. Xavier's), Nagpur (Dinesh, Raakesh, Nilesh and Sarang), Bangalore (Intel junta), Goa and Surat (infi jovial and awesome gujju group). The Nagpur guys had done Sar Pass 10 years ago. We had awesome rock climbing and rappelling sessions on the third day. Everything seemed perfect except for the fact that 4-5 amongst us cowboys had serious stomach issues, yet, we continued on our journey to higher camps on the following day.Higher Camps - Grahan, Padri, Ratapani and an unforgettable life-threatening hailstorm
Day 4 involved moving up about 1500 feet to the first higher camp near the village of Grahan. You get glimpses of what looks like weed all the way up. We didn't have a guide on the first day, with just arrows on stones guiding us, but we did have a stray dog helping us out, we had dogs accompanying us from every camp to the next. If you ever get lost during this stretch, it is worthwhile to use the mantra - follow the dung - since where there is dung, there are mountain goats and hence, a village. Our entire group reached the Grahan camp at different times, much to the displeasure of the camp leader. The trip to Padri on the next day was casual. Once we reached Padri, we went to a nearby glacier to slide down - just for fun - and what fun it was indeed. Climbing up the ice is difficult enough, I found pleasure in slipping and inadvertently sliding down back to the base of the glacier!The real adventure began on day 6, when we moved from Padri to Ratapani. It was Suyog's birthday, and he had a war cry - Oho Ratapani, aaj chalegi apni manmaani - from the video-that-must-not-be-named. The trek till the lunch point was excruciatingly steep with loose soil and stones all over the path. This part was a real test f stamina. I realised quite a few things - I, for the first time in my life, wasn't the slowest in the group for a physical acivity; the small stint we had in insti for improving fitness was a life saver at those high altitudes; there shall always be people slower than you, but if you are the slowest, there'll always exist people like me, who'll thank you for getting the group to wait for you. And so, we reached the lunch point, which was almost at cloud level and had a breath-taking view and with an airtel range! We SMSed home that all was great and we had reached the camps safely. The guide who had come with us went back and we were supposed to follow the arrows.
As soon as we set out, it started to hail. Rain and hail in the himalayas last for about 15-20 minutes tops, but the Gods had something special in store for Suyog on his birthday. He gifted us 2 hours worth of hard-hitting hail with the wind taking the temperatures to as low as 10-12 degrees. Since we were moving, none of us had our thermalwear or gloves on. Hands numb and almost freezing to the point of frostbite, we wore our gloves while all the while trying to protect ourselves from the unfogiving hail. We had already climbed a decent bit and it would havee been too risky to go back to the lunch-site or even to continue ahead, where trees had fallen and one slip of the foot and we'd be tumbling down into the unforgiving valley. People (I) started to remember their loved ones. But staying there would mean imminent and definite death by frostbite. All the while, we had Suyog saying "I don't want to die on my birthday." It was with great nerve and perhaps 2 gulps of Romanov each that Nilesh, Raakesh and Dinesh went ahead, with great risk of life amidst extremely slippery melting hail beneath their feet and guided everyone else across the perilous path to the next camp - Ratapani - bilkul nahi chali apni manmani - where soup and bataate wade were awaiting us. The entire camp site was picturesque, covered with snow with only a few green patches visible. It was here that little Nandan Vora contracted a very bad bout of altitude sickness and we had to leave the Voras behind. The 43 strong group was reduced to 41, much to everyone's dismay.
Nagaru, Sar Pass, Biskeri and Bhandakthatch
The next day, SP 17 saw unity which was hardly ever seen before in the past 4 days. We trudged along and reached the snow-covered Nagaru camp at an altitude of about 12000 ft, perhaps 5 ft below cloud level, quite soon underneath a perfectly cloudless sky. The snow was our waste disposal system; the instructions were simple: dig, dump, cover; and to tell you the truth, anyone who has taken a dump at that altitude in the cold at 2 am in the morning, can take a dump anywhere in the whole wide world. We used to humour ourselves saying that somewhere in the world, there exists a warm place with hot water where you don't have to wake up at 3 in the morning for the so-called "bed tea". And then we thought of Ansh; who came from a college with 80% female population; while we were miserable at IIT. We started our journey to conquer Sar Pass at about 4 in the morning with 2 sherpas and 2 sherpa guides. The air was very rare and we took 2 minute breaks every 20 minutes. "Sar Pass" came as an anticlimax as all we did was simply cross the Sar lake from the side, always under apprehension that one wrong step, one wrong move, one slip of the foot, and you soar into oblivion unless a sherpa pulls you back.
Slowly and steadily, we made our way through the slippery melting ice and eventually climbed up a slope which I would guess to be no less than 75 degrees. Now came the interesting part. You basically climb about 6500 ft from the base camp in 4 days and slide down some 1500 ft along a ~2km stretch of snow in roughly 10 seconds in a matter of three slides. We, that is to say Nilesh, Sarang, Rakesh, Dinesh, Ansh and me were last amongst the group (me being the slowest); the others already having reached lunch point. The first slide was pretty mundane, but the second one had jumps that could rival even the most dangerous rides in a huge water park with several jumps. Rakesh, Dinesh and Ansh went ahead, I went across next, jumped badly on the first jump, landed horribly on my left knee, lost balance and went rolling off-course about 300 metres through the unforgiving ice. I didn't dare open my eyes fearing my spectacles to be damaged. (Snow blindness is highly painful.) I lay in a heap almost unable to move my left leg in the cold. And then suddenly I heard a scream from behind. I squinted and saw Sarang rolling towards me. He had landed on his back and lost control. He collided against me and we braked together. I got up; my sprain was only minor (though i still cannot bend my knee completely), Sarang had taken the brunt of the fall on his spine and found it difficult to walk without support. We moved very slowly towards the lunch point.
After this tremendous (in/ac)cident, the rest of the trek was extremely mundane with just a descent to look forward to. We reached Biskeri on the same day and then Bhandakthatch-the most beautiful campsite-beautiful because there was no snow in sight and because it was on a plain lad rather than on a slope. Here we met Vora! He had escorted his brother back to Grahan and joined SP17 on day later and reached us after covering 5 days worth of gruesomely steep trekking within 2 days!
Manikaran and Return to Base Camp
The last day's trek involved walking to the village of Barseni some 17 km from base camp and then taking a bus to Kasol. We made a halt at Manikaran where there are hot water springs; and after bathing in the hot water; we set out to Kasol. The trek had finally come to an end. We met Nandan, who was almost bored to death before we came. The specifics of our return are too shady and shall not be mentioned here.On the whole, I learnt quite a few things from this trek:
1) Trust is extremely important during a trek - you need to trust your shoes, your stick, your friends and yourself. You need to believe that you can finish the trek.
2) The stick can be a huge help - especially with an injured knee.
3) Climbing down is easier than going up. Always mimic the dogs - they move their bodies first and legs later.
4) Where there is shit, there is a village nearby and you are on the right track.
5) Reiterating, there shall always be people slower than you, but if you are the slowest, there'll always exist people like me, who'll thank you for getting the group to wait for you.
6) I do not need my cell phone or the internet or my laptop or an enclosed toilet to survive; just get me enough toilet paper roll and maybe some food.
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