Kedarkantha: My climb to the skies and my slide down.

After many plans having been made and discarded, it was in Jan this year that I finally got down to getting on a conference call with a friend and giving life to something I’ve wanted to do for a long time – backpack. I kept putting it off due to lack of funds, or fear of getting molested, or work. So, finally coming across a company, IndiaHikes, that was reliable, reasonably priced, and did interesting treks through off-beaten tracks, I was elated.

In fact, we got so excited that we made our plans, paid our money, and bought our tickets without even telling our parents that we were doing so. We were girls, and I suppose that at the back of our mind, we were worried they’d refuse us immediately on hearing it was a backpacking trek – a Himalayan one at that. Also, the slots were filling out ridiculously fast, and we didn’t have the time to get the parental sanctions till we actually booked our places in the trek. When I finished all my transactions and booked my tickets, I was figuratively in seventh heaven. I was grinning from ear to ear and jumping up and down yelling to Nee about how glad I was that we were ‘manning up’ and doing this. I felt unnecessarily proud of the way I was spending my money on trips instead of going clubbing or binge shopping like 90 percent of the young population ( I will admit that I enjoy shopping, though.)

So you can’t really blame me for not completely anticipating the storm in a tea-cup between myself and Appa. He refused outright, saying it was too dangerous. We got into a huge fight and both of us, who have the same shoddy tempers that die out as soon as they flare, felt terrible. I thought he was being paranoid without a reason. It wasn’t a solo trek, I had two of my favorite idiots coming along.

Appa and Amma have been ever supportive of most decisions I’ve made in life, and considering he used to trek a lot in his youth, I was hurt that he didn’t want me, his daughter, to do it. HE was hurt that I hadn’t consulted them before. Remember me mentioning grinning from ear to ear? All it took was my dad feeling bad to make me feel like a three year old who had been caught shoving her finger into an electric socket (Yep, guilty as charged.)

I called him up, and both of us had a long emotional talk that ended in a positive note. And that was that. I was going to the Himalayas! It took me several days to stop feeling guilty though.

On the 18^th of March, I said my byes, caught my flight to Delhi and my train from Delhi to Dehradun.  Note to self : The next time, do NOT book a flight that arrives at Delhi just 2 hours before your train from Delhi departs.

Day 1:

Phew. We reached Dehradun without incident (except that Chris lost his charger on the train). We met some of the people on our trek outside the station, and realized we were small shrimp, with our lack of real prior trekking experience. We began our 10 hour journey to Sankri, stopping for breakfast and lunch and praying that our stomachs would hold up. The drive was a surprisingly nice one, at least for me, and I spent most of it either looking at the view outside of my window, or drifting in and out of sleep. There were fairy tale villages on the sides of the hills and a crystal clear stream running through the valley. Towards the last leg of the drive, I finally caught my first sighting of snow capped mountains. ‘I’m going to be up there somewhere!’ an inner voice said.

We finally arrived at Govind National park,11kms inside of which the village of Sankri was located (at around 6400ft), and offloaded our backpacks. We met our trek leaders there, as well as some of the local guides, freshened up with some delicious pakodas, chutney and chai and had our briefing. All was well. Everyone was nice, and the view from the balcony was terrific. Deep inside, I had this underlying fear of getting AMS(Acute Mountain Sickness) and being unable to climb to the summit, especially because Mohit(one of the trek leads) refused to let me take Diamox, but I brushed that away.

The view from our balconies

We were to begin our trek the following day, to Juda ka Thalab, and I think everyone slept that night dreaming of the climb.

Day 2:

The day began with us shivering under our blankets and rushing up for hot tea and breakfast. I was up early, caught a few words with our trek leads as I sipped my tea and looked out at the view. Eventually, everyone came up and there was the hullabaloo that surrounds a family that is just going away for a trip – people looking for things, bringing up their backpacks, and collecting rations.

Day was made infinitely better when a huge furry sheep dog bounded into the dining room! It was definitely too energetic for its size, but who am I to be a jerk and judge beings for their appearances, eh?

Anyway, the trek started off on a wet note: a light drizzle began just as we started walking and all of us had our ponchos out and looked like extremely colorful short humpbacked camels. We were to climb around 2600 ft (4.5 kms) that day, to our first campsite. There were fields of yellow flowers flanking us on either side. A couple of hundred meters down the lane, though, I was thinking, ‘Screw the flowers. Why is my backpack so heavy! Ouch, my shoulders!’ After a couple more hundred meters, though, I started getting the hang of it. We were all warm and energized from the climbing, and my backpack soon felt like part of me.

Around 2 and half hours into the trek, we saw it. Our first patch of fresh snow!  The weary mood of the group lightened, backpacks were immediately forgotten and flung to the ground, and a fierce snowball fight ensued, that ended with the participants being unable to feel their fingers. It was fun though. Real snow was a first for me and we all managed to enjoy a rare happy moment that went uncaptured on camera, and has already turned into just a memory. I doubt I’ll forget the feel of a well aimed hard snow ball hitting me face any time soon, though.

After some more climbing, we finally reached Juda Ka Thalab – the name was derived from two ponds there that appeared joined together. And just as we arrived, the snow started falling.  The campsite was pretty enough to be captured and put into one of those snow globes one shakes and keeps on their desk, what with the pines and ponds and grass and snow fall, but let me be a jerk and break a myth about snow fall – It’s DEFINITELY a nuisance when you’re wet and cold and need the tents put up and your shoes/socks dried.  Most of us ended up sitting huddled up in the dining tent trying to keep our teeth from chattering and feel our feet again. That reminds me of one of us, who actually ran barefoot from his tent to the dining tent over the snow because he left his cap behind there. And then couldn’t go back.

View of JKT on clicked on the morning of Day 3

Hot drinks, lunch and dinner were welcomed and polished off, life stories were exchanged, and then most of us called it a night and turned in. I couldn’t sleep. The dogs stayed up howling and barking away to glory, and it was cold, so I stayed up and wrote about the day. I wouldn’t blame them though. It feels good to have furry guardians. I went out after I was done to realize the trek leads were still up, so I spoke to them for a while, and then turned in for the night. Went to sleep wondering how I was going to brush my teeth in the morning and praying for a little bit of sunlight.

Day 3:

Woke up shivering after a disturbed sleep, to find that the water had frozen over, both in the ponds and the barrel we use for our needs. Filled up my cup with water all the same, scooping up chunks of ice along with the liquid. Yep, I was right about worrying about brushing my teeth. Made a mental note to buy mouthwash the next time I did a trek, and to forget about washing my face. It’s funny how after a day in the Himalayas, any previous delusions of what cleanliness meant were shattered. I realized I had to make choices. The choice between washing my cup after a meal and feeling my fingers was a difficult one on the first day, maybe, but I soon learnt that there being a little leftover dhal in my cup just meant that my bournvita that night was going to taste masala-ey.  It was a taste I could (and did) get used to.

Anyway, I am a fast learner. For breakfast at JKT, I just held a roti in my hand, put some sabji in between my roti, made a burrito out of it, and felt pretty smug about my hack. It was sunny in spite of the cold, so I managed to warm myself a bit and take a couple of bites out of my burr-roti when wham! Out of nowhere, this beautiful black and white dog made a very graceful jump up just as I was going to put my roti in my mouth and neatly snatched it out of my hand. Without hurting me one bit. I really wish someone had captured that on video. I made my second burrito, and she managed to eat half of that too, when I let down my guard. That marked the start of my love story with the giant dogs of the Himalayas.

We started the trek to the KK Base camp at 9 am. The sun was shining brightly and  the distance was a relatively short climb of around 2100 ft (2.5 kms). We stretched before we began the day’s walk and soon didn’t feel cold anymore. The walk was a lovely one. On day 2, I was left feeling pretty disillusioned at snow fall and snow and all things cold in general, but the beauty and general playfulness of day three melted my stone cold heart. We’d stop every now and then for a full fledged snowball fight. I didn’t even try to shy away from getting hit on the face with a stinging ball of packed snow. Tripun Ji and Ganga Ji, our local guides, were fantastic at it. They could hit bullseye from a distance of around 35 meters or more, leaving them immune to becoming targets themselves. I unfortunately also discovered I had terrible aim. I just couldn’t hit anything with a snowball. Finally, I took to scooping up snow, running after my targets, and dumping it over their heads. This worked well for a while, till I made the mistake of taking on my 6 plus feet tall trek lead, Oshank. I tried dumping some snow on his head (I had to jump to do it, but I did it.). The poor guy was just there, minding his own business and pretending to be too grownup to involve in the tomfoolery, so I just had to pelt him one. By doing so, I put my life in danger. He looked like Leonidas yelling ‘THIS IS SPARTAAAA!’ before he tripped me over into the snow by dragging my legs and then putting snow inside of my Monkey Cap. Sigh. This is why they tell you to mess with someone your own size.

Anna taking advantage of the fact  that I was on the ground to dump some more snow on me.

Mongo the dog- sleeping through the rest of the day after the climb. He woke up again after sun set and thought it would be fun to bark away to glory with the rest of the dogs

We reached KK base all too soon, and I fell in love. Best campsite ever. Deep snow all around, a 360 degree view of pine forests and snow covered mountains, and an ever shining sun. Barely anyone was tired, so we spend the rest of the day doing a multitude of things like attempting to build a snowman, run down a snowy slope, learn how to wolf whistle, help a friend with a lovely group photo she wanted to do for her daughter, and of course, have snowball wars. Post lunch, a few took to their tents for a rest, and I went downhill, to a patch of grass I noticed, with my journal and my phone. Wrote for a while, took a few pictures because I was sure I wouldn’t come across a view like that one again, and sat down, just enjoying my own company. Day 3 of my KK trek is what comes to mind now when I think of what a perfect day should be like. The Moon was out in the west even before the Sun had set, that day. The cherry on the cake was that there were gulab jamuns for dinner.

We were supposed to get up by 3:00 am the following day, and leave by 4 for our summit climb. We put on our cool metal spikes under our shoe soles and our clothes for the climb, and called it a day. Me, not so much. I was finding it difficult to sleep up there. Way too cold and way too much barking. So I snuggled into my woolen liner the best that I could, and drifted in and out.

Day 4: The summit climb. (To 12850 ft.)

Woke up to the whistle at 3 and rushed out to try and perform our bodily functions in the dark. I decided to forgo brushing that morning (Who the hell brushes at 3am!) and borrowed Mohit’s mouthwash instead. Quickly wrapped up with the packing, chugged some tea and forced breakfast down my throat ( At any other time, it’s hard to keep me away from their food, it was delightful, but really, breakfast at 3 am? )

Even the trek leads were slightly disgruntled at our slow sleepy pace and gave us a rather scary lecture about the importance of keeping time, threatening to leave us behind. All of us decided to follow the tactic of keeping quiet (which helped), and it was a slightly sleepy trekking party in low spirits that started off the trek to the summit. We were told to march in a single line and keep one arm distance (Just kidding about the one arm distance), and it was dark, so all of us had our flashlights on and our trekking poles out.

Thakurain and Mongo just being at home

We stopped now and then for water and pee breaks, and climbed quietly the rest of the time. The dogs were with us, of course, and I can’t explain to you the comfort I felt in knowing I had them there, and brushing against them now and then. There was no time for games or snow fights on Day 4. I guess everyone was concentrating on conserving their energy and making the summit. The climb was a steep one, and that’s when I understood why Day 3 was so chilled out. We did make occasional stops, to take the odd picture and look around us. I caught the sun rise, and at could look out to miles and miles of white snow covered land and mountains ahead of me. Our guides and trek leads were a real help with the motivation and the yells of ‘Sabaash!’. In an hour or so, we could see the Kedarkantha peak ahead of us. ‘Oh that’s all? This we can easily climb and reach’, was what was going on in my mind. Here’s where I learnt another new thing. Snow can also be ridiculously deceptive. The peak appeared near, and did not seem like a difficult climb, but the actual climb to the peak from the point we saw it, seemed never ending and very steep. Our feet started turning numb from the cold, our fingers had been numb for a while already and none of us could feel our faces. Breathing became a lot more labored and our lips and throats turned dry. We just trudged on and on. Looking down was a dangerous thing to do if you were afraid of heights. I’m not, but when I saw loose snow falling hundreds of feet over the side as I walked, I’d think about how easily that could be me, and gulp. I began wondering how in the world I was going to climb down without falling over when climbing up itself was so difficult. Then I stopped wondering about the climb down and decided to focus on reaching the top. Any stop became painful as we were all still in a single file, and in many uncomfortable positions of the climb that we needed to move out of. There were cruel winds blowing ice into our faces and clothes as if trying to test how much we could endure.

My joy and exhaustion knew no bounds when I could finally see the Thrishul and the small shrine of stones that marked the very tip of the peak. I took a couple of minutes to catch my breath, whooped out of sheer exhilaration at having completed my very first trek and summit climb, and felt like a (very exhausted) super human. Spent the next few minutes taking pictures of the summit and the view from the summit, and cheering the rest of the troop who were steadily making it to the top. I watched as Tripun Ji broke a coconut at the shrine and shared pieces of Prasad with us all. Now I had also figuratively broken bread at the summit! How badass. Spent some time trying to hide from the winds and warm myself up, and then decided the best way to do that was to run around and goad my DSLR carrying buds to take a shot of me (I had sworn against selfies). I watched as a lunatic (not from our trekking group), took off this jacket and shirt at the summit so he could get a picture of himself topless surrounded by all the snow and mountains. I decided then, that I had seen it all.

We took a group picture, and gathered together to listen to Tripun Ji tell us a story of Shiva and the Kedarkantha. He pointed to us a number of other peaks and valleys what we could see from where we stood, like the Kala Parbath and the Har ki Doon valley.

And then, just like that, we decided to descend, taking a different route.

We were given two options. Either we could climb down, or we could slide. Yours truly chose to slide, of course. Honestly, I think my purpose of climbing the summit was to slide from the top, even though I didn’t know I was going to do it back then. We took out our ponchos, that made for excellent anti-friction agents and kept our pants dry(for the first few seconds anyway), and slid away to glory. We’d slide down the steeper parts of the slope, and run down the others (often losing any bodily control and just tumbling down most of the way), but the snow was soft and fresh, and no one got hurt. There was no longer a single file. People walked at the pace they wanted, just following the trail left behind in the snow.

I arrived back at KK Base camp half dead and faint from all the sun and dehydration, threw down my bag and sat down to be offered a bottle of lemon tang from a friend, which I gratefully accepted. Everyone seemed quiet and maxed out. Our tents were occupied by the following batch, so we just lounged out on the logs, drinking in the sun and a lot of Tang. Lunch was served once everyone made it back, and a quick rest followed, after which everyone was ready for the short descent to Hargaon, which would be our next campsite.

The descent was mostly through a fun, muddy trail, that involved in most of our boots and pant bottoms turning brown, but it was a warm and welcome trek down when considering the prospect of clean tents and warm snow-less grounds.

We arrived at Hargaon in less than an hour, to the sight of dry grassy fields and surrounding forests, and the sun making things warm and toasty. Having been brought up in a desert and done my degree in Tamil Nadu, I barely had any respect for sunshine, but this trek changed that. I’m not going to complain about the heat ever again. There was a mad happy rush to fling our backpacks and layers off, take off our boots and socks, and just lie down outside, soaking in the sun and drinking Tang. For all one could tell, we could have been in Goa.

The summit was done and dusted, and we would finally chill.

The rest of the day was spent in talking, getting ragged, and playing an insanely competitive game of ‘places’ word building. I think I’m done with my quota of word building for the year. It got very cold towards the evening, so we threw back on our layers, warmed our hands, and sat/ stood around in a huddle talking and listening to some great music on Oshank’s phone, following which many people, which to my surprise, included me, decided to crash for the night. And I had my first night of great sleep in four days! Yippie! I guess it takes a climb to the summit for me to get a good night’s sleep in the mountains.

Day 5

If there was one word to describe the morning, it would be ‘lazy’. If people wanted to wake up when the wakeup whistle was blown, they did. Plenty decided they’d sleep in and forgo their cup of tea. I was up early. I’d got accustomed to the routine, and wanted to make the most of my last day. Filled my cup, and went around listening to the conversations different groups were having with each other. Aryan, the 8 year old stud who was on the trek with his mother and father, was running around begging people to tell him a horror story. The general atmosphere was a happy and content one – Of a group of people who knew they had completed what they had set out to do, and wanted to make the most of the remaining time.

There was no more pushing, or calls for strict adherence of time. We got ready at a comfortable pace, after which we assembled for our last briefing while on the trek. Mohit and Oshank introduced us to all the Kitchen staff, who had kept our tummies so happy the previous few days and who gave us a purpose to continue our trekking( complete the walk for the day and get food at the next campsite).

And then, just like that, my trekking journey was nearly over. It was the last day, and I definitely did not want to go back.  During the trek, I’d linger behind, with a group of other vagabonds, openly flout our trek leads’ pleas to buck up and get going, throw our backpacks down in insubordination, and just lie down staring at the sky. Poor things. Later they gave up and realized they couldn’t beat us, so they joined us.

We lingered around, I took pictures of everything that fascinated me, collected flower samples that I could dry and press and store away with my journal and listened to some great music.

The trail was dry and there was greenery , fields of flowers and rhododendron trees all around us. Now and then we’d come across a stream of fresh cold water.

The memory of it all is still very fresh in my mind – A bunch of us, sitting around on a little bridge over a stream of fresh running water, sharing nuts and energy bars. Someone was playing a song on their mobile, and some others were trying to get one of us to dance. There was laughter ringing in the air, and the dogs had left us for other pups, knowing we could fend for ourselves and didn’t need their reassurance anymore.

We reached Sankri quite fast, in spite of all our attempts to postpone the end. I met quite a few red faced children in town, as I walked past their houses to my lodge. All of them would wave and yell out a ‘Hi!’ or ‘Hello, how are you?!’ in English to us. A couple of little kids asked me if I had chocolate, but I didn’t. (Mental note for next time)

At the lodge, we found out that we had to leave the very day or risk missing our trains from Dehradun the next, as it was Holi and not a good time to travel on the road. A majority of us decided to leave the very day, which lead to mad rush to pack up our stuff, freshen up and have lunch.

We assembled in the dining hall to return our eco bags, collect our certificates, and say our farewells. Everyone had something nice to say, and even those who suffered during the trek were quite reluctant to leave. I’m not very good with farewells, they make me emotional, but there is nowhere at any point of life, when you aren’t missing something or someone, so I guess we all just resigned ourselves to it.

We were met with our last surprise of the trip when we headed out to load our backpacks into the vans. The local staff along with the trek leads had planned and perfectly executed a mini holi celebration!  Not one of us could avoid getting hit with the colour but when all is said and done, it was great fun and the perfect (albeit slightly filmy) way to wind up things.

All I could think off as we left in our cab was how it had been a perfectly lovely week and how it was finally nearing its end. And then I slept. Hehe. I slept through most of my return journey and was woken up at meal times. All the mountain fatigue and sleep deprivation knocked me clean out in the van, and I discovered later that was a good thing, considering the drive was a scary one after sundown.

I slept on, blissfully oblivious to everything that was happening around me till we reached Dehradun late at night, and checked into our hotel there.

Day 6

We were in actual rooms with quilts and toilets with hot running water. We had a flat screen TV  to watch things out of too. Thank God for that. We discovered the next morning when we went out to breakfast that every shop was closed under the pretext of holi, and every street was either suspiciously empty or scarily crowded. We decided we didn’t want to be attacked with color by a mad mob of people, so we frantically looked around for some shop that would feed us something. We were very lucky, we did find one. They were pretending to be closed, but were actually open, and let us in and even gave us a jolly good feast of Chole Bature and egg burji.

We returned to the hotel post breakfast, met the other sleepy heads, and spent the rest of the day either talking to each other or watching TV.

Stepped out again only for dinner, went to a restaurant where the waiters were ridiculously dumb and understood nothing we said. Left the place, went to another restaurant, discovered that the ‘slow’ restaurant staff must either be a Dehradun thing or a ‘post-holi-hangover’ thing, decided to just order anything we’d get fast, and leave to the railway station.

There was a minor moment of panic when we discovered that the receptionist at our hotel was also slow (during our checkout), but all of us thankfully made it to the station in time, and boarded our train to Delhi.

And that was the end.

Authors Note:

 A funny bond was forged during the 4 days of the trek, which left everyone reeling and wanting more, yours truly included. I found it hard to put in words back then how much that trek had meant to me.

 I sorely needed to get away from work and personal life, find somewhere I could give myself time and enjoy my own company. I was beginning to doubt my own worth as a person, and I guess I had to prove something to myself. Maybe in my heart of hearts, I expected the Himalayas to provide me with some answers I needed. In truth though, all that spiritual crap is bullshit. I definitely did not feel like giving up my materialistic life and becoming an Ascetic just because I spent a few days there. It felt great to be able to talk to my parents again, and sleep in a bed. But the mountains have some old magic in them. They put you in your place and make you realize you’re in fact just a teeny little being next to their might. You’re a lot more raw and uninhibited during a high strain situation like a trek and you realize what sort of person you are depending on how you behave in a scenario.

It opens your eyes to how a world left mostly untouched by human beings looks like, and you realize that you, and everyone else, needs to take responsibility ensuring that nature is not completely overthrown by mankind. I realized that I did not want to live in a metal and concrete city in the future, and I felt good that there were still a lot of places that folks were trying hard to conserve. I met a lot of great people, and I realized how much your attitude can affect the mood of your companion when you’re trekking. I felt myself gravitated to those who were funny or cheerful, and found something to laugh about in a mishap, and I realized I could try and be that sort of person too (in spite of not being a very funny person). I heard some inspirational stories. I learnt that age, gender, health problems were not to be considered barriers when going on a trek. They were just milestones to cover. I surprisingly, learnt to enjoy tea. In fact, the only complaint I have, is that the food was way too good. I actually put on a kilo after I completed my trek. (@indiahikes, this is NOT me telling you to arrange to make the food less good, though. )

P.S: I will be putting up the picture diary I made as soon as I can too. That’s going to take a while though.