Cold mess: Uttarkashi

Fresh from the Kedarkantha trek,

CHAHAK MITTAL

believes that it is not the mountain you come to conquer, but yourself.

ARJUN AGARWAL

captures the journey

LOSTin thoughts of nothingness, I lean on a fence, sipping my steaming hot tea, which warms me up, but, only a tad bit. The temperature is -9ºC, precisely. I hardly feel my numb feet, which makes me anxious about the challenging expedition ahead. For the next five days, I’ll be treading the soaring, snow-covered trails of the Himalayas in pursuit of the Kedarkantha peak, situated at 12,500 ft. At the heart of it is the belief that nature will be the balm to soothe and heal me from the vagaries of the past few months. At Sankari village, the trek's starting point, I arm myself with energy bars, banana chips, walnuts and altitude sickness tablets.

DIGGING THE MYSTERIES OF A FROZEN LAKE

I,along with six friends, leave from Sankari, armed with bamboo trekking poles. The adrenaline is pumping with excitement of doing something at which few of us are novices. My surroundings have an unusual calm and an appealing vibe, which I’ve been craving for since the lockdown. I finally feel like a free bird, traversing challenges and navigating my path in the clouds.

COLD MESS

(Above): Juda Ka Talab and (below): a board at Kedarkantha Base Camp exhorts trekkers to keep moving

“Sankari Base Camp. Altitude 6,455 ft. Let’s begin... If you never go, you never know!” reads a purple board. I know I’ll understand its true meaning on my way down. During the first few metres, we’re awestruck by the scenery. The soggy forest floor is thick with fallen leaves while the exposed tree roots tangle beneath my feet. There are rugged, snow-capped mountains which usually dot travellers’ profiles on Instagram.

Juda Ka Talab, a four-km trek from Sankari at 9,100 ft, our first camping destination —a partially frozen lake —is believed to have been formed by the water that trickled down from Lord Shiva’s loosened hair bun (juda). Well, I wonder how mythology squeezes into every journey I take, often, beautifully overlapping the scientific reasons of a phenomenon. Intriguing!

My fellow trekkers are still energetic while I trudge. I’ve taken off the first layer of my jacket and tied it around my waist. I’ve never sweated so much! Realisation dawns that you can’t take off on a trek without training for at least a month. And thanks to 10 lazy lockdown months, my fitness is far from its peak.

As we near the campsite, thin layers of sposh make the ground slippery. My anxiety levels rise with the mountains’ unreachable heights. After trekking for five hours, we reach the Juda Ka Talab and I am awestruck by the beguiling beauty of the lake surrounded by pine trees. The shining, white snow is dotted with inverted cone-like neon greens, oranges and yellows of the tents. At the camp, the buffet of salad, chapatis, dal, chawal and subzi makes us feel spirited but it’s a task to eat in freezing temperatures. Careful not to fall prey to the plunging cold, I munch on walnuts and bundle myself in another pair of fleece, scarf, earmuffs and cap before crawling into my sleeping bag.

A PACK OF REALISATIONS

FIRST,the morning tea feels heavenly in freezing temperatures. Second, answering nature’s

(From top to bottom): The seven trekkers catch their breath; on the way to Juda Ka Talab and Kedarkantha Base Camp call can be an unpleasant task. Third, it’s hard to cherish your surroundings, however beautiful, when you are tired and numb. Fourth, the trails are quiet and in this solitude, there can be all kinds of voices in your head; it’s important to pay attention to the positive ones. Fifth, in a challenging geography, conveniences are hard to come by.

A CHILLY ROUND OF ‘KBC’

AFTERa breakfast of eggs and porridge, we head to the Kedarkantha Base Camp (KBC), 2.5 km away. I always thought that mountains make for pleasant views. It now strikes me that Himalayas, with some of the world’s highest peaks, act as an acme of mountaineering, influencing the Indian subcontinent’s climatic conditions. I’ve never thought of mountains with such depth. Face-to-face with the peaks, I feel thrilled and scared. I think of home. If only I could narrate the experiences to my mother. But how? We lost network 45 km before Sankari. But I soon feel at peace as my phone doesn’t buzz to alert me about the tally of COVID-19 cases, an EOS sale or another ex-classmate getting married. I’m actually ecstatic about the descending bar graph of my otherwise alarming screen usage. The plethora of questions running through my mind are diverse and the reason why I name this journey, ‘KBC,’ as a pun!

An hour into the second day’s trek, I lose my balance and slip on the begrimed snow due to the damp trails. My legs split in two directions while my hands seem to attempt a plank. But thankfully, I am as fit as a fiddle. I’m among the last few to reach KBC, where the view is breathtaking! The sky and the ground seem to come together as one endless whole. On my right is the Swargarohini and on my left, is the Kedarkantha peak with its head up in the clouds. Oh, what a sight! At 11,250 ft, you might hanker for comfort or whine about the inhospitable weather but your personal contentment touches an indescribable high.

It’s getting darker and colder but the sky makes me realise that far from human settlement, the stars shimmer with an incredible clarity. The city skies are virtually empty of the spectacular arch of the Milky Way one witnesses in the hills.

Our conversation now centres around the final goal —‘the summit’. We’re allotted microspikes and trekking gaiters and advised to wear four to six layers to beat the cold. “Upar jaake sabki haalat kharab hojati hai (You lose all the strength up there),” warns our guide, Thapaji. I sink deeper in my blanket of anxiety. While everyone is thrilled, the thought, “Will I be able to do it?” consumes me.

HEADACHE OF A LIFETIME

IT’S3 am. I’m bundled up in multiple layers of fleece and trudging on. Beneath the liquid black sky, the rocky-snowy route is faintly visible to the human eye under the torchlight. The first few minutes of hiking are arduous as the temperature is -12ºC. It’s a 1,000 metre-elevation to the Kedarkantha peak, which soars at 3,800 metres. I reassure myself, “Just a few miles and you’ll witness the most magical sunrise.” But each step is more gruelling than the previous one. Thapaji tries to encourage me but I pause frequently to inhale sharply as the high altitude leaves me breathless. I feel I’ll make it but my head starts to spin like a satellite. I’m awash in a wave of nausea and my tears have almost frozen due to the cold.

Guide Ganga Singhji tries to revive my flagging hope and encourages me to walk just a few more miles to the ‘Tea Point’. Once there, I cling on to the first bench. I hate to admit it but I’ve tickmarked all the symptoms of altitude sickness. My friend, Arjun, wants to wait for our fellow trekkers to return but I urge him to push on. “I can’t let you miss it. I’ll be fine,” I tell him. He leaves reluctantly and I clutch a cup of tea while drawing the bench closer to the angeethi (gas fire).

A smattering of snow during the initial leg of the trek

TREKKING ESSENTIALS

o 2 high necks/fleece t-shirts o 2 pair of trek pants (waterrepellant) o 2 thermals o Fleece legging o plastic covers / polybags o Snow jacket (-10º to -15º temperature) o Poncho (can be rented) o Medicine kit o 2 pairs of gloves (fleece, waterproof) o Thermal flask o Water bottle o Tiffin o Tea mug (non-fragile) o Toilet Roll o 3 pair of woollen socks o Sun cap o 2 Woollen cap (including a Monkey cap) o Neck warmer o Sunglasses (UV protection safe) o Track suit o 2-3 Power banks o Torch (can be rented) o Trek shoes (recommended: woollen and waterproof)

(Top): The descent from Hargaon. (Above, left): A starry night sky at the Kedarkantha Base Camp and (right): torches light the way towards the summit, for the trekkers, at 3 am

CONVERSATIONS FOR THE SOUL

ASI sit, Prabhat, a seven-time trekker, interrupts my thoughts. We talk about sundry issues and it’s only after an hour that we realise, to our amazement, that his four-year-old daughter and I share our name. Well, it’s not every day that you’re stuck at 12,000 ft in sub-zero temperatures at 4.30 am with no network or a known soul and find a connection worth recalling!

I sit there till sunrise, looking at the black, starry night sky and the white-leafed deodars from a window in the tapri as silence echoes across the sloped plateau. I smile in solitude, soaking up the serenity of the moment and memorise every detail. The morning sun makes me realise that I’d been sitting at the feet of four of the most majestic Himalayan peaks —Jaonti, Swargarohini, Rupin Paas and the Kalanag. At this point, I remember naturalist John Muir’s famous quote, “The mountains are calling and I must go.” I realised that these peaks did call me to tell me that you may take a pause but keep walking until you reach a point where you feel contended.

A FINAL NOTE

THANKINGthe expanse of beauty for this morning, as I retrace my steps down the hill, I am grateful for those I did not take. Certainly, up here in this wilderness, I can hear more sounds than one, but the best of them is my own. It screams to tell me, “It’s not the mountain you came to conquer, but yourself. You slipped, you missed but you lived every moment as it went by. Come back next time and find yourself waving at the world from that peak!” Well, will I come back here again? Call me a fool, but for that sunrise, definitely!