Luxuries of Wilderness & Necessities of Life

I remember the day when I somehow managed to register myself with the help of my batch mate Dhinesh for the trekking trip to Hampta Pass. Since I had never been to trek, I got engrossed with the feeling of going to trek a Himalyan route for the first time in my life. As the days passed on my enthusiasm turned into fanaticism. And soon the day came we were desperately waiting for. Dhinesh & I, we both could get only few minutes sleep during the night before catching the train for Chandigarh next morning at 5:30am. And further reached Manali by bus after a 10-hour journey.

We all 11 team members were tired of journey but still very much excited about the trekking experience to come ahead. Next morning after all hustle, preparations & excitement, we reached the starting point of our trek. We started at half past 10 in the morning with our 10 kg rucksacks & trekking tent on our back and camera in our hand with our full excitement. But within few minutes of climbing, we started feeling lack of stamina since almost no one had attended the conditioning camp sufficiently due to exams. No one’s body was ready for that amount of sudden exertion. With every step up the hill, we started realizing our true potential. Wearing a T-shirt & a sweatshirt I was still able to feel the cold weather while at the same time I realized I was sweating heavily when a drop of sweat from my forehead fell on my swinging hand. I could feel my dry throat, a slight pain hitting my temple & increased heartbeat. I could feel the blood gushing up my calves & pain hitting my lower legs with every step. I could feel cold breeze touching my face & shortness of my breath while trekking through the green forest. With a stop of 2 minutes, after every 15-20 minutes short walk, we were climbing the mountain with the same enthusiasm but with double the heart rate & half the walking speed. One of us was slogging hard to keep up with the team; while rest of us were trying to keep up with our 41 years old native guide who was still leading us tirelessly.

On the first day, we reached our base camp at 3pm to discover a beautiful place which was a small plateau midst plush green, long pine willows & scenic view of snow mountains far away on other end, but with nearest water source; a natural water spring, a kilometer away. It was about 10,000 ft. above sea level and there was no other human visible as far as we could see. Since we expected it to be a cold night, we also needed wood for cooking & campfire. But we found many trees had already been chopped off & the rest twigs and branches had already been taken by nearby villagers. We needed the campfire to burn for a long time. Since branches and twigs burn out soon, so we needed a big log of wood. We had to go far to collect wood & pine flowers to fuel our campfire. With hard efforts of our team, we managed to get a couple of big logs, sufficient for a night. After fire & water our second concern was setting up tents, since except our trek leader no one had setup tent before. In a group of 3, when we started working on tent, we didn’t know it would prove to be a bit cumbersome but soon we realized that there were few tricks to set it up.

With the advent of dusk, I could feel the chill in wind due to snow on nearby mountains. In the evening we had tea & soup that have never tasted so good. Either it was our state of tiredness, or the cold breeze with mild smell of pine tree leaves, which made us realize that even hot Daal-Chawal for dinner could taste so delicious. That beautiful place was such a sorcerous that snow on the far away mountains visible in the mild moonlight, glimmered like God has painted mountains white. While all my teammates sitting at campfire were busy listening to ghost stories, I was lying down on a rock staring at the sky, which has never seemed so clear. So many starts of different intensity were shining in the sky as if diamonds & shining dust had been scattered throughout the sky. As the night was getting darker I was guessing that in just one day I had experienced so much that I had never expected in years. The very first day had taught us the worth of water, fetched from a kilometer, fire setup from scarcely gathered woods and although uncomfortable ground but safe place for sleeping.

When all were done with dinner & campfire, they went to sleep. And very soon in my tent I realized how difficult it is to sleep on a down sloping hill, with 3 other people in it sharing their stories & fear of bear, cold winds, rainfall & snowfall. Next morning waking up at 7am, few of us noticed the mountains covered with snow had turned golden with the aid of sunlight. When I woke up, I saw the sunrays falling on snowy mountains as if God had created life-size scenery from his brushstrokes. The sunrays sieving through the tree leaves and falling on my face were showering their warmth in contrast to cold wind hitting my face. The water from our water source was cold enough to chill our hands in just a few seconds. We all were hardly able to wash our hands at that temperature. For a moment a thought passed my mind, what would have happened to us without tent & sleeping bag at that place with the cold winds? The hardest part in the morning was to find a place in that open wilderness for nature’s call. Even when one was able to find it, the chilling wind made it difficult to attend. We also came to know about one of our team member’s experience of a situation when the flapping sound of tent, scratching sound of wind & snoring of his tent mate coalesced to a bear’s snarling. We all were amused while sharing his experience. But during the past night, we all had this fear in our hearts.

After having our breakfast and packing up our rucksack, we started our second day trekking at 10am. This day was a bit different from last day during trekking. It wasn’t my paining legs that were more of a problem; rather it was my breathlessness and low stamina. Comparing my tiredness & less physical strength to the challenging path ahead as told by our guide, I feared it was a tough day to come. While trekking, after every 15-20 minutes we all needed a few sips of water & a short rest to accustom to low levels of oxygen in air. After an hour of walking, first challenge encountered was a hill full of patches of snow, which everyone was happy to see initially but later on, realized how tricky it was to walk on it! One wrong move & one would have slipped down the whole distance he covered in last 15 mins. A couple of places where we stopped, we also enjoyed the thrill of snowball fighting. Some of us got cold feet who were wearing sports shoes while other few who had bought woodland shoes were admiring the brand. The second challenge we encountered was a hill so steep that it looked similar to rock climbing i.e. almost 90° & every one of us had to crawl like a lizard to climb it up with a solid grip & fear of falling down. Soon I realized the value of deep grooved Woodland shoes for trekking. While climbing up that distance when I looked up, I couldn’t see its upper edge whereas that muddy steep wall was close to my face. After reaching atop, I lay down with the smell of mud, sunrays falling on my face scantily, sweat drops rolling down my forehead and heartbeat racing. I wanted to take a pic of that steep hill but I was hardly left with any courage & strength to go near it again. But few minutes later I do observed other team members still struggling to make a grip on the steep hill with loose soil. Alike me, they were also holding plants & shrubs and kept their body leaned towards the muddy hill without caring about their clothes getting dirty, for support from falling down.

The third and a difficult terrain, which still had to come for the day was rocks & ridges. As far as our sight could reach, there was rocky mountain terrain with a rough bumpy path for knees & ankles. The size of the rocks varied from human’s skull to a few rocks which could cover the space of a small room of a house. While crossing that terrain we all observed a peculiar thing, that throughout the distance covered in past 2 days we did not observe as many animal skulls & cracked bones, as we observed throughout this rocky terrain. In starting they seemed to be easy but after slipping on a rock I realized that anyone could break his ankle or leg easily if one stumbled and got his leg into spaces & fractures between rocks. If unfortunately someone had broken his leg, he would have been on the edge of losing his leg, since no professional medical treatment could have been provided to him before 36 hours and that too only when he would have been sent to nearest village on a mule. Since it was December, one could just imagine how dangerous & next to impossible it would have been if there had been snow on these rocks. Somewhere in between we found a cliff at the edge of the mountain, next to abyss, from where we could see the roads that seemed as wide as a hair, from that height. Hesitatingly & carefully we all got onto that cliff just to get a pic clicked.

About 4 p.m., we reached the location of our base camp which at a height of about 12,000 ft was surrounded on three sides by rocky terrain & snow and on fourth side had an abyss from where we could see tiny houses of a village and the snowy mountains past to it. Due to weight of rucksack, my shoulders were paining so badly that I was hardly able to wash my face; my legs & knees were paining as if I had completed a marathon race. I don’t know how it happened, whenever we reached the base camp at the end of the day, I started feeling a bit energetic & high on spirit. I think it was the happiness that one more day I had trekked, one more day I have conquered a mountain. That day setting up our tents in the challenging winds blowing even at half past 4 in evening wasn’t easy. Usually we needed 2-3 people but that day winds were so strong that we needed 4-5 people to setup just one tent. For once a tent almost collapsed and then we realized that we needed extra nails & strings to tie them up to provide support to withstand the powerful winds expected to come that night. Thanks to our experienced guide and cook who predicted the mostly occurred problems & harsh situations and carried most of the eatables & ration for the whole trip and prepared all the meals & beverages. After walking the whole day, when we were sipping the evening tea, I felt its soothing effect as if it was a tranquilizer, which made my pain vanish in cold mountain breeze. Even at dusk, I could feel the freshness of air with a mild smell of fresh snow with it. We had an early dinner that night since we had a reckoning that it would be difficult to withstand the cold winds at that place, & to our surprise, we underestimated it. The winds were so cold & strong during the night that few of us couldn’t even sleep due to chilling cold & strong winds, which would have taken off our tents if our experienced trek leader wouldn’t have grounded tents with extra strings. That night I observed the lights of Manali situated in the valley, shimmered like fireflies spread out to mesmerize us with their beautiful wavering lights.  

Next morning I woke up late at 8 o’clock. and as soon as I came out of my tent, the blows of chilling wind on my face irked me. The wind was so chilling at that height that I could feel the my breath freezing my lungs. Last night had been so cold that water left in plates & our drinking bottles had frozen to ice. The temperature had fallen from 7° to 2° since last night but the strong winds made us feel that it was -2°. Even our water source, a natural spring, had clogged by ice formation at its end. Even though fully covered with warm clothes from head to toe, we all were shivering with cold like a feather. Someone fuelled the last night campfire with some more wood and we encircled it to get some heat. But the winds were so chilly that by the time our front body absorbed some heat, the backside of our body started feeling the chill. And when we tried to get some warmth on backside, our hands & face were chilled with cold winds! Soon we realised that it is not going to change until sun rises above the mountains and showers its sunlight upon us. When we had breakfast & packed to move, the sun smirked upon us with its feeble sunlight. And even after 2-3 hours of sleep, I was feeling excited for the day to come, unaware of the challenges to come ahead.

As we moved ahead, we encountered a few frozen waterfalls, some which were created by the leaking & cracked water pipelines. The water flowing from the pipelines had frozen to become translucent ice, which covered all the rocks in its vicinity of few meters and our only path. The riskier part came when we had to cross such waterfall with a rocky abyss on one side of it. But more than the abyss our concern was the path, only a few inches wide & covered with ice & snow, on which we had to walk to cross the waterfall. Furthermore the cold, wet and slippery layer of ice not only made it dangerous to walk on it but also made it difficult to get a hold of rocks for our support. First we tried to be careful to set foot in almost a foot deep snow & simultaneously tried not to let our shoes wet by snow or let snow enter our shoes. Those who were wearing sports shoes were repenting on their decision. Then came ice where even our Woodland shoes were useless on that terrain, since we were slipping on it and we had to move carefully from drifting down the waterfall into the abyss. The ice and rocks on the side of hill were hardly of any support due to wet slippery algae on it. Just one wrong move & we would have been down the hill. I remember while crossing those frozen waterfalls my heartbeat doubled and all five senses started working extra-ordinarily. I was moving my every step carefully to avoid any mistake. My hands were trying to get a hold of rocks wherever possible. Although with leather gloves, I could feel the cold ice on my hands. Nor could I lean much towards the hillside to avoid my clothes from getting wet. We crossed few such waterfalls where width of path varied from a feet to few inches and ice, snow & water replaced rocks & surface beneath our foot to minimal but nevertheless the terrain couldn’t diffuse the enthusiasm of even a single team member. Neither the leading ones feared it nor the lagging one. I guess it was the zest & spirit of our team that encouraged us to cross all these difficulties without a second thought.

At the end of this riskier terrain, after moving down the slope for sometime, we crossed a semi-frozen river-stream flowing down the slope. The water of river had frozen on rocks and chopped wooden logs in abstract aesthetic designs, as if they were a creator’s rendition of scattered masterpieces of glittering crystals to portray a picturesque location. I remember while crossing it I slipped but narrowly escaped falling down the hill when our guide grabbed me sensing the danger. I was swayed away by the beauty of river & ice crystals but it also incited the fear of flowing away down the hill while crossing it. We passed some time there sitting side by the river-stream & gazing its beauty while catching our breath and gaining our strength. We moved further after sometime trekking up the mountain & find our path between deformed trees & shrubs. The path was muddy, uneven & unexpectedly steep at some places. I again started feeling low on stamina, so were my few team members. At many places we tried to avoid strangling in shrubs & their long uneven branches and keep our balance from not slipping down the muddy path. After sometime we were in deep forest finding our way ahead tracking our guide & cook. A few times we did catch up with them but only to find out that we lost them within minutes. For once it happened that we took a rest at a spot but when we started, our guide mocking at our speed showed us how to run even on that rocky, muddy uneven terrain with narrowly spaced willows. While he mocked us by jumping & running from rock to rock, we amusingly mocked him as if he was Krishh. Till afternoon we reached meadows to mistakenly assume it was our base camp but sooner our guide showed us scratch marks of bear claws. First we thought he was pranking with us but later our interest faded away as we all came to know that it wasn’t our base camp and nearest water source was more than a km away, since we all were sustaining our thirst patiently. So now we had started walking down to reach our base camp for the day, as soon as possible. Within few minutes I started feeling a lack of strength since rucksack weight was pushing me down & even after trying to move with a controlled speed, my feet were finding it difficult to make a grip on the slope. I was trying to keep every step carefully to avoid an ankle twist, which is a common thing while going down such terrain.

At about half past 4 we reached the base camp located in the trough of two mountains where sun was about to hide behind the high mountains in half an hour. The first thing we headed for, was drinking water since we had been yearning for it from last 2 hours. Luckily this time the natural water spring was very close, but as usual had chilled running water. Some of us went to gather wood for campfire while rest of us started setting up our tents expecting that night won’t be squalling us by strong chilling winds but to our disappointment, by the sunset, once again we realized we were wrong. Cold winds started blowing after sunset. Since it was a long walking day we all were tired that day. My shoulders, knees & ankles were paining like anything. I was hardly able to take my hands to my face to wash it. An ankle twist during last minute to reach base camp had aggravated the situation. Every night we all were tired, so after having dinner we sat by the campfire to share some stories, some songs, some shayari, some jokes and finally a game of ‘Mafia’ concluded our day. Sitting by the campfire we discovered that many of us had got multiple shoe bites and all of us were exhausted badly. While going to sleep, few of us looked out for medicine in different tents while few others for rum by the campfire. Some of them, who got wood splinter in hands while gathering wood, used my swiss army knife to get off with it. Before sleeping I could feel the sheer pain in joints and could also hear the frightening sounds of strong winds. I knew they both were going to give me a tough night. Once again I passed a sleepless night & realized how difficult it is to trying to sleep with a nauseating feeling due to lying on slope of down hill. While lying down in tent I realized what seems to be difficult for us, was a day-to-day life for native people like our guide & our cook. The life we came to experience so far was a hard reality everyday for those people. The basic necessities of life like water, fire, light, hot food & a cozy warm bed; which we value least or not even care about in our daily lives seemed to be luxuries in that far flung rugged, natural wilderness where we had to make great efforts to acquire them, consume them. I imagined how ruthless nature could be if anyone got stuck at such a place without enough resources; food, suitable gear or medical treatment. If situation had gone just one level berserk, we would have been at the mercy of nature.

Waking up early we had our breakfast soon and packed our things. Since it was our last day and we all were happy to reach nearest town Manali & see some other human faces after 4 days of lonely expedition. After an hour of walking down the hills we hit the road but still we were 2 hours away from the town. We could either take the road, which was supposed to take double time or we could take the rough shortcuts. Finally we covered the last miles through shortcuts that came directly down the hill, crossing the zigzag roads; at some places via natural muddy pathways around the plants and shrubs, while at other places via stairs. At one instance I crossed a path only 3-4 inches wide with the risk of slipping down to reach the next road where again the similar feeling seeped into me as if I was crossing the frozen waterfall. At some places we found even that difficult where we had to linger on the side rocks & shrubs for support while coming down wherever there was no path. For a very short distance some slipped down in mud while others chose to walk on the edgy side of hardly visible natural pathways to come down.

Once we reached down, all were happy to have completed our trekking. We were feeling thrilled & euphoric at the same time as if we were lauding our victory on gigantic mountains with our miniscule physical strength. After reaching Manali we tried our hand at paragliding from a height of about 1200 ft. and revisited a few good local restaurants & café where the food was exquisite and ambience was a class apart, but nothing could beat the experience of the trek. After reaching the hotel, we all were delighted to slip into soft bed and warm blankets. I guess we all were intensely having the feeling of being safe after such an adventurous trip.

This trip made me realize the importance of physical strength & stamina, which I hardly cared about & assumed I won’t need it ever, since I was pursuing a professional course. During the trek, many times I realized what harm our reluctance pays to physical fitness, a necessity of life, construing it irrelevant. I got an insight into the difficulties faced by native people of such places. Things that we take for granted, they could be of such a worth at any random place & at any point of time in someone’s life. It wasn’t the only good experience of my life but surely it was one of the brightest, challenging, exhilarating & insightful trip which led me to ponder over our behavior of giving importance to pesky & petty issues, while neglecting some significant things of life just like chocolate bits embedded in cookies and we only understand what we have, when we have collected all those chocolate bits together!