Himalayan Challenge for Whizz-Kidz

Indian Himalayas, October 28^th to November 10^th 2006

Log 5 November 2^nd

We left at 8.00am. There were twenty of us, plus one expedition leader and a small team of sherpas…loaded to the gunnels with water, rations, satellite phone and medical supplies, enough to see us through a major disaster, let alone one day… All the camp paraphernalia, the luggage, the cooks and other helpers went ahead in lorries to set up living quarters for the coming night. That left us with just our walking poles and backpacks, filled with the kind of stuff you know you always need for a day in the Himalayas…change of clothes, toilet roll, anti-bacterial hand gel, camera, sun-block, super-absorbent towel, high energy snacks and a small medical kit that, despite its size, would nevertheless see you through snake bites, mosquito attacks, a cholera epidemic, the odd dose of Japanese Encephalitis, and possibly minor surgery. But the water was the heaviest…two litres at a time…though at least most of us were plumbed in, mouth to platypus, via tube…very convenient for constant drinking on the move…as it avoided the need to scrabble for bottles, or too often having to remove and replace the weight on our backs… Fledgling ships of the mountains.

Light on… …the pre-trek breakfast room

The jeeps had taken us to the starting point, and from there we climbed…through oak and rhododendron forests…on an ancient trading route that would lead us eventually to Haribag pass, at a height of about 8,200 feet. The cool of the early morning soon gave way to temperatures that promised a hot day ahead, and water consumption began to mount rapidly. After something like an hour we stopped, paradoxically for warm-up exercises…but up to this point there had been nowhere level enough to do them without the threat of collapsing and disappearing very rapidly downhill. Warm-up with the local children The exercises were to become a feature of each day’s trek…morning and evening…Intended to help prevent the worst excesses of muscle and joint strain, they also attracted many of the local children, who would appear quite magically right on cue, and either join in with us, or stand rooted to the spot in complete astonishment.

It was hard going for the most part…the terrain relentlessly steep, the surface unpredictable…and it would have been very easy to twist an ankle, or worse… That first day was quite a baptism of fire, despite fairly frequent stops for energy snacks, and, of course, lunch. We trekked for 10 hours in high temperatures, one minute attempting to evaluate the ground beneath our feet…

…the next soaking up the stunning panorama unfolding everywhere around. Walking poles were a boon, not just for the joints, but in lessening slip on steep slopes…and just one of these, strategically placed on impossibly narrow sections of path, very often meant the difference, by a hare’s whisker, between seeing another sunrise, or plunging thousands of feet to oblivion…

Glimpses of…

the mountains…

and the author…

on the morning trek…

up to Haribag Pass.

There are few words in our language meaningful enough to convey the reality and impact of such a landscape. And it would be so easy to be trite…but this would do a great injustice to these mighty mountains. There is a beauty here that brings you to your knees, stills the tongue, silences your tumbling thoughts, and charges you with vast emotion. It goes straight to your soul…and thereby surpasses and evades expression. It is a beauty that diminishes and humbles… and, all illusion banished, reminds you of your tiny part… It brought me to tears.

The Dhauladhar range from the descent to Barot

I forget, with the passage of time, whether we had pasta or rice for lunch…but, either way, it was a sumptuous feast, and grist to the mill for the long afternoon trek and descent to our camp at Barot... …which, I have to say, seemed never-ending. I’m not sure now how we kept going…but maybe the photos can testify to the likelihood that most of the impetus needed to get there came from our immediate surroundings. Barot is home to the Nargu Wildlife Sanctuary, and a haven for many native birds and mammals, such as thar, monal, golden eagle, lammergeier, ghoral, black bear... …and, on this occasion, one nomadic tribe of Homo sapiens, var. ‘ trekking’…weary of foot and leg, dishevelled of habit, and voracious of appetite.

Himalayan dwelling with mod con and trek buddy…

At 6.00pm it was as if we had walked into the Himalayan Hilton…Superbly situated on the banks of the River Uhl, this was a camp with 5 star service… Hot water for tea and coffee, and Marsala chai (spicy Indian tea) awaited us…and this was always to be the case, morning and night…in the same three pretty enamel-painted flasks…no sooner emptied than refilled… So it was off with the boots…and down with the tea…then over to our rooms…Two-man tents with a view…and just a few short steps from your bedroom put you right on the river bank. A kitchen and washing tent, dining tent and two toilets made up the rest of our spacious accommodation…In addition, the staff quarters occupied its own special pitch at one end of this al fresco hotel. Once inside the tent, with temperatures plummeting and the light fading fast we unrolled sleeping bags, unpacked night things, found extra clothing to wear and attempted to organise the personal chaos neatly zipped out of sight in our storm bags… A scene of whirling dervishes in a frenzied double act…

Local inhabitants en route to Barot… Hotel Barot

Some of us washed… Well, it was possible…if you felt like taking a trip to the washroom and stripping down to the bare minimum in the penetrating evening chill… For the rest of us…well…we either didn’t…or I’m sure I heard someone mention baby wipes… But, whatever you did or didn’t do, once it was dark, you needed your headlamp…and if you couldn’t find it you really needed to stay still…In fact, folks only became traceable by virtue of these little cycloptic lights, bobbing and dancing around the campsite. If you were on, you were in… Dinner was by candlelight…in the dining tent, of course, but with one end completely open to the elements…by which time we had all largely disappeared behind layers of clothing…hats, scarves and gloves to boot…and thus we devoured the delicious food, chattering all the while amidst the little clouds of breath our words emitted, as they noisily condensed in the cold night air. It was here also…and with great delight…that our expedition leader gave us a foretaste of the following day’s trek…washed down, very acceptably, with a tumbler of piping hot rum punch as the sugar…

No day such as this could end without a campfire…to provide us with the heat we so badly needed…and the gel to hold us all together for the coming days... And so we sat gathering the warmth…variously nursing aching muscles or tending minor injuries…drifting in and out of conversation…or just dropping into quiet thoughtfulness for a while… becoming part of the silence and attempting to take in the day’s magnitude… With no street lights to fog the firmament we basked under a night canopy of pure jet…inlaid with a hundred million twenty-four carat diamonds.

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