Blog shift

I'll be moving my blog over to Wordpress. I couldn't find my Xanga blog on Google for some reason and I did want my trekking blogs to be read..

This blog will remain just as an archive and might be whopped sometime in the future. My new blog is available at - http://myotherramblings.wordpress.com/

Sarpass 2011 - winding up :)

Everyone does everything for a reason..rt? And sweats a lot and puts in a lot of effort...towards acheiving the same. Once the goal has been achieved, he relaxes .. physically & mentally and everything after that seems extremely simple. This is precisely what happened even this time. After all the euphoria of crossing Sarpass had died down, the downhill climbs towards basecamp seemed extremely boring. At least that's how I felt :)

We moved off lazily at the usual 9-9:30am towards Bhandak thatch. A few of the guys, in their hurry to complete the trek quicker, took a different route and went and got lost in the jungle. Not too far, mind you but they got lost all the same and the guide had to go off and get them back on to the main route. The route by itself was the normal jungle climb down which hurts your knees terribly, despite all the scientific methods of climbing down. There was a small downhill rock climb along with a rope attached to rappel down if one wanted to; but the path itself was so easy that climbing down was easier; there were plenty of hand and foot holds. The fun part though was the river crossing. A couple of large tree trunks acted as a bridge which we'd have to carefully cross to get to the other side. It was all okay till you got to the middle because part of the tree trunks were supported by large rocks. Once you got to the middle though, the tree trunks would wobble under your feet and the guide would help you across if you stood too long. He mentioned later, after he'd helped me across that the best way to do it.. is to do it quickly.. else one can get giddy standing over the river. A fall into the river, could on this occasion have been dangerous; specially if you didn't know swimming. Everyone made it safely across though.

The halt at the lunch point or whatever that was called was unbelievably boring this time. I mean, I think we slept more than we walked this time.. just to kill time. The route really should be re-looked IMO.. that last route is an utter waste of time. The end campsite no doubt is extremely scenic; but maybe its a good idea to bypass one of either Biskeri or Bhandak thatch. The post-lunch route was another jungle route; there were a huge number of trees that had just been uprooted and were strewn everywhere. Must've been some really fierce storm which did it; those trees were huge. The last 20 minute climb to reach Bhandak thatch was extremely painful; and despite trying to pace myself I got breathless.. yet again. Must learn to cope better, next time. All the same we did reach, well in time as usual.

The campsite was extremely scenic as usual, in fact this was probably the most scenic of the whole trek. A little bit of fiesty frisbee football was played in which I gashed my knee open again. Extremely tired this time and went off to sleep quite gladly.

The next morning, it was time to say goodbye to Bhandak Thatch and return to basecamp. Everyone was extremely chilled and in no hurry; for once we were a little lazy :). It was a 2 hour walk to Bisneri from where we could catch a bus back to Kasol or get a cab back if you wanted. Since we just missed the bus, we took a cab back at 50 bucks a head. Mr.Dog who'd faithfully followed us all the way back would not get a seat in the jeep or whatever as Rutika did not want him/her sitting on her at the back of an alreay crowded jeep :D. I wont forget Arundhati's comment here..ever.. 'For the first time we're moving.. but our legs aren't'. Classic. 3 of us hopped off at Manikaran and had a welcome bath in the hot springs and had lunch(lengar) at the Gurudwara. Its all free. And good. Unbelievable really, to do it at that scale. Hats off!!

Once back at Basecamp we completed all the formalities; everyone then dispersed; some slept, some left for Manali while others went back to Delhi. The certificates were distributed late that night at the campfire. It should also be mentioned that a bunch of the guys went out that evening and er overdosed themselves in varying degrees with cold beverages. Not all, but a few..well... :D. I trust everyone understood what I said. If you didn't .. well and good .. its not important ;)

The next morning I wasn't feeling too well. But I had so much .. so much time to kill, that I decided to ignore that fever and go river rafting with the guys. It was truly an awesome experience. From sitting at the back and clutching the ropes in absolute terror (Yeah yeah I was scared :D) ... to getting sloshed head to toe with ice cold water and finally climbing to the front and having a try at the oars. All a lot of fun really. We even managed to plant the raft bang on top of a big rock , and the guide had to jump off into the water and push the raft off the rocks. The rapids were a mix of Grade 1,2 and 3 and we got thrown up in the air time and again by the waves. I was finally beginning to get the hang of it when we reached though. 14 km in no time at all :). The most interesting thing for me was that during the entire session, it felt that you were moving... but you actually weren't... like standing in the sea with your shoes off and the sand moving under your feet.

After the rafting was done and I'd packed my bags, I parted company with the rest of the guys and went off to Kullu to book a  bus back. 3 hours later I was sitting inside a semi deluxe bus with my huge rucksack jammed between my legs. It kept raining and the stupid bus had a hole in the roof; just where I was sitting and water kept dripping on me, wherever I sat. Each time I'd drop off, water would come down and splash my face. All positions tried. All failed. This continued for some 2 hours and then mercifully stopped. Lesson learnt: Keep your windcheater out.. always :). On top of that the aunty sitting by me apparently had a dodgy stomach and could puke at any time. This valuable information was given to me by the guy who came to drop her. She didn't puke though..thankfully :)

I reached Delhi at 8:30 next morning and managed to navigate my way to Nizamuddin station. Its an unbelievably dirty station and my bad health wasn't helping matters. After a fidgety 6 hour wait in the waiting room, I boarded the Garib Rath at 3:40 in the afternoon. The train companions were extremely rude, as is often the case. This time it was this big Gujarati family who insisted that everyone take their luggage down, and even chucked everyone's luggage down and put their own up. Irritating really, but I hate fighting of any sort - so I just adjusted as best as I could. The worst part though is that the same family requested me to exchange seats later. Oh well..

I finally reached home on Saturday morning at around 10:00am. And seriously... there is NO place like home :). It'd been fun, a lot of fun...and hopefully.. someday somewhere we'd all trek together again. Adios!!!

Sarpass - 2011 - Sarpass :)

So finally the day when we would cross Sarpass dawned. I mean, if you could call 2:30am 'day' ;). Yeah no kidding, we got up at 2:30am, the lazier among us dozed till 3 but the piercing whistle of the camp lead would not let anyone remain in their sleeping bags too long. The snow everywhere was a fantastic sight against the black night sky. I doubt too many were in the mood to sit and eulogize about the view there. All everyone was worried about was the trek ahead and how much warm clothing they needed to wear :).

Here's a pic - https://picasaweb.google.com/anup.mvit/Surpass?feat=email#5610214375915286834

Miraculously I did not feel too cold at all thanks to those awesome cotswool thermals. Mom had said they were good, but this good, I didn't expect them to be. All I wore on was the thermals inside and that monkey cap. For a while I even thought that it was a little stupid wearing such little, but I genuinely did not feel that cold. Somehow I managed to stuff a little bit of Upma down my throat at 3:30 in the morning. I'm not sure how many people managed to eat that morning...really. It was not comfortable in the least. We lined up in the by now familiar '3 rows for guys, 1 row for girls' - yelled when the count of 38 was completed - 'Hip Hip Hurrayd' everyone at camp and walked off into the snow, under torchlight, in the dead of the night.

There'd be Sherpa guides this time around, there would be no way you could find your way through the snow without them. And this time, there would be no screwing around trying to get ahead. One line.. one single line.. forward march. A lot of the ice kept chipping off at the edges as we walked, but it was so early in the day and such little light or heat that most of the ice was pretty solid. The Sherpas kept running alongside us with great skill and amazing speed. I know that's what they do for a living and they'd been born and brought up in the mountains, but its always nice to see someone execute a skill perfectly.

The other unique thing about this walk was that we couldn't stop too many times and hence maintained a reasonably brisk pace. The reason we couldn't stop was two fold - For starters you'd have to sit in the snow, which wasn't exactly warm. The other reason was that if we sat and slacked off too much, the sun would come up and start melting the ice; meaning that it'd soon be a pain to walk. There are advantages of being a little quick though; in the sense that if the guide did decide to forcibly break and wait - you get a little longer to rest or adjust your baggage or re-tie your shoes or have a little snack or whatever.

So anyway, we continued walking on those huge huge sheets of ice and snow and not thinking ahead too much; everything was just too too numb to think too much. I hadn't even worn gloves so I was continuously developing new ways of trying to keep my hands warm and not get frost bite (Yes the thought did cross my mind). Some of the things I did were:
-- Stuff hands alternatively into pockets
-- Do wrist exercises with the stick in midair :D
-- Rub hands vigorously on stick
All that helped a bit, but really, on hindsight it might have been a little more sensible to wear gloves even though it wasn't that cold. Oh well :)

A lot of times on the way there wasn't a route and we had to wait for the Sherpa to kick a path in with his huge shoes and then take that path. So it was slow, at times painful going and I won't deny it - At times I did wonder how much longer we had to climb. A small piece of advice, although many might not need it - Don't ever take distance related advice too seriously on a trek. Everyone has their own versions of how far things are or how steep the climb is; but everyone have their own speeds and own methods - so what they say isn't necessarily going to work for you. Just cut all negativity from your head when you're in the mountains and firmly believe you're gonna do it. The end.

Finally after about 3 hours of walking/climbing/crawling we reached a huge huge flat patch which I think was Sarpass... or very close to Sarpass anyway. As in, the major climb we thought was done and everyone really chilled out now. There was a huge amount of justifiable ecstasy that 95% of the batch had managed to get to the top. We'd been extremely disciplined, I thought and had a whole lot of fun despite following all (well most ;)) of the rules, which is so important on a mountain. A huge amount of photography took place here, a few got a little emotional and a few tears fell, a few just tried to take everything in..and let the fact that the big climb was done while a few like me kept trying to record the position of every mountain so I could blog about it :D. Obviously that has failed, which is why the photography (I grudgingly admit ;)) comes in handy at times. All jokes apart, its an absolute thing of beauty - Sarpass - I don't think the most vividly descriptive blogger in me can describe what it was there.

After eating a little (The stomach had taken an absolute pounding from all the stupid food timings :D) we moved on. The next destination was a place called the Biskeri top; this was a combination of wonderful downward slides on the snow at high speed, careful walking on narrow ice paths and one final climb. What about this particular climb? Why have I mentioned it separately? After all, we'd been climbing all along..rt? You'll see .. read on...

The downward slide is a lot of fun. Here comes another attempt at elaborate description :D. The process to follow is (Sorry for using the word 'process', its what working in IT does to you ;)). So yeah:
a) Sit in the snow. Yes sit.
b) Hold your hands along with your stick above your head
c) Bring your stick down, so that the middle of your stick is touching the back of your neck; just above the rucksack
d) Keep your feet straight
e) Go!!

The key really is to remain balanced. That's why your hands are behind your head. So you don't try and do any funny stuff and lose balance. Of course a lot wanted videos shot. I've never been a big fan of all that, but I can totally understand people's emotions here. You don't visit Sarpass everyday or slide 500 feet downward everyday. My first slide was kind of ok. Obviously I don't particularly like heights or speed, so as I kept on accelerating I was a little bit scared, but really it was all very safe. Even if the whole slide was a disaster, you'd still live ;) and live well. So any one reading this, its very cool - just go and enjoy yourself.

The next bit was the long painful walk towards Biskeri Top. Except that it wasn't particularly easy with the sun also up by now. The path we had to walk on, again, was extremely narrow and a slip, while not dangerous would just take you some 50 feet sliding down on your left and you'd have to climb up again. Not good. And no - it isn't 'cool' to climb again, when you're as numb as we were. I should probably take a minute to mention that we got lucky with the weather. It was obviously cold but there luckily was hardly any hail or wind while falling. It'd have just made it more uncomfortable to walk.

It was slow going, and tough to keep concentrating on the path ahead. Right foot ahead. Plant stick. Left foot ahead. Remove stick. Face the mountains, not the valleys - repeat. I lost count of how many times I fell; then again - I'm used to falling on treks and as the popular saying goes - 'What you know can't hurt you :)'. The group as a whole kept up quite well, I thought. Big big credit to all the 50+ guys - its got to take a huge amount of mental courage to do this at that stage in your career :)

The last climb was absolutely unforgiving. Think of a 60 degree wall with no holds anywhere. Its made of ice. Climb. Block negative thoughts out. Climb. Keep climbing. Breathe normally. Keep climbing. Dont talk. Don't waste energy. Climb. Fast..as fast as you can. Don't rest..too much. Climb. Look down if you dare... but climb. As the U2 song goes ... 'Walk on' :).

Now I've done plenty of treks and climbed a lot. This was unique. This was ..yes.. tough. Doable of course with the right attitude but tough. I think it was around 40 minutes of straight uphill climbing at a very steep angle. And I went out of breath.. despite my best efforts..many times.. but I and I'm sure everyone else.. just kept climbing. Later some described it as - 'You can't look up, you can't look down, you can only.. you guessed it CLIMB :)

Finally, finally finally, the climb ended and we hit the top. Unbelievable relief that I'd made it. No not out of fear but it was physically quite exhausting and I was glad to reach the top. We did a second slide soon after. Guide 1 tells me to keep my feet down. Which I do. So there's a big bump with a big hole in between, where you're supposed to lift your feet. I didn't. I mean.. I didn't know. Really. Slide. High speed. Foot bangs in. Stuck in 2 feet of ice. Stuck..badly. I thought the ankle was gone, frankly. The speed at which I hit that snow hole must've been quite high. Miraculously I escaped. Guide 2 yells at me and asks me why I didn't lift my feet. Yeah right. This is precisely what happens at large organizations.

Manager 1 - Do this.
Engineer - Yes ok
Manager 2 - Why the &^%$ did you do THAT?
Engineer - Er????
The mountains are not immune to corporate culture, I tell you ;). So anyway I had that stick with me...and spent around 8 minutes digging my foot out. I couldn't pull my foot out... my shoe would've remained there itself. That stick was worth its weight in gold.. I tell you. Bhavesh wasn't that lucky and twisted his ankle in the same hole.. before me and would limp on to camp none the less. Once I'd extricated myself and got to the bottom of the slope it was all easy to laugh at the whole thing. In fact that's precisely what I did along with Arundhati who had also made it down and later with Vinod and the rest. Laugh loudly at everyone's misfortune :). You could actually see people getting stuck or rolling down or doing a lot of funny stuff while they were up there. Good fun.

A final slide from there took us very close to the lunch point. Everyone were quite dead by now. It'd been some 7-8 hours of flat out climbing and while it'd been a whole lot of fun, it had also been physically extremely draining. Everyone was also extremely wet and had no feeling in their feet or behinds. A few even changed into warmer stuff. While I can understand that; its always risky to do that midway. If the weather changes all of a sudden and it starts pelting rain you lose a set of dry clothes that you could've used when you got to camp - to keep warm.

After a nap and more food we set off again. There was 1 more treacherous slide which could've been risky. The first part was simple enough apart from getting numb again. The guide indicated to move left from there. Now at no point did he mention to not slide. Yes, there was an arrow on the rock which we should've seen, but there was also another path which was a slide down. Now this slide down was extremely steep and 3 of us ended up cracking the ice and nearly inside a big ice pool. It wasn't that deep but it could've been risky. I really think the guide should've atleast said something..about that slide. Maybe it'd have been okay but at least a word that we could take that route or should NOT have taken that route...something. Oh well.. I'm alive :)

It was a 30 minute walk through the jungle, with more mud and more ice to negotiate but it was all relatively easy compared to what we'd been through. Finally finding the Biskeri Thatch banner was a big big relief.. I finally changed clothes that day :D .. into something a little cleaner. Hot french fries (in limited quantities) and tea was very very welcome. Around 11,000 feet at Biskeri.. a little higher than Ratapani I think.

But it was done. Sarpass had been crossed... 1 last blog about the remainder of the descent coming up in the next 2 days. Have fun reading this :)

Sarpass 2011 - Nagaru

After yesterday's super icy morning at Padri, Ratapani felt much warmer. That was a little strange considering we were a little higher, but that's how it was. The camp leader was candid enough to admit that he'd lost it a bit the previous night; which I thought was a good thing - no point having a fat ego anywhere. I'm sure the guys who messed around also realized that it was probably better to ask. All was cool and we pushed off after the usual camp cleaning was done.

The climb to Nagaru was a very gentle climb at a reasonably slow pace. We started seeing more and more ice though as we continued climbing and slightly steeper. There was a rumor (dunno how true); that anyone who reaches Nagaru does not turn back; he usually completes Sar Pass as well. Not that the group needed any extra motivation, I don't think there was anyone who was in the mood to turn back and go home. Shubha Ma'm apparently loves ice a lot, so she started making snowballs and er iceballs if you can call them those and chucking it at everyone who was around and who was safe. More people soon got into the mood and before you knew it ice was flying all around.

Climbing on ice is a little different though; from the usual jungle trails. Jungle trails and loose mud can be tricky.. yes, but walking on ice can be extremely dangerous if you're not careful. Specially if you're climbing at a time the sun is out; which is er most of the time. The ice melts and your shoes go right in and it becomes a pain very soon if your feet get wet. The key is to step into large footmarks made by even larger shoes :D. If there's no real path, you have to make one - you kick the ice in in the shape of a shoe and try and give yourself a space to step into, before you actually step into it. Don't step on loose ice; there's a big chance you'll slip. Not always .. of course but its better if you have a technique and a way of walking; it makes the trek a lot more fun.

The lunch point at Nagaru was the first 'lunch on the rocks' ;) and no.. there was no scotch before you ask me. Bad joke eh? I know ;). So the point is that it was actually just a small dry spot with plenty of flattish rocks and a small 'Maggi selling' space. The number of omlettes people ate were huge; how I managed to bear the smell without choking is an absolute miracle. Probably it again comes down to your mental conditioning, your attitude and your physical state. If that's all ok, these small things won't bother you - but if they're not, then every small problem can get blown up and be frustrating to you. So while everyone ate whatever; i just stretched out in as comfortable a position as possible and napped a little.

The second part of the Nagaru climb was no doubt a little tricky. The path was normal - mountains on one side and a valley drop on the other side but the key point was that part of it was on ice and part of it was in some stupid mud. The guide said that the ladies should go first as it was a little dangerous so i continued napping till I had to move. By the time I got up I was right at the back :D. The path was definitely a little tricky; primarily coz a slip could send you down the valley and you'd have to climb back up the ice again, which would stop being 'fun' very soon. The mud patch was worse than the ice, I think cause the feet kept sinking in. Doable yes, but a little tricky no doubt. That was then followed by plenty of dried cowdung which was wet because of the snow and wasn't too much fun either. The amount of dirt we all rolled in was a lot - overall.

Once that patch was negotiated it was just another step by step rock climb and we reached Nagaru at around 1:30 in the afternoon. This was all ice walking by the way. A lot of the guys had already started wearing their goggles to avoid snow blindness which we'd been told about at Basecamp. The campsite was extremely small and with just about enough space to pitch the tents and cook food. It cannot be easy for all those villagers to cook food for so many people at that altitude. Even burning wood would be extremely difficult to do; but they do it - all the time and that's what makes it so much easier for trekkers. If they weren't there the trek would be much much harder.

The scene at camp was quite awesome though. I'll try and describe the setting here. You're in the centre. Tents are all around you in a small space. In front of you and behind you are just sheets and sheets of ice and snow. To your right you could see the Ratapani camp in the midst of a huge canopy of trees if you looked down. Between the trees you could see the peaks of plenty of snow covered mountains as well as bare brown mountains, making the entire landscape a hue of white interspersed with green and brown. To your left you could again see snow peaks and bare mountains, alternating with each other. Quite a picture that. I've never seen so much ice in all my life. No - I don't have a picture of it - which is your next question ;)

Everyone chucked a lot of ice and snow on each other here. Well not everyone; it was primarily Shubha Ma'm who kept saying - 'How can you just sit there with so much ice all around you?' .. I mean - that too is true in a way :D Anyway, everyone was super excited by this time at the prospect of crossing Sar Pass the next day. The camp leader told us to keep our caps half on; so we could hear instructions and not break rules. Fair enough too, stupidity on the mountains is just not on. Mr.Sharma was extremely concerned about the fact that he would not be able to perform his morning duties, due to us leaving early the next day, and made a lot of jokes about it to whoever would listen to him. Hua to hua yaar...nahin to nahi.. too much tension he took IMHO :)

There's a strange ..(well not so strange if you think of it) phenomenon that you see on the mountains. The weather will be nice and pleasant and you can walk around camp happily till the sun is up. The moment it sets, the temperature just drops - I mean DROPS. Yes, logically nights are colder always but the speed at which the warmth just melts away on the mountains is worth experiencing. So a tip is to put on warm clothing just before it sets; helps you retain a little of your body heat, before it gets too cold. Obviously as I said in one of my earlier blogs, you can do it later too, it'll just take longer to get warm.

The only other unique thing about Nagaru was that there was no running water here and it was just ice melting into water when the sun was high. So obviously you'd have to use it sparingly. I'm sure it touched zero that night but since there wasn't too much wind, it was bearable and dare I say better than what it was at Padri, which I thought was the coldest. No wind meant that tents wouldn't blow off; the camp lead did tell us to hold the tent down in case it blew too hard. That was NOT a comforting thought :D

Dinner was quite early for obvious reasons and we'd have our earliest start the next day - at 4:00am cause we'd have to get across SarPass before the sun came out. It becomes harder and harder to walk in melted ice. I made it a point to return an extra sleeping bag that we had in our tent; no point holding on to it - someone else might need it for some reason. Its best left with the camp lead.

Well D-Day tomorrow...finally. 12,500 feet today. One final snuggle inside those awesome sleeping bags and an attempt to sleep..on those slopes without sliding too far either side. Breathing was noticeably a little heavier that night, for me at least - but the sheer exhaustion of the body meant that most of us would drop off.SarPass tomorrow...!!!

I thought of merging SarPass with Nagaru, but this blog itself expanded as I continued writing..so wait up for SarPass.. I'll get that out in a while :)

Here's a pic from the Nagaru camp - https://picasaweb.google.com/105668398587385381970/HimalayaSurPassTrek3?authkey=Gv1sRgCOyTko3ax6_wTQ&feat=email#5612114301125294306

Sarpass 2011 - Ratapani

It was really really cold on Day 6 at Padri when we got up and extremely uncomfortable if you were just out of a sleeping bag. Anyway as usual there is not much you can do about it, apart from try and warm yourself up in whatever way you choose. Bhavesh from our tent said he could not go on due to an extremely dodgy tummy and Bharath said he would go back with him, as he'd promised him that. We tried to persuade the guy but as they say, once a person's mind is made up - its very hard to get him to change it. That meant we were down to 38.

There were no toilets at Padri [finally ;)] and it was toilet paper time. Searching for a spot is an utter pain due to obvious reasons and my misery was compounded when a fallen tree branch whacked my knee and cut it open. Its more painful if its cold, as you know. Anyway I just grit my teeth and finished off what I came there to do. I trust you do not want further details so I stop here ;)

Another thing at camp is that there are no changing rooms or changing 'spots'. Obviously not. So you find innovative ways to change clothes. A few such ways are:
a) Under towels
b) You don't change at all ;)
c) In er full view
d) Inside a sleeping bag
e) Using rugs as towels
Okay okay I'll stop - that's more than enough to make my point.

I think there was a huge collective sigh when the sun came out at around 7:45 just like the Camp Leader said and everyone gladly stood in the sun for some time getting warm. Its amazing how much we all depend on nature, despite all the technology around; more so in these remote areas. Breakfast and hot tea was most welcome as they warmed the insides up as well. On the same note, I think the food was excellent throughout - considering the circumstances under which it was prepared. Everyone then did a bit of campus cleaning so that the areas would be as clean as possible for the next bunch of people. I think that all this is very important; you'd like a place to be clean - so do your own bit to leave it clean when you go.

The trek to Ratapani is a little more taxing than the previous 2 routes and we shouldn't ideally go too slow. The ideal time to reach the next camp is somewhere around 3 or 4pm. The camp lead this time specifically told me to try and push the guys along a little faster so we reached camp on time. That meant staying somewhere near the back and moving as fast as possible with the slower members of the team. It did mean cutting down on my own pace a little, but it was a bit of a new challenge so I was cool with it.

We moved off at around 9:30 in the morning towards Ratapani. I lagged right at the back this time and tried to motivate the guys as much as I could in moving a little faster than usual. Its a tough thing to do though, because everyone wants to move at their own pace. Some just don't want to go fast; others want to click more photgraphs; some want to be with their own groups, some cannot go beyond a certain speed.. it could be anything. All the same, I tried to help wherever I could; passing on a few of my own tips to a few of the guys which might help them move a little faster. They all tried to go as fast as they could to their credit, but beyond a limit there isn't much anyone can do. Its each individual trekker who sets his or her own pace. Yeah you can try and scare them a little or try and forcibly drag them along, but that's not how I work or for that matter any good trekker would work. So around 3 hours into the climb, after getting assurances from the back of the pack, that they'd take care of the slower guys I pushed off towards the top of the pack.

It was obviously going to be hard reaching right to the top but it was a nice little challenge for me, personally. I went off as fast as I could and made reasonably good ground over the next 45 minutes or so and reached a spot where the guide was. The guide was a nice guy, most of the people were quite cool for that matter and was complaining that no one listened to him and had moved on despite his advice. I took a bit of a breather too, I'd climbed too fast too soon :).

Just as I was preparing to move off again I heard the voices of Anu tai and Ms.Geetha yelling out my name. I couldn't see them but the voices were extremely urgent so I dumped my bag and ran off in the direction of the voices. A brisk 5 minute jog or so brought me to a point where they were both sort of marooned on a dusty slope full of loose dry mud and stones. The slope had a steepish gradient to it and they were stuck halfway on all fours and couldn't go up or down. The worst case, even if they'd toppled down wouldn't have been serious; they'd just have to go around and climb back up again. All that logic however sort of goes out of the window when you're stuck there :). Mr.Rishi was there at the top of the slope trying to get the ladies to climb up slowly but they were really finding it hard. So with Mayank's help I started walking down the slope, to a point where I could grab them and help them upward. Clutching on to a dead buried root [hopefully really firmly buried ;)] and with Mayank's navigation I extended my entire body so that they could use my shoe as a hand hold and clamber upward. Once they were within arm's reach I gave them a hand and they used that as further leverage to manage to get to the top. As Mr.Rishi later put it, rescue mission 1 had been successfully completed.

After a bit of a break and a lot of cursing of everyone who went off ahead, the rest of us who were somewhere in the middle of the group started walking following a lot of arrows. The route is generally so well marked at YHAI that all you need to do is to keep your eyes open for them. Arrows will usually be found on a clean piece of fixed dead wood or a clean rock most of the time; so keep looking left and right for the arrows. If you miss a couple of arrows and are alone, trekking can become a major pain very fast, trust me :). Well anyway the route itself while a little boring, was simple enough if you followed the arrows and after about an hour or so of trekking we reached the lunch point where the rest of the guys were all in various positions on various parts of the grass.

I gratefully stretched out on the grass for a while and surveyed everything. The view was wonderful as usual. Since it was almost 3 and I wanted to ward off my familiar headaches I decided to force lunch in. It was during lunch that I found out that Mr.Dog does not like potatoes. The Nobel Prize is mine now. For sure. I mean surely no one knew that before??? What's that? Its a pointless irrelevant detail? You're just jealous .. I say..very very jealous that I am going to get the Nobel Prize now :)

Well we all started off pretty quickly; most of our group who came in just 10 minutes ago also pushed off. Anu tai said she'd rather eat at camp instead of just then; it'd be too hurried. To each his own :). The last climb was a little hard due to it being a vertical rock climb. There were plenty of hand holds though, so apart from it being physically demanding, I think it was quite cool. I'd like to take a minute to commend YHAI on the fact that they had rock climbing and rappelling during the initial days to get the trekkers used to it mentally. I doubt too much technique was used but as is so often the case, if you're mentally clear and you think you can do it - you can - even if your skill level isn't up there.

My right knee had started acting up again, whenever the trek gets physically demanding and I've climbed or walked too fast or too much, the outside of my right knee pains a lot. I have no clue why it happens or what I have to do to avoid it; well apart from stopping trekking ;). A little bit of rest usually fixes the problem, but its very painful and even walking becomes difficult. Theek hi hai... as long as you know your body well enough, you shouldn't let these things worry you too much :). I was quite happy to get a tent and rest the knee a little though; it'd become very painful.

After about an hour, I hobbled down and washed up and shaved a little. Its worth mentioning this fantastic system these guys have for supplying water; there's a pipe which goes into the stream somewhere and continuously keeps pumping water through it at the camp site. Obviously you don't have temperature, speed or pressure control here ;) but the very fact that you have an uninterrupted stream of water supply is a fab achievement. IMO anyway.

Dinner rolled by, a stop start campfire happened and we even had a debate about wood burning. The camp leader kept saying we couldn't burn wood and Nagendra kept saying.. fine lets not burn but at least lets put it forward as a suggestion. The camp lead was a bit pissed overall though, I felt due to someone taking extra blankets without asking him. I'm not too sure why the guys did that either; they could've just asked, I thought. Anyway nothing serious and everything calmed down quite quickly. Some of them warmed up in front of a fire lit by the villagers in the end.

The day ended on a stupid note for me anyway. I had to relieve myself just before going to sleep and went searching for a spot in the jungle using Shreyanshu's torch. Somehow I strayed off the jungle path and couldn't find my way back. I ended up climbing up and then slipping down and hurting my left arm in the jungle. That was really very painful. Luckily HariOm saw my torch light and said that I just needed to come down a little and the path was there. Further disaster was hence avoided. I'm not sure how I lost my way really... its best to keep it simple and find the nearest spot in the night. And walk slowly. The best suggestion is to not go out at all ;)

It was 10,700 feet at Ratapani and we were getting closer and closer to Sarpass. Off to Nagaru and Sarpass in Part 5 then :)