There is something about the abiding beauty and grandeur of the Himalayas that makes you addicted to it , having even once seen any of its ranges. That is what goaded me once again to enroll for the KedarKanta trek organised by the Youth Hostel Association of India, in spite of my lingering apprehensions about my aging knees and blood pressure, that has not quite been normal. But what can I say, it’s all about the spirit being strong, when the flesh is weak, I guess. I went, I saw and I conquered myself.

      Before reporting at Mussorie, some of us from Delhi had paid a visit to the Tehri dam. There was something so very depressing about the bare mountains all around- the price we have to pay for our “development”?

    But the next several days, after reporting at the base camp at Sankhari, about eight hours away, North of Mussoorie, were spent in a different world. We trekked through forests with majestically towering trees, where the only sounds were that of silence, lush green meadows wonderfully alive with the abundant smiles of tiny yellow flowers, so generously spread out, rippling streams originating from melting glaciers and meandering its way through the forests, the water cool and clear. From the Kedarkanta base camp, we trekked up to the Kedarkanta peak, which is at a hieght of around 11,500 feet, slid down snowy slopes on the way to the next camp at Lohasu Thatch and from there to Dhundha, so called because of the proclivity of the weather there, towards mist and fog. Shortly after reaching there,  there was a hailstorm which left the ground surrounding the tents, enveloped in white.

    The route from Dhundha to Talhouti had us traversing several stetches of snowy slopes. Even as we walked, one behind the other in a single file, the guide preparing footholds for us with his axe, my friend from Delhi, Vijaya, blacked out for a split second and the next moment, she was sliding down the slope, rucksack and all, tumbling twice as she went further down and then disappeared from our sight . Those were scary moments. But the snow was fresh, there were no boulders in her way and the guides were with her , even as she reached the bottom of the slope, to bring her back to where we had stopped. She had bruises on her face and shoulders caused by the hardened ice at places and she had sprained her wrist. But Vijaya is a seasoned trekker with a lot of grit and stamina. She didn’t panic. Some of us did though and  all through the succeeding stretches of snow ,which we walked across with the help of carabiners around our waist hooked on to  a rope, fastened across the snow, there were intermittent appeals of  “ Guide Bhaiyya…zara madad karo na..”

    At those higher altitudes, there was no habitation at all and the surroundings existed in all its pristine purity. There was such a sense of harmony all around, the tiniest of seasonal flowers having its place in the scheme of things as the tall trees which had been standing there for years and years. Trees which had lived their lives, lay across the ground here and there, graceful in their death as when they had lived, their stature none the less for the decay that was taking over their trunks and branches.

     In a forest on the way to a camp at a lower altitude, I met this little boy, appearing suddenly between the trees. He said he was going to bring back his cows which had gone grazing since morning. I wondered where he would find them, the forest stretching out almost unendingly in all directions, as it appeared to me. But he of course had no such doubts. He had a kind of sickle attached to a stick and would probably bring back firewood for his mother’s chulha or a bundle of grass. Life in these parts is tough, survival itself denoting hard labour, which starts at a very young age. I guess  that as a race, we are capable of high degrees of tolerance if it is called for, but which can also become almost non-existent , the more we indiulge ourselves with comforts.  The hardness of their lives however, did not appear to make them hard. There is a softness in their faces that comes through, even through the wrinkles that set in early because of the inclemental weather conditions and which is hard to come by in a city dweller.

   It is almost impossible to capture it all through a camera, because every step you take ,reveals to you a different “picture postcard” composition, in all its real glory. Those with digital cameras kept clicking awy. I had with me an old-fashioned Minolta autofocus camera. You may have a look at them at this link:

       Believe me, the photographs haven’t been able to capture a fraction of how beautiful the terrain really was.

      It’s definitely more desirable if one is able to take time out for a trek of this kind when one is younger. On days, when the trek was predominantly a climb, I had to stop every now and then to catch my breath. My knees didn’t bother me as I thought it would . But the last couple of days did leave me feeling a little exhausted because  of a fever that persisted even after I returned to Delhi. I came back repeatedly telling the others in the group, that I was glad I had participated and that I was able to complete it, but that I may not venture for something like this again. But you see, that was when the fever kept coming back.  Typing this out now, I am not too sure . As I said it is a wonderful  addiction to get afflicted with and may be I am not interested in a cure.  :-)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26719029@N07/sets/72157605195002228/