NANDA DEVI: The second to last trek - Himalayas Nanda Devi, India
Himalayas Nanda Devi, India
Where I stayed
Tent
What I did
Trekking
Mountains
NANDA DEVI: The second to last trek
A sentimental journey
"The mountain is not a bet, it's an emotion" - Walter Bonatti
Introduction
Half-way through the month of October of 1978, when I was trekking across the Himalaya for five months, from Kashmir and Ladakh to Sikkim, crossing the north of India and Nepal, a strong snowstorm forced us (my porter and I) to retreat when we were about to get to the sanctuary of the Nanda Devi (Goddess Nanda), the highest (7,817 m), most sacred and beautiful mountain of the Indian Himalayas: a sanctuary – in the sense of a place of protection and refuge – which had not been violated until 1934. We were in what was called the external part of the Sanctuary, a ring of mountains rising up to 7,000 m which we had accessed two days before through a challenging 4,600 m. pass, the only access to the aforementioned sanctuary. If it continued to snow, the pass would be inaccessible and so we would be trapped for the whole winter, and so forever. I have beautiful and exciting memories from that trek, which was in part a failure, through one of the most gorgeous and mysterious parts of Asia.
Last October, on the 25th, I became 75 years old, incredible but true! To celebrate it, I went to India a few days ahead of that date to re-live the trip and trek up to that cave in the Sanctuary where I slept the night before the snow storm. However, this time one porter was not enough, but two, a guide and a cook, all provided hired thru Mountain Shepherds, because I was required to take them by the authorities that control the National Reserve of the Biosphere of the Nanda Devi and also to ensure my security.
From Delhi to Josimath
I have just arrived in Delhi, eight o'clock in the morning, having stopped in Doha, Qatar airlines. Multiracial crew. Excellent service from the pretty air hostesses, ranging from Thai to Swedish. But I am not distracted, I can only think of the goddess Nanda; she is the reason for my trip.
Barbara is worried, so much that for the first time in all the trips I have taken, she has accompanied me to the airport. Cristina is worried too. She has phoned me from Stirling, where she is studying, to wish me a safe flight and adding at the end: "Dad, I love you" which means "be very careful and please come back!". Don't worry girls, I am not thinking of abandoning you just yet.
On my first trip to India in 1977 – this is already the fifteenth – from the airport to the capital everything was fields, cows, carts, some Ambassador taxis and families installed in the ditches of the narrow road. Now it’s motorways full of barriers and policemen, bridges and a super modern express train tearing through waste ground half way through urbanisation, with buildings constructed by local "entrepreneurial" developers.
I've got a ticket for the 11.30 am train to Haridwar, but I’m only on the waiting list at number 18. My Indian neighbour on the plane assured me though that I would definitely get a seat with that number. Many seats are reserved for politicians, the military or other VIPs. A young and half-crazy taxi driver leaves me at the old Delhi train station with my big fat backpack: sleeping bag, inflatable mat, minimal clothing (another pair of trousers, two shirts, two pieces of underwear, a jumper and gloves, and knee bandages for the down hill stretches), a lot of medicines (high blood pressure, antibiotics, vertigo, arthritis, diarrhoea, etc.), a bar of black chocolate and 200 g of Iberian ham: only 12 kg in total. In my small bag I carry both my cameras, accessories, pen and paper and the 100 pages (from the more than 1,500 of the Footprint guide) which are dedicated to Delhi and the area to which I am going; in my moneybelt are passport, credit cards and money. Together with all this, at 35º C, I have a real goose-feather anorak. The heat it emits is unbearable.
"Namaste". "No problem". I have a seat. But I am exhausted from climbing the stairs with all my luggage. Now I need to change money. After asking the half dozen Indians who have surrounded me since I got out of the taxi, I understand that the lockers are on the other side of the tracks. I go with a porter to leave my backpack. I get the first taxi driver and start to head towards the market where there is a bank, but just as we have started the journey he cheekily adds: "But today is Sunday - bank is closed."
Instead, there is a cash machine at the station but it doesn’t work; there is another one on the other side. It only gives 2,000 rupees = 30 €. I tell the security guide and he, very nicely, shows me how to get out 13.000. He obviously gets a tip. After the hassle, it is now time to catch the train. I get my backpack but panic when I realise that on the departures board there is no Haridwar. However I get help. It is the “Indore” express, i.e. where the train originated. On my ticket for some reason it says “Dehra Dun”.
Second class, bunk beds. Four in each compartment and two more between window and corridor. I have the one at the bottom. The train has been travelling for two days which is noticeable by the residue of food, broken glass, and dirty and destroyed curtain hangings. It looks worse than it did thirty years ago. They are the same trains so they are now very much older. I try to sleep but it is impossible. The children travelling in the opposite compartment don’t stop screaming, running up and down and playing. Oh! Lovely India!
Rani, my taxi driver hired through the internet, is waiting for me in Haridwar. Today we’ll go to Rishikesh; tomorrow to Josimath, the start of my trek. He looks exactly like Gandhi from the movie and seems to be as bright and kind. Rishikesh is the supermarket of spirituality since the Beatles came here to take a course on meditation with a famous guru of the time. Yoga classes, meditation and sacred dances for Indians as well as westerners who are looking for their lost souls in a variety of ashrams – which are half hotels-half temples, full of Shivas, tigers and spires perched on the edge of the sacred Ganges, newly born from the Himalayas. And most recently, it has also become the Indian capital for rafting. My hotel is next to the river, but protected from the noise. I haven't stopped for 32 hours, but this is nothing compared to what awaits me up in the mountains!
Next day I go for a walk and take only a few pictures. I am going to spend a whole day here on my way back. At eight o’clock, I am on my way to Josimath. The landscape is stunning; the road runs across steep mountain slopes 300 m above the river. Forests, monkeys, and cows – or road inspectors as the Indian drivers call them – which roam along the middle of the road. There are various little colourful villages bordering the road and white temples crowning the mountain tops. Also, a lot of traffic. It is the time of the Yatra, an annual pilgrimage to the four temples situated each at the start of the four rivers that form the Ganges. Soon enough we arrive at the first landslide to block the road. The monsoons have just about ended and the torrents have eroded the hillside. A massive power shovel works its way clearing the road while we wait. Then – chaos. Everybody wants to go through first. Lorries, buses, and cars jostle for position with the sound of their horns. But nobody gets angry.
Josimath looks the same after 30 years: disorderly and half a km above the river bank below. The road is its main street; however it has tripled its length. Shops at each side, one out of four selling mobile phones as in the rest of India, while lorries, communal taxis and the rest make their way through with hooting and shouts. Noise,but no violence though.
The next day I take a communal taxi; there is room for five people but there are ten of us squashed into it. I am allowed the seat next to the window, thankfully. I am going to Badrinath, one of the four most sacred temples of India, at the foot of the sharp Nilkhanta, where one of the four rivers, the Alaknanda, erupts from the mountains. After a visit to the colourful and busy temple, ringing the bell to shoo away evil spirits, I throw myself up the mountain to try out my mettle. So many hours by plane, train and car, and I am now in my element. I meet some saddhus (nomad monks) living in huts or under rocks next to the trail. We exchange greetings as I pass by. I still feel young but I do have to admit – it is harder than before. As Picasso remarked: "When I am told I can’t do something because of my age, I attempt it immediately."
In the afternoon, Nandu, my guide for the trek comes to see me at the hotel. He is young, smiling, modern and polite, with perfect English. He creates a very good impression. He gives me the details of our trek. I still need to get used to the altitude. Therefore the next day I shall go up to Auli (3,000 m), a collection of fields above Josimath, recently converted into a skiing station. Thirty years ago I did it by foot, this time though, I prefer to get a taxi and I stay for the night in the highest hotel there. From it, I trek up through a magnificent and lonely forest, which seems enchanted, till I get to a big clearing where I can take pictures of the Nanda Devi. "The Eternal White Divine Queen of Kumaon" looks gorgeous and radiant.
The Trek
Next afternoon, Nandu's brother took us in his little car up to Winter Lata: a dozen of houses on the road near the frontier with Tibet. From there, it’s an hour and a half up to Summer Lata, where supposedly its habitants spend the majority of the year. Stone houses with wooden galleries all painted in blue. The chief of the village receives us in a courtyard surrounded by these houses. For forty years he has accompanied trekkers, as a guide or as a porter, through the mountains of the area. This village, altitude 2,370 m, is the starting point for all the treks.
I ask the whereabouts of Udai Singh, the porter who guided me in my 1978 trek. An amazing man. “He was swallowed by the river when trying to cross it in 1998”. I am surprised and mortified. I would have loved to see him again. I feel really sad about the news. I show him the pictures I took so many years ago: a woman with crops on her shoulder; a child carrying wood. The pictures go from hand to hand, a few woman have joined us at this point. The woman in the picture died a few years ago from a heart attack. They recognise the child as well, “He lives near here”. We go to visit him and he receives us, amazed at the picture dating from when he was five years old. He has changed a lot; he was very cute back then. The most dangerous moment of the day is going back after supper; giant steps down of half a meter, in the dark, down to the hut which belongs to the chief and where I am going to stay the night.
At half past eight the real trek begins, after a visit to the local temple, naturally dedicated to the goddess Nanda. Three porters accompany us – a bit excessive I think. I later change my mind as I realise the amount of food and other weight they carry. They want to treat me like a king. One of them is the cook. The path is easy, crossing a gorgeous forest of oaks, conifers and rhododendrons. It however gets much harder as the way gets steeper; big steps made of massive rocks, placed so as to stop erosion of the ground by the monsoonal rains. I am not bothered. I am surrounded by my beloved mountains and I rejoice in the beauty, the solitude and that aura of mystery which wild and old forests project; the mixture of light and shadow, the silence broken by unexpected and strange sounds.
We get to our first campsite at around noon, after crossing a wide torrent with stepping stones. We could have been there earlier but I had stopped for a chat with two Belgians, mid 50s, who live in Laos. They have not gone further than Lata Kharak – my objective for the next day – and they had found their last hour of trekking uphill very hard. They did not dare to go up to Dharansi as one of them had high blood pressure.
My team has pitched my tent on a rise which offers a gorgeous view over the river, 1,000 m below, the village and a wide semi-circle of mountains. They will sleep in a semi-ruined shepherd hut. I take my blood pressure: 16.7/10.6, the same as the afternoon before. I should be on my way to hospital! I take a Tarka pill and do 20 minutes of breathing exercises. It goes down to 13/8.
I wake up at around six o’clock. My blood pressure has gone up again: Tarka and exercises but it does not go down. I don't get out of my sleeping bag till seven, when I am brought breakfast. Scrambled eggs, uneatable by the amount of salt the cook has used, cereal with milk, chapatis with jam and two bananas. The climb is very tough – very, very steep even though we continue through the forest. After a while I need to stop every 50 m to catch my breath. I am starting to feel the altitude. We stop for an hour to have lunch, chapatis with some ham and some juice. My blood pressure is still high and I start to get worried. Just after 2 pm, after innumerable hairpins in the path, we arrive at Lata Kharak, 3.800 m. I have climbed 900 m in four hours, not bad at all.
We spent the night in a very habitable wooden cabin, with four barren rooms, courtesy of the Forestry Service, situated below the top of the slope, just at the tree line. I manage even to talk to Cristina and Barbara on the phone. How incredible that there is a signal at these altitudes. After an hour of rest, and my exercises, I check my blood pressure. To my surprise and relief it has gone down considerably to 12/7. I think I am getting much better acclimatised to the altitude. Before supper, I chat with three young Indians from Bangalore who are also staying in the cabin. Only one of them has managed to reach Dharansi with his guide; the others turned back earlier, at the gorges of the Satkhula. It seemed too dangerous and they were tired. It is absolutely freezing; therefore I sleep inside the sleeping bag with my anorak on, and I would continue that practice during the following nights.
The next day, I do an excursion with Nandu up to the saddle, the edge of the external sanctuary. From here there is a brilliant view to the east, of the deep gorge of the Rishi Ganga down below and the peaks that surround it. During more than half the distance, there is no path. I have to climb over and between rocks and stones. It is hard but also excellent exercise. Amen to the breathtaking views, the white summits, covered with snow, of the Bethartoli Himal, the three summits of the Trisul – the trident of Shiva – and the pyramids of Nanda Devi, powerful mistress dominating them all. In total, we spent about five hours’ hard walking at 4000 m. We return to the cabin to spend the night. My blood pressure continues normal and I am looking forward to the morrow.
My memories of this day from 1978 couldn't be more wrong. The forest now left behind, the path ploughs between tall reddish grass and uneven ground and rocks, accompanying us to the Jhandidar pass. I am in the heart of the mountains, as if I were in the middle of both everything and nothing. I feel so small, alone with sky and earth, at the point where both meet. I take several pictures, against the light so that the sunbeams create semi-transparencies on the petals of the Himalayan lotus flowers growing by the path. Also my three porters at the top of the slope, their black silhouettes contrasting with the deep blue of the sky.
We stop for an hour at the pass to rest and have something to eat. The Dunagiri at our left and the enigmatic Nanda face us. Clouds are, as every day, starting to envelop them. I exhale with delight. I can still handle this. I am tired but also ecstatic. Some chapatis, two half boiled potatoes, some nuts and a green banana – with the cold they don't ripen. Thank god for my Iberian ham.
Right here is where the seven gorges of the Satkhula are born. I did not remember them so jagged. We cover nearly a kilometre, about 2 hours of ups and downs at 4.500-4,600 m, rockclimbing through overhangs, and crossing above precipices, with slabs of slate strategically placed by the shepherds of Lata. I remembered the joy of the mountaineer, but I had forgotten the difficulty of the terrain. Here, in the trek of 1978, I was witness to a porter, falling to his death on the way back from an expedition that had attempted to climb the Dunagiri, where the two American "sahibs" had disappeared during the climb.
I remember those events with anguish. Back then, the memory of those tragedies accompanied me the whole way back through the snow. But today, my porters walk with a firm step and I am aware of my limits. I am not going to go jumping from rock to rock like one of those blue goats, bharals, that we saw on the way up.
After crossing the gorges, a gradual but long descent, again between tall grasses and crumbling rocks, leads us to the Dharansi pass. After eight hours of making a massive effort I am exhausted. The sun and the top of the mountains have long hidden behind the clouds, which also obscure the valley. The landscape has now become saddened and the exultation I felt this morning has changed to an ardent desire just to get to a blue speck: the tent which the porters have pitched near the top of the pass. The fog lifts for a moment and the sun warms my last steps.
With tea in hand I sit at the entrance of the tent. I enjoy the spectacle of the mountains and the knowledge that the worst is over. The earth is now red, like the sky at sunset. Silence surrounds us. It is borne upwards by the clouds, from the far away valleys of the world, to take root here and shade me in the luxury of solitude. I wait for supper, the night and slumber.
The morning of that 6th day, I feel well rested. My plan is to descend to Dibrugheta, at the bottom of the gorge and sleep in the cave where I slept back in 1978. However, camping in the reserve is now prohibited. I try to persuade Nandu. “We could just go down, the two of us.” He is not convinced. If we are caught, he could lose his guiding permit. So I have to make do with climbing up to the crest, and taking some pictures. A spur hides part of Nanda Devi. But I feel both awed and elated at being there, right before my dream mountain. I shall never get so close again. Although you never know – I wasn't planning on coming back when I last took this trip!
At that time in 1978, I didn't really think much about my future, or about other people. I was living in the present. I had just left my "serious" job, and in no sense had I dreamed that my new profession would involve travelling the world and telling my stories with camera and pen. Then there were no strings. Now however, my wife and daughter are waiting for me. It is nice to think about them.
The return
It is now after 9 am next morning, and we start the trail back. It is going to be quite a journey to get back to Lata Kharak. After more than an hour, when I have already been back and forth on the hairpin trail, I can’t face the eight that are still to come. Therefore, I ask Nandu whether we two can camp half-way. We can just take with us five litres of water and share the tent. The porters can continue down to the cabin in Lata Kharak as pre-arranged. Again, after the first long ascent, we face the hard crossing of the rough gorges of the Satkhula, all enveloped in the fog.
But after Jhandidar pass, it’s nearly all downhill so I decide to continue. During the final two hours I need to stop every twenty minutes, and then every ten. When I finally see the orange flags which mark the cabin I sit down for a long while, alone, to say goodbye to the great majestic mountains. Growing old is like climbing one of these mountains: on the way up, one’s strength diminishes, but at the top the gaze is clearer, and the view, wider and more serene.
Next day, and in one go, we descend trough the forest until we get to the village, and then to the road. To get there, we have a last adventure. Nandu takes a short-cut and we find ourselves at the top of a big wall, the ground three meters below. He jumps, but I don't dare, my knees have suffered enough. He stands against the wall and I use him as a ladder, standing on his up stretched palms and then his shoulders. A little while after, we arrive in Josimath. Farewells and hugs, tips for Nandu and his team. And I am happy, and proud of what I have just achieved. I feel much younger. Already, walking through the forest, I have begun to think of the trek for next year, or should I leave it for when I am 80?
Francisco Po Egea / Dec. 2011.
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/71104048@N 00/
Slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/71104048@N 00/show/
1978 trekking story (Spanish): http://geaphotowords.com/blog/?p=10087