By Henry
I would be about the last person you’d expect to go glaciering in the Himalayas. My previous hiking experience mostly consisted of camping in my backyard some years ago, and long walks to the local coffee shop with my dogs. I am also used to constant stimulation via boardgames, books, or technology.
Thanks to Duke’s generosity, I was able to expand my horizons through the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). Seeing the places available for NOLS courses, the Himalayas expedition immediately caught my eye…. as being way too scary! My thought was: “That sounds really hardcore. People have died on these NOLS Himalayas expeditions. Maybe one less extreme for me.” Still, I wanted to see if I could live the life of the outdoorsman or if it was even something I would enjoy, to escape from technology and the daily rhythms of my life, to see what I really need to be happy and what really is a core part of my identity amidst, as I envisioned it, the unchanging uninhabited frozen peaks of the Himalayas.
With these goals in mind, I arrived in India for the 40-day expedition to climb a high altitude glacier in the Himalayas. Thankfully, we didn’t head straight into the mountains. First, we went to the NOLS camp at 6,150 ft to get supplies and some basic instruction. Even on the drive to this camp, we could see the snow-capped Himalayas looming in the distance (in addition to countless cows wandering the countryside). Much to our surprise, when we arrived, we discovered the camp itself was on an active Indian army base, complete with slogans such as “Stay low, stay fast, shoot first, die last” on all the signs. Despite this, life there was surprisingly normal, and after a week, many wild monkey sightings, and meeting one fellow DGYP student, it was time to climb. We were prepared. As we approached the Himalayas, things got more serious. The Jeeps started traversing steep cliffside roads. Many streams flowed down the mountains perpendicular to the road making it impassable after rains. While crossing one stream we heard the scraping of metal on rock and a clang. When we got out, we found a part of the car a few meters behind us. Eventually, we arrived at the edge of a forest.
We shouldered our 70lb packs and started down the path. Twenty minutes in, I knew something was wrong. My shoulders were killing me. I had never hiked with such a large bag before, and I began to suspect the root cause. I hadn’t known how much to tighten the waist strap, and the weight from the bag was resting on my back and shoulders rather than my hips. I tightened the waist strap, but the damage was done. Somehow, I managed to stagger through the day, despite also having barely enough water. I never did figure out how to properly drink water while hiking. However, at long last, we did make it to what used to be a mountaintop village, by the name of Dakhuri (altitude 9,646). At the end of the day, I wrote in my notebook “this was hell.”
Dakhuri has four major buildings. It used to be much larger, but in the past few years the Indian government built a road bypassing it. It was a Himalayan ghost town just like in the American West. The next day, our first full day of hiking proved to us the complexity of our surroundings. We hiked along an ancient stone path made by lining up vaguely brick-shaped stones placed vertically on their long sides, but we also saw brand new powerlines adjacent to the trail. We slept at a town called Khati (7,250ft), the endpoint of the road bypassing Dakhuri. There was a stark contrast between the town, full of modern shops including a general store, and everything else we had or would see.
From Khati it was a grueling struggle down to the bottom of the valley and all the way back up to a town by the name of Jatoli (7,500ft). We stayed there a couple days to continue to acclimate. There we saw numerous chai shops, farmers working high up on incredibly steep mountain slopes, school children in uniforms, and eventually, on the day we were leaving, a herd of more than 1,000 sheep and goats led by several shepherds. They completely filled the small paths, making it hard for us to leave! Although the distance we traveled that day was short (twelve klicks), hiking at elevations above 7,000ft in the Himalayas on small winding paths with massive elevation changes, while carrying our large bags, is always tiring. When we eventually arrived at our destination of Dwali (8,566ft), we found a taste of what was to come. The bridge to the tiny village had washed away, so the villagers had replaced it with a narrow home-made bridge without any rails. We were well beyond the last hint of electricity, and felt the isolation of the village. But, we made a “cake” with m&ms to celebrate NOLS’ 60th birthday. We slept in our tents, with the sound of rivers rushing by on either side of the village.
The next day we started to see snowcapped peaks up close. Wind blown waterfalls fell down the cliffs at odd angles across the valley. At night we watched flashes of lightning illuminate the sky. We stayed at a place called Martoli (12,530ft), a shepherd’s village, for a few days to acclimatize. It consisted of two stone huts (3-4 feet tall) where the shepherds sleep when they pass through or meet up. The Pindari river rushed by us below a small cliff. We rested amid a sea of wide-leafed grass where we could imagine a rabbit frolicking. Dense blankets of fog rolled in and out. When it was clear, we looked across the river and saw our goal looming high above us: Baljuri Gal (just under 18,000ft), a pass on the other side of the Pindari river valley.
The Pindari river is fast and cold, but in places only 18ft wide. Its source is the Pindari glacier a short distance up the valley, still an impressive juggernaut of ice and snow, but much reduced from what it was. For us, the danger was getting wet. If we, or worse our sleeping bags, got wet it would be nearly impossible to dry them so high up with only a camping stove for heat. Even if we roped into something to avoid being washed away, we could not afford to fall in. We borrowed several logs from a holy man living nearby. Pushing one across the river, one of us scooted across and constructed a platform for the logs on the other side. Working together we were able to slide the ends of the other logs across and construct a bridge. It consisted of three logs. One at knee height supporting the other two for walking on. We strung ropes across as well to hold and tie our harnesses to. To cross, we tied in our packs and sent them separately, then we helmeted up and shimmied along ourselves. We camped below the mountain amidst babbling brooks, ready to summit our pass.
The approach through the valley was nothing like what I expected. My new experiences included sleeping in a tent for nearly 40 days (personal hygiene in those circumstances was rough!) and learning how to properly load a bag to maximize space and optimize the center of gravity. Yet the greatest discovery was the environment itself. We were visiting these mountains to learn leadership and experience adventure, but thousands of people were living their daily lives in these remote towns and villages. Their lives are changing year to year as new electric lines are added and roads improved. The Himalayas aren’t uninhabited or empty, much to my surprise, below 10,000ft. People find a way to live their whole lives there, and shepherds have found ways to thrive even in places that seem utterly unfit for habitation.
