My First Himalayan Trek

 

I am no avid trekker. I have gone for cycling trips, yoga camps but never veered towards trekking.

Three to four years back I read about Har ki Doon. The beauty of its paths transported me to another world. I made up my mind to do the trek. Once a decision is taken, it stays somewhere in my mind to be executed whenever the right time comes. 

Perhaps it is my proximity to Dehradun too that must have led me to chance upon the Har ki Doon trek. Uttarakhand’s capital city, Dehradun, at the foothills of the Himalayas, has been inviting me time and again. Thanks to a lady friend who was the principal of a school there. Every  time, I had to travel to Delhi for work, which was often, I made it a point to visit her for the weekend and soak in the fresh mountain air. That made me visit Dehradun about 10-15 times over the last 10 years. She retired 2 years back and I thought now my visits would be less frequent. Not yet. Now, another friend invites me, they showed me their new guest room and says that it is mine to occupy whenever I feel like. More visits are surely happening.

The COVID pandemic hit and the thought of doing the Har Ki Doon trek was pushed back. Last year, I again pondered whether I should do it. But wisely putting it off as I realised my body was not up to it. The pandemic had set my body few years behind. My cycling, the stair climbs, yoga, even my walks had been very irregular. My Vitamin D had touched a new low. Consequently, a low blood pressure. My legs did not feel strong. I would feel wobbly after a 45 minute walk. I decided to give it a pass.

April 2023 – I suddenly decided yes now is the time. My body was questioning – How come now is the time?  You have not even been doing regular cycling, no climbs, no jogging, no cardio, just walks and you are ready? But the decision made few years back came right into the forefront of the mind pushing me to get set and become ready.

Few friends felt like coming with me but could not make up their mind. Each one of us is on a different trip and a different climb in life at different points of time and it is hard to match the right time and the right place.

Not having any company has never meant for me to cancel any trip. It merely meant go solo and it has never been a problem. At times it is better. Because you stay with new people and make new friends and some new friendships become strong and long lasting as my experience has shown.

I began my search for a trekking company. I came upon trekthehimalayas. I seriously knew nothing of trekking companies at that time and really had no one to ask. This company felt dependable and knowledgeable after browsing their website and talking to the co-ordinator. I immediately signed up for May 7^th date. I checked if another single lady is there for me to share the tent and the co-ordinator said yes. But some meetings came up and I changed my trek date to May 21^st.  On hindsight, what did I think of my body? Hardly a month of training and I would be fit to do the trek?

May 19^th – Flew to Dehradun. May 21^th the 10-hr drive from Dehradun to Sankri, few of us crossing our fingers that we would not throw up in the bus with motion sickness, what with all the twists and twirls. May 22^st we began the trek. Some friends I spoke to later said there should have been one day to acclimatise. Perhaps. The 10-hr drive was quite a stress.

But we began. The night before the trek, I kept looking at my backpack and asking myself how do I reduce its weight. They had asked us to carry 2 bottles – one was a heavy flask, one fleece jacket, one tiffin (stainless steel is what I carried) for lunch, a medicines pack, dryfruits (which I carried a lot in a plastic tin), purse, torch, tetrapack juices, goggles, poncho (don’t understand why I bought a chic heavy one!), tissues and the rest of the small things. I got stressed knowing that I am unable  to remove anything. I saw that my co-trekker ladies whom I was put up with at night, had packed small and light backpacks. I was wondering how, only to later realise that their husbands and partners were carrying the heavy stuff. One big advantage of travelling with a male partner:))

I trekked half the distance on the first day and I looked up towards the peak of every climb and said how am I going to do this. 

I told one of the trek leaders my backpack is very heavy, I cannot climb with this. My legs were feeling so heavy. So mid-way he kindly agreed to put few of the stuff in his bag. Out went my poncho, my flask, my medicines and it felt a bit lighter. I had not prepared for the steep climbs. That was my fault. What did I expect in a Himalayan trek? I was breathing very heavily. I finished the day unwell. I threw up as we reached our campsite. I felt exhausted. I threw up and went searching for my tent where my tent buddy, the youngest in our group, was waiting outside to tell me that we both are tent buddies. We both had met each other at the Dehradun bus stand itself.  I told her I won’t be doing the trek, I will be going back. She said she too felt some disappointment and could not figure out why. She said she too does not feel she can do the trek.

I went inside my tent and crashed to a 1-hour sleep after which I heard people shouting “Veena don’t sleep. Come out”. The trek leader told me to come out. We were prevented from sleeping in the day time as it is said our respiratory system slows and cannot produce the oxygen as quickly in those altitudes. But believe me that one hour sleep did me good. I always avoid taking allopathy medicines back home. But I took in a Calpol 500, not wanting to get more sick in those altitudes!

I went outside to throw up and had tears in my eyes. I was thinking of how will I return back to Dehradun, I will be telling everyone I am back early as I could not do the trek, all those trek purchases and preparations gone waste and so on. A co-trekker who came from Gujarat told me “Himmat nahi haarana, aap kar sakate hai (Don’t lose courage, you can do it). I wanted to tell him then that all these big words just don’t help. Very easy to talk when your body is fine. In retrospect, it does help. It does sink in somewhere in the recesses of the mind.

That night I convinced my young tent buddy that just let us sleep and we will decide in the morning if we can do another day. Fortunately, both of us had a good sleep in that very uncomfortable sleeping bag under the low ceiling tent and we fortunately woke with a smile on our faces. That seemed a good omen. We were ready to try out one more day.

Our trek leader checked both of our oxygen levels and we both were fine. My tent buddy managed to make her backpack light as she too had found it very uncomfortable on day one. I tried removing a few things but it still weighed a lot. I wondered whether my backpack itself was a heavy one. I was mulling all the time whether to buy another one but one of the shopkeepers said my backpack is fine, it is the weight inside.

Day 2 my tent buddy was walking well and all was fine. But me, after my first big climb and again finding the backpack  heavy, I looked at our head trek leader, a spirited woman, who had to stay behind the last trekker. I told her I am tired. She said would you not be after a climb?. Then she said if you walk at this rate, we will reach at night. I asked her what to do. She did not say anything. We continued walking.

Mid-way through the trek, I again told her my backpack is heavy. If this was not there, I would be better off. I wanted to throw the backpack and feel light. When we stopped at an inn for a break, she was really kind to remove most of the things – medicines, dry fruits, fleece jacket, poncho and many other small things. She packed items it in such as a way as to distribute the weight evenly, she said that heavy things and food items must be kept in the center area, water bottles should be, one at the right side and one at left, all these I was unaware of (Two water bottles, one for normal water and one for ORS water).  She put all the stuff in a bag and made arrangements to send it through a mule to our campsite. 

It was then that a co-trekker, watching, offered to carry some more weight off me in his backpack. The trek leader smiled and said fine. She welcomed the team spirit.   

My backpack now was so light and my mind too was light, feeling so good with so much support. I had the trek leader and my co-trekker friend behind me and they were happily chatting about different peaks to scale across India. I was listening to them talking but I did not partake in the interesting conversations as I wanted to save my energy. I completed day 2 with not much difficulty.

After that my body got accustomed and the third day was the climb to Har Ki Doon where we would return to the same campsite. With my co-trekker friend, I happily scaled all the climbs and come to think of it we were the first to reach the Har Ki Doon top. We, in later chats, could not understand how that happened but guess the others were enjoying the valley below.

It was worth it. We could not see the Swargarohini peak clearly, the main attraction of Har Ki Doon,  as it was raining and cloudy. Nevertheless, the view of the mountains is so beautiful. The Har ki doon summit and the valley is so beautifully amazing.

From then on it was a downhill and I had really no problem. I told my co-trekker friend I will now carry my stuff and I can manage by myself.

A lot of experiences and learnings after this first trek of mine, which I directly jumped to a Himalayan one!. Will I do a such a trek again? That’s a question always posed to first timers. It was a 50 plus km trek in 5 days with all those steep climbs. Well, I may become a trekker.

Definitely, there isn’t any short cut to hard work. I was walking 4-5 km regularly for a month and before that too (though not regularly). I am not a gym person so that was out. I was doing Kalari Payattu, a martial art of Kerala, which I had joined in August of last year and was quite regular with it. That indeed helped a lot to strengthen my body. I think walking long distance is not the problem for me. It is the climbs and if I work on it, Himalayan treks will be much easier. And yes, it is about being fit all through the year and not just some months before the trek. A big lesson is to keep doing a lot of climbs, not necessarily treks, but just climbing wherever there are climbs and keep doing more of it all through the year.  Combined with regular walking, jogging and stretching excercises/yoga or any other form, I guess this trek is indeed easy or moderate as they mention in the trek description.

I come back from the trek with this peaceful and happy sense of achievement and the feeling I can do it, my body can do it if the mind says yes. And somewhere, someone will give that support when it is needed.

Here, I share my experiences largely for my own memory’s sake. But, indeed to tell all those first timers that there is always a first time and unless you do it, you don’t know what it is and what you and your body is up against. How much you can push yourself. You need to try it if you feel strongly about it. And then remember whatever it is, failure or accomplishment, we must take both in our stride. We must accept. As certain destinies we cannot change. We need to only learn and learn and learn from every trip in life.