The week leading up to the first of March, 2020, was eventful. For one, I had a horrible schedule for my Mid-Semester exams which had me writing 3 core exams in 36 hours. However, it was the messages that I was getting on my phone from the “Sandakphu - 1st March” group on WhatsApp that made the week memorable. The trek coordinator sent us a couple of videos from the previous batch of the unexpected snowfall in the region. He also warned us that the 7-day trek might be cut down by a day since two of the campsites - Sabagram and Gorkhey were inaccessible thanks to the weather. I remember being supremely excited for one moment and questioning myself the next when I saw these messages.
It was in October 2019 that I first attempted to trek to Sandakphu. It is a story in itself (read the prologue here after you finish this), but here is the TL; DR: the attempt was rudely cut short by my lungs giving up on me at the second camp - Kalipokhri. I was hit by Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) - hard and was forced to descend to basecamp without getting to the summit. I was crushed. I had been looking forward to trekking in the Himalayas for a few years and to that particular trip for about 3 months. At Jaubhari - the base camp, I called up my mom to tell her about what had happened and told her that I’m going to have to come back here to finish the trek. I went back to my university and decided that I would strengthen my lungs. So that’s what I did - I trained for a half marathon for 14 weeks and ran it in January (Another story that I should write about. It’ll happen. Hopefully). I registered myself for the trek in March within 3 weeks of being sent back by the mountains.
So, why was I questioning myself when I saw those messages, you ask? I was scared. Scared that the four and a half months of being the healthiest I’ve ever been will be inadequate. The mental images of not being able to complete the trek this time around were not pretty. It was with this nervous energy that I boarded my flight to Kolkata on the 29th of February. I had planned to spend the night at the airport dorm and take an early morning flight to Bagdogra. Since the dorm was full, I had to sleep on a not-very-comfortable sofa in the waiting area of the airport. Surprisingly, I got some decent sleep in, and soon enough I was on SpiceJet’s Q400 flying to Bagdogra (Side Note: They air ads on the SpiceJet flights. I find that super weird for some reason).
Back to Jaubhari
I had proposed to meet with my trek mates - Mala, Priya, and Sireesh, who had landed the day before, for breakfast. Since I had an hour to kill, I went in search of some good chai and then returned to the airport gate to find the small dhaba that they were eating in. We finished our (rather hearty) breakfast and met with few others from our group who had just landed. After a generic round of introductions, we were off to Jaubhari. We stopped a couple of times during our 4-hour drive - first at a small fruit shop in Mirik and then near a tea estate for lunch.
A Tridax Daisy that found its place in the tea estate.
Red Rhododendrons that had just started to bloom on someone’s porch.
About 10 minutes from Jaubhari is a hamlet named Manebhanjan which is the main hub for those who trek (or take a jeep) to Sandakphu. As we drove past this village, I smiled at the monastery next to which I stayed the night I returned from Kalipokhri in October. I had walked up the steps of the monastery the following morning to sneak a look at Kanchenjunga before I had to leave for Siliguri. As seems to be the custom with IndiaHikes, the company that I was trekking with, we were greeted with chai at our base camp. After yet another round of introductions, Tanmay, our trek leader for the following week, introduced himself and briefed us about the trek and the Green Trails initiative. Green Trails is an ongoing project which is an integral part of IndiaHikes. It seeks to leave the mountains as a better place for the next trekker. All of us were given an Eco-Bag, a bag we could tie around our waists and could put the trash we found on the trail in. At the end of each day, we would segregate the waste into three - biodegradable, non-biodegradable and landfill. These three sacks would be taken back to base camp from where the company would dispose of the waste at the end of the season.
When I looked around my “team”, as Tanmay called it, I was convinced that I would not remember anyone’s name. I was wrong. The team had 20 people in total. A family of five based off Mumbai - Manan, Nikita, Dhvani, Umang and Roshan (I spent very little time with them, unfortunately); The “Tidke Sisters” - Namrata and Himani; Sireesh, from Hyderabad; A father-daughter duo - Indra and Varsha; Pradnya and Timsi - who were friends from work; Lt. Samarth of the Indian Navy posted in Vizag; Mala, from the UK; Nitin, a fellow Chennaite; Yogin, from Mumbai; James, from Colorado, who had come to India as part of an NGO project; Priya, from Mumbai; Amalesh, from Guwahati; and Yours Truly.
We had about an hour to explore the basecamp after which we had to get our dinner. To calm my nerves, I headed down to a small football field near our homestay, meditated and then headed back to camp. While Tanmay was handing out my health card - which was used by the organisation to monitor a trekker’s SpO2 percentage and signs of AMS - I told him about my previous trek. He dismissed it immediately and told me to enjoy the food and take Diamox - a medicine that helps you acclimatise faster by making you pee more - as a precaution. I was confused by his nonchalance but decided to eat the worry away anyway. I volunteered to be the “alarm guy” to wake the team at 6:00 am the following morning. After thirty minutes of repacking my bag, I hit the bed and slept like a log.
The Trek to Tumling
I woke everyone up and failed to get sunrise shots the next morning. A bunch of us went to explore the village before our breakfast at seven. We were introduced to our guides - Nima da and Kumar da an hour later and after a couple of group photos, we were off to our destination for the day - Tumling. The trek to our first rest point, Lamaydhura, was a steep ascent through a pine forest. We saw few Rhododendrons - for which this trek is famous for - just starting to bloom and Daphnes on our way. After a short stop for tea, we continued on our way for an hour and a half to Meghma where we had our lunch. Our impromptu singing session was cut short by cloudy skies and we hurried to get to Tumling before the weather turned ugly. I remember very little of the trek this day. I had found the first day of trekking exhausting in October and was determined this time around to prove to myself that I was up to the challenge. In retrospect, it looks like I was more focused on getting to the next camp than enjoying my way up there.
Sunlight sneaks its way through the pines.
A quiet cup of chai at Lamaydhura.
Within fifteen minutes of making it into our tea house at Tumling, what started as a gentle drizzle outside quickly transformed into hail. We could not hear ourselves from across our room and were glad to be tucked into our blankets with hot soup for company. We had a celebratory dinner since it was Indra’s birthday and headed back to our rooms to take our oximeter readings. I was relaxed since I was feeling great and the day of trekking had been easy for me. The machine disagreed. A reading around 85% was barely passable at the altitude we were at. 72% flashed on its tiny screen. Then 73%, then 74%. Over the course of a very long minute, it went up to 82% and stayed there. Tanmay asked me to take a whole tablet of Diamox and went about his way. I was rummaging through my medicine bag when James asked me if everything was alright. I smiled and told him that my readings were not looking good. “Again” was left unsaid but was loud and clear to everyone listening. I told him how surreal the situation was and how it felt like I was reliving the evening from five months back. The others joined in on the conversation and tried to cheer me up. My head was muddled and I just shrugged my shoulders and went under the cover of my blankets. I told myself to enjoy the trek the next day since it could well be the last day of trekking I did in a while. I was worried I would not be able to sleep, but apparently my body did not care about my head’s turmoil. So sleep, I did.
The D-Day: Trek to Kalipokhri
I woke up early the next morning hoping to catch the first rays of the sun hitting the Sleeping Buddha. Sireesh and James accompanied me to a nearby stupa from where we had a better view of the mountains. The hail had completely transformed the village and we saw patches of snow dotting the landscape as we walked up the steps to the stupa. We also had the hail to thank for the brilliantly clear skies. However, a solitary rogue cloud spoilt the classic “Sunrise Photo” as it stood firmly between us and the peak of Kanchenjunga. We returned to our tea house, had breakfast, packed our bags and set off to Kalipokhri. The trek to Kalipokhri from Tumling is through the Singalila National Park and has two distinct sections: The first half is a descent to Gairibas while the second is an ascent to Kalipokhri. We stopped at the entry point of the National Park briefly to get our trekking permits after which we were on our way to Gairibas.
The one with the camera gets to be at the center of the frame.
Nitin, as most who have lived in Chennai all their lives will be, was giddy when we started walking on snow immediately after entering the gates of the Park. “Aayiron! Rendaayiron! Muuayiron!…” he proclaimed to his selfie camera as he counted his three steps on the snow - each at a hefty price of a thousand rupees. A few of us stopped at a particularly pretty spot for photos while the others continued onward. Nitin’s antics and the great weather kept me in great spirits till Kaiyakatta - our lunch point. When we joined with the rest of the team, Tanmay told us that we were way behind schedule and that the weather was not looking good for the afternoon. Since the trail was a fairly steep descent to Gairibas, Samarth and I decided to “run” down the rest of the way to the village (though it felt like running, looking back at our speeds, it is what one would consider a breezy walk at sea level). We all downed some momos and chai and continued on our way to Kaiyakatta. By the time we reached Kaiyakatta, the weather had turned for the worse and we had to fish out our rain-gear.
Reflections of a trekker.
Patchy snow near Gairibas.
We had to spend some extra time at our lunch point since the owner had underestimated how much food we would need. The spicy chowmein she scrambled together was worth the wait, however. With less than an hour to go to get to camp, fog set in and with it my spirits took a nosedive for some inexplicable reason. My head was hell-bent on convincing me that exerting myself to a place where I would have to be ferried down - again, was a useless endeavour. I tried to keep it occupied by counting the number of steps I took and told myself that I could have a small break after every hundred steps. Horrible idea. I was struggling to take twenty continuous steps. I trudged on, feeling sorry for myself when the black lake - Kalipokhri, came into view. I walked into our camp and asked Tanmay to take my oximeter reading. I wanted to get it out of the way - one way or the other. 86%. I swore and got a stern few words from Tanmay to watch my tongue. After a few congratulations from my trek-mates, who were as interested in my readings as I was, I breathed a sigh of relief. We had our evening chai and returned to huddle together while Tanmay shared his tips on travelling on a budget. Soon afterward, dinner was served and all of us hit the bed after what had been a long, tiring day of trekking.
The Trek to Sandakphu
I sneaked up early the next morning to see the sun rise over the lake. A fairly fluffy dog accompanied me from the village to the lake. The lake looked quite underwhelming without the fog that covered it the previous afternoon. It was much smaller than I expected it to be and I didn’t get any of the shots that I had in mind. Much to the disappointment of the dog, who wanted to go further down somewhere, I trekked back to the village since we had to leave early to Sandakphu. The trek to Sandakphu from Kalipokhri is relatively short but the ascent is steep. We left our camp at 7:30 am after breakfast with the plan to get to Sandakphu before noon. The ascent was demanding since most of it was over slushy snow. I had to put my camera inside my rucksack halfway through the day thanks to the constant drizzle that we had to trek with.
A trek leader and his team.
Trekking in style.
Thoughts of a trekker.
After a particularly steep hill, the trail joined with the road which had a marker claiming that Sandakphu was 0 km away. Lies. Our destination was just shy of a kilometer away which included close to a hundred feet of vertical gain. We forced our legs up the final hillock and made our way through a tiny arch that welcomed us to the highest point in West Bengal. I sat down on a stone marker right beside the arch waiting for a sense of accomplishment or pride to hit me. Neither did. My stomach rumbled and demanded food and I laughed at the anticlimax. Tanmay congratulated all of us as we had chai and biscuits at Sandakphu for making it to the top. Our camp for the day was Aahl, twenty minutes from Sandakphu. After our regular oximeter readings (Mine climbed up from 75% to 85% slowly just to keep me on my toes), we had our lunch. Kumar da got some of the embers that they used for cooking to keep us warm. A few of us stayed at the dining room to de-freeze our feet until it was time for our daily huddle.
Tanmay proposed we play Mafia, but all of us wanted to hear some trekking stories. Tanmay began with a hair raising story about how he had rescued a trekker with HAPE - a deadly condition where fluid starts collecting in the lungs due to high altitude, when he was leading a team to Goechala in 2016. The folks at IndiaHikes have written about it better than I ever can. In need of some humour after what was a harrowing hour of storytelling, we moved onto some lighter stories. Nitin told us all about his previous trek to Roopkund where he could not reach the summit and was so weak that he had to be brought down by a mule to the previous camp. Though his story was scary, his expressions and descriptions of the journey on the mule had us all in splits. James followed with his own hilarious story about his neighbour’s rabbit. He had moved houses and learnt that his new neighbour (referred to as Mr. Rabbit henceforth) had a rather fancy rabbit which he would take to shows and whatnot. One day, he noticed that his dog was playing in the yard with what seemed to be roadkill. On closer inspection, he realized that it was Mr. Rabbit’s rabbit. He cleaned up the rabbit, removing the bloodstains and the mud, sneaked into Mr. Rabbit’s house and kept it back in its cage. A few months later, Mr. Rabbit told him about how someone had dug up his rabbit’s grave and kept it back in its cage. James never let him know who it was.
After dinner, Tanmay warned us that the temperature would drop below zero and that it was advisable to use two sleeping bags instead of one. He also confirmed that we would head to Gurdum instead of Sabagram since the route to the latter was under 4-5 feet of fresh snow. All of us took it in our stride and showed no disappointment. Getting into two sleeping bags and a liner was an annoying exercise, but once inside, I was warm and comfortable. I slept soundly.
The Trek to Gurdum
James and I woke up early to trek back to Sandakphu to see the sun rise over the Sleeping Buddha from there. We lost our way in the middle and decided to wait for Nima da, who was coming with a few others who had woken up a little later. Due to this delay, we could not get to Sandakphu before the first rays hit the mountain range but got a great view while trekking there. From Sandakphu, we could see the entire Sleeping Buddha as well as Everest Cluster. Everest’s peak, nestled between Lhotse and Makalu and behind some clouds, remained unseen. After taking a few shots of the mountains and ourselves, we had our morning tea and headed back to camp.
The Sleeping Buddha.
The view is worthy of the effort.
The trail to Gurdum began from Sandakphu and was a steep descent through a bamboo forest. Since there were no places to stop in between for lunch, we packed some khichidi for lunch and headed back to Sandakphu. The fresh snow mixed with the forest mud made for some slippery slush which produced some spectacular falls. As I found out at the end of the day, Nitin couldn’t help but fall every few minutes and Sireesh, according to Umang’s and Samarth’s account, had a fall worthy of The Looney Tunes. I was at the front of the team with Priya for most of the first couple of hours of the day’s trek. We would jog down the slush, which counter-intuitively provided us with more balance, and wait for a while to make sure that we were within earshot of Nima da and continue onward. Nima da pointed out scratch marks on a tree on the trail and told us that those were an itchy bear’s doing. We stayed a little closer to him after that.
We stopped for lunch at a clearing and waited for everyone else to join. After an hour, we continued on our way to Gurdum. The trail went through thicker bamboo forests and was barely visible under the fallen bamboo shoots and leaves. I ended up trekking with Namrata for a while and she asked me if I was proud of completing the trek this time around. I remarked that I was more relieved than I was proud and let the conversation move on. As the terrain became steeper again, I peeled off from the front of the group and had the trail to myself for the next hour. This gave me time to muse over Namrata’s question and my answer to it. Looking back, the off-hand answer I gave seems to be the best one I have.
I slowed down significantly after a junction where I had to stop for 10-15 minutes to wait for Nima da since I wanted to soak in the last few hours in the mountains. I trekked with Varsha the rest of the way to camp since she seemed to have some trouble with her knees. She told me about how she was involved in a motorcycle accident a couple of years back and had an undiagnosed issue with one of her legs. Though she was struggling, she refused to take any help and made it down on her own. Once we made it to the Gurdum homestay, I joined Tanmay and Roshan who were playing cricket with the usual terrace cricket rules as well as the “if it rolls down the side of the mountain you are out and you must bring the ball back” rule. We ended up losing the ball (Tanmay decided to flaunt his straight drive) by the time the rest of the team reached.
After chai, Tanmay moderated a debriefing session where each of us talked about our experience and what we learnt from this trek. He then told us about what he thought about each of our personalities and was pretty spot on. As Mala put it, it really highlighted the amount of effort he put into his job and how thorough he was. He then handed out each of us a memento - a fridge magnet of the Sleeping Buddha and gave out two badges - The Spirit of Trekking badge to Indra and Roshan and the Green Trails Warrior badge to James. Indra, the oldest member of our team, had been one of the first to reach the campsites every day and his fitness was nothing short of inspirational. Roshan, on the other hand, was the youngest member of our team and was always ready to help everyone around him. James had consistently collected the most amount of trash each day from the trail. After what was a solemn couple of hours, all hell broke loose after Nitin decided to start impersonating Tanmay. With only a short easy descent left in the trek, the whole team was relaxed - we laughed at each other and with each other through dinner till it was time to hit the bed. It is the most fun I have seen a bunch of adults have.
The Trek to Sepi
I overslept but thankfully so had a lot of people and Tanmay was easygoing with the designated time to leave for Sepi. We left Gurdum at around half past nine, an hour after we had planned to, after our breakfast. The trail to Sepi was an easy descent till Sirikhola and a level walk after that. I decided to keep my camera away and collect as much trash as I could from the trail. An hour into the trek, we got to cross a small tributary of the Sirikhola - the river after which the town is named. I had found my way to the front of the team again so had the time to descend to the riverbed and meditate there for a while. After another hour on the trail, we got to Sirikhola. The trail gave way to tarmac and the trash on the path became too much for twenty trekkers to handle. We continued on our way through the town for around half an hour after which we were greeted with cold Rasna at our final lunch point at Sepi. After handing over our sleeping bag liners and health cards, we had our lunch and boarded our cars back to Jaubhari. I ended up in the car with Manan, Nikita, Dhvani, Umang, and Roshan and finally got to interact with them. The last thirty minutes of the three-hour journey was worrying since Nikita and Dhvani were getting carsick and had their sick-bags out. We managed to get back to Jaubhari without either of them barfing.
Since almost half our team was leaving to Siliguri in search of a hot bath and some beer, we said our goodbyes and promised to keep in touch. The rest of us headed back down to our homestay. After some chai, I slept for a couple of hours and woke up in time for dinner. All of us had dinner and headed to one of the rooms to play Mafia. It took those of us who had not played the game before a lot of time to understand it, but soon enough, Tanmay moderated the first game. To be fair, I understood very little of the game but somehow my team won. We began the second game with Nitin as a moderator so that we could get more of his impersonation of Tanmay. However, the game fell flat and we decided to have a horror story session instead. Tanmay managed to pull a jump scare on Nitin who fell from his bed screaming - “Katharanda!” which translates to “He’s shouting, dude!” and hid inside a blanket promptly afterward. This fairly normal Tamil exchange sent everyone laughing to the verge of tears and all attempts at further conversation were interrupted by fits of laughter - mostly by Namrata and Himani.
Tanmay and Psuedo-Tanmay.
Back to Civilization
All of us woke up late after the previous night’s laughter session. We were treated to hot aloo paratha for breakfast along with chai. I ate knowing that it would be one of the last tasty meals I’d have in a while - I was heading back to a place with mess food after all. I’d planned to run a 5K in Jaubhari and had got my running shoes to keep in the cloakroom at the homestay. I set out a couple of hours after breakfast with the plan of running at a very easy pace so that I could enjoy the fresh mountain air. However, the road to (and thus from) Manebhanjan was much more hilly than I had signed up for and I was completely winded after the forty minutes that it took me to finish the 5K. It felt like the mountains wanted to make sure that I did not get too cocky.
We had planned to leave right after our lunch, but the heavens opened up and quickly transformed into hail. We scurried to our cabs when the intensity reduced after a hurried round of goodbyes. The rain never ceased the entire 4-hour ride back to Siliguri. Amalesh and I parted from the rest of the group - who were staying the night at Siliguri, and headed to the NJP railway station. We talked about our future travel plans over dinner. He wanted to go to Gaumukh-Tapovan; the source of the mighty Ganga by the end of the year. I was not so sure - on one hand, I wanted to travel truly solo and on the other, trekking seemed very inviting; especially after completing one a day before. I had been eyeing the North East - Meghalaya in particular as the destination of my first solo trip and got a few pointers from him. He also planted the idea of clubbing Meghalaya and Dzukou Valley - a two or three-day trek in Manipur as one trip. The more I think about it, the more I like it.
Amalesh left at 10 pm to board his train back home while I got some sleep in one of the dorms in the railway station. At 4 am, I found my way to the platform the Agartala Humsafar - my train back to college, was to arrive on when I found ten of my batchmates waiting for the same train. They had gone on a five-day-long trip to Gangtok and were in the same coach as me on the train. Just as the train was arriving, I realized that I had left my phone’s charger back in the dorm room. Sprinting across an over bridge and few flights of stairs and back after a few days of trekking was as much fun as it sounds like. I boarded the train and was too sleepy to bid adieu to what was a week that had me digging deep into my mental reserves while awarding me with great satisfaction.
It is hard to get a portrait when you’re the one behind the camera. Thanks, Samarth.