Without focussing on several life events, ill rather focus on a single episode to better convey my thoughts.
My first high altitude trek was my most challenging experience. It was a fairly moderate trek in the Middle Himalayas and we were to ascend to 13,000 ft on the final day. We reached the summit at 4am in the morning and witnessed the beautiful sunrise in the backdrop of Mt Meru and Gangotri glacier. However, the story does not end here, it is only just beginning. We had a very arduous day and we finally descended to the base camp by 11am. Despite having reached the objective we set out for, there was an itch inside me to push the boundaries. As we were chatting away, our trek guide told us that the peak we had just climbed had a sister peak named Ravansheela and very few people attempted it because of its difficult terrain. 3 of us glanced at each other and our eyes conveyed the same message, we are going back! Though we were very keen to do it, our trek leader insisted that the visibility could deteriorate any minute and we were inexperienced. As we were adamant to go back, he assigned one of the guides to accompany us. We geared up for Round 2 but we were slightly intimidated by the stories we heard about the peak.
Anyways we set out for the peak at 3pm and a mile into the trek, all of us were exhausted and gasping for breath. We started taking frequent breaks and our guide insisted that we turn back if we had to reach the base camp before sunset. Despite serious physical hurdles, we persisted and after 3 hours, reached the base of the dangerous looking peak. There was no clear path for us and as none of us were rock climbers the last stretch looked impossible. We decided to take a fair bit of risk and started the climb slowly. It took us another hour but we safely made it up. The first look from the peak was “breath-taking” and the picturesque landscape is imprinted in my mind for life. Now, we really had to descend and as we were getting down the rocks, there was a cloudburst and it started raining heavily. We were trapped at an elevation of 1000ft and one misstep, we would have dropped without a trace. We stood there like statues with our heart in our mouth and allowed Mother Nature to do its thing. For a moment I regretted the decision of coming back up but more importantly, a safe retreat was on my mind. As the weather got slightly better, the visibility got worse and we received a message from our trek leader from the base camp that the weather was only going to get worse and we better come back down quickly. We started to crawl at snail’s pace and lost our footing several times. We kept checking on each other and encouraging each other as we climbed down. Now, for the best part – When we climbed down the mountain and were hurrying back to the base camp, we were greeted with the best present ever; the very First Himalayan Snowfall of the Winter and it is said that to experience the first snow at the base of that peak is a very auspicious thing. We just stopped, raised our arms in glory, closed our eyes and soaked in the smell, the dew, the chill and everything else we could possibly experience in that moment.
This feat for me has given me immense amount of confidence and showed me that it is okay to sometimes sit back and wait out the storm; and to have the courage to go all out in difficult times.