"The Last Chance"..at Indrahar Pass

"The Last Chance"..at Indrahar Pass

“And now whatever cometh, thou shall not slip again”, this is what i said to myself and there was a “thud” sound ,complete darkness and i felt cold on my rear end again. Even before the thoughts were completely processed by my brain, i was sliding on the snow again.

This is White Magic’s Auden’s Col Expedition in Oct’13.

After descending from the Col on the Khatling Glacier i had minor situation as i slipped of the slope and got embarrassingly stuck on the ledge waiting to be rescued. Well after this debacle, the thought of walking on the snow for next two days started playing in my mind. As we all got roped up to walk on the Khatling Glacier, thus began my journey of slip and slide.

There and then i promised myself that whenever the  IMC(Introductory Mountaineering Course) will happen, i shall go for it.

Cut to April’2014

White Magic’s first Introductory Mountaineering Course 13^TH to  20^TH April 2014.

Team Leader/ Senior Instructor: Avilash

Junior Instructor: Dhruv

Participants: Murali. Priyanshu, Ankit and myself Sanjeev.

We took an overnight Volvo bus from Delhi for Mcleodganj and reached there at 6 am. During the night journey i acquainted myself with the other participants. Murali , who had done some trekking in the past, was from Chennai and had his own business. Priyanshu and Ankit were first timers and Ankit had just finished the B school and Priyanshu was going for B school in US.

 Actually all of us had a past which had brought us to this trek, which i learnt about during our chat over the breakfast, the morning we reached our Hotel in Mcleodganj.

We were greeted by the morning chill and the overzealous cab drivers at the Mcleodganj bus stop . As we waited for our bags to get unloaded a whiff of alcohol made me turn around in that direction and i saw Avilash was speaking with Gajni , the cabbie. Strangely he too came with a past. It seems he was an mountaineering  instructor and after some accident he became cab driver. We didn't bother to  ask  about the accident, but we got the goose bumps when we saw him drive off in his cab to the hotel with Ankit, as rest of us had decide to walk. At the back of his car was  written in the scary font “ Last Chance”. This made us wonder where  actually the accident had happened, was it climbing  or driving in mountains ?

Ankit reached safely and survived the “Last Chance”. There was a delay in room getting allocated so we all set out for a cup of tea at a small tapri , where the chaiwala was more than aware of the political scene in India and gave us his insightful views of things around Mcleodganj.

So during the breakfast, every ones past was unravelled.

It had been like this that Murali had been to a couple of treks but never made it to summit, as he had felt extreme cold was the reason for not reaching the top and plus his fear of narrow paths along the mountain side.

A decade ago Ankit and Priyanshu had  come to Mcleodganj and had made an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Triund Top.

As we commenced up on the trek next day Priyanshu and Ankit kept debating about the last big boulder, which was where their trip had ended 10yrs ago, and were trying to locate it. Finally as there were none left before the Triund Top, they decided and were very sure that last big boulder was the right one. It was time to celebrate as they had achieved what they had come for and everything beyond that was bonus.

Our first outdoor class was at Truind Top, with in your face views of Dhauladhars and Mcleodganj below. Avilash donned the role of an instructor and we had our first lessons on how to pitch the tent.

So armed with the newly grasped knowledge we all started to pitch up our tents and did it easily in god knows how much time , which our instructors had done in 20 mins..

Next day we headed to Snow Line, where we saw the famous “Snow line Cafe” literally deep in the snow.  This time we pitched our tents again and we were ok with the timings. This camp site was going to be our training ground for next 2 days. Avilash again went into his character of an instructor and gave us lessons on the equipments used in mountaineering.

Next day we set out for field practice and we  learnt about the usage of mountaineering equipment, some basic knots. We learnt the application of ice axe positions, use of crampons and trained to arrest our fall on the slopes using the ice axe & the crampons. We practiced movement on snow/ice. We learnt about rope management & how to travel as small groups on glaciers.

By the end of the day we had snow all over, inside and everywhere and we were totally done for the day.

 Next day we set out to practice newly learnt techniques to climb the Indrahar Pass (4300m).. We took shelter in the Lahesh Cave.. Everyone snuggled inside the cave as it was very cold and chilly .The cave barely had crawling space  and   if you were Pinocchio it would have been a difficult thing to sleep under the big boulder.

By the way, all this while the weather report was of snow every day and the summit day was to be the clearest of all. We set out in the night for the summit, the first drop outs at 3900m were Murali and Ankit as they found it difficult to carry on. Dhruv accompanied them back to the cave. Then at about 4100m i also called it quits, so me and Avilash started our adventure down.

When i say Adventure, as in real adventure. Manu and Priyanshu carried on for the pass..This was the moment when all hell broke loose. Big snow storm engulfed us and there was a complete White out..it was one white magic which we could have done without..i had a few falls and all the arresting techniques came into handy..Such was the white out that i could barely see Avilash..Let alone make out the path to the cave..After descending for some time, i started hearing noises of someone shovelling.. so  i started shouting Dhruv’s  name.. at this moment Avilash asked me  to stay and he went ahead to find the path and soon he also vanished in the white out.Waiting there seemed like ages  and  i thought that, "ok here i was to learn how to be in snow and god ensured that i was in deep snow.". That digging noise of shovel was actually Avilash’s ice axe scraping against the snow as i made out when he reappeared from the snow blanket..

He confirmed that we were in right direction and we set out for the cave..the approach to the cave was  crossing  through an very steep slope and the wind had picked up dangerously..so standing on a ledge we decided to put on the crampons which we had taken of earlier, as crossing the slope would have been impossible without it... i sat down and Avilash tried to put his crampon standing, which nearly blew him away and with great difficulty we managed to reach the cave where Dhruv ka dhaba was on and we had tea made on his alpine stove... After some time Manu and Priyanshu also arrived, as they too abandoned the attempt due to bad weather..

So after a break we all set out again and reached our campsite below at the snow line.  Me and Avilash carried on as we had to leave early, so we headed straight to Mcleodganj and took the overnight bus to Delhi. That one long summit attempt was mother of all adventures i had done so far...

So in the end beside learning the techniques of mountaineering, Murali overcame his fear of cold and narrow mountain trails and went on with his business with more confidence, Priyanshu and Ankit went beyond their last venture to this place and were heroes in their own eyes.. and as for me ,it really was a one hell of a “Last Chance”...

This narration is inspired from true incidents and all the characters in it are alive and non fictitious...

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