WhiteMagic Adventure Blog
Be realistic and Plan for a Miracle
Be realistic and Plan for a Miracle
The Stok Kangri stared at me into my hotel room window in Leh in the August of 2015. I looked at the majestic wonder and thought “someday”. That “someday” was not marked in the calendar, it was just tucked away in the labyrinth of my mind, the August of 2015 was my first serious Himalayan Trek after all !!!!! Forward to April 2016, and I enthusiastically signed up for a Mountaineering Course with White Magic. Annual performance appraisal discussions, target setting season at work meant that I had to opt out of the course at the last minute. The Stok seed had by now sprouted, and the sprout pushed through to the forefront of my being as if to grudge me the missed opportunity of the mountaineering course.
Team on an acclimatisation walk above base camp.
With a bit of hesitation I mooted my Stok aspiration to Avilash Bisht. He took a good two days to permit me to give this a shot. And it is then that I began seeing the dream of being up there on the Stok’s summit as a living dream. Discipline, perseverance, hardwork, workaround, all went into my training schedule for the climb. Along the way, I juggled work deadlines, challenging work situations, client events, incessant travel on work, company offsites, a 2 week family holiday, kids studies and activities, some stressful times at the extended family. The common thread across all of these situations was my training, always managing it, always fitting it in, imbibing it as an essential part of my being.
Author with Stok Kangri in the background.
I focussed on strength training, cardio and endurance. A wonderful teacher in Pravin Chirmure, my trainer for the last many years, a trainer par excellence, a demanding coach really !!!!!! He always has a knack of getting his counts wrong, so I ended up doing more repetitions than he would care to admit. I joined a gym to focus on cardio and weights, thus getting in my 6 training days a week. On days that I travelled, I would hit the hotel gym in my place of travel. I also included atleast two treks each month in the Sahyadris, in the delightful company of my trekking group, Nazir Usman, Chetan, Kuldeep, Kanchan or with Anusha and Pravin. I gratefully clinged on to the phenomenal nutrition plan recommended by Luke Coutinho in GoQii, and my GoQii coach Hardika Vira turned out to be my wellness conscience keeper during this time. No where along the way did I ever doubt my ability to pull this off, despite practically NIL experience of having done anything close to this in my earlier outings in the mountains. There was always an urge to Be Realistic but to keep Planning for a Miracle. Miracles do happen, and I can vouch for that, it is just that they make their way to us effortlessly when we prepare to usher them in. The mountains are daunting, Ladakh especially is. It is barren, exposes you to the vagaries of changing weather patterns with all its might, it is not the best of places to catch a wholesome breath, and it is one terrain that seeks from you, ALL of You, not a part of you or a half hearted attempt from you.
From a small pass above basecamp after a fresh round of snowfall
Once in Ladakh, I handed myself over completely to Avilash Bisht, the White Magician from White Magic. The man who comes with a reputation of being one of the safest pair of hands in the Mountains, and who has a Parent Child way of ringfencing your safety while in the Mountains. For our group with representation across all ages, energy levels, experience, Avilash set about a standardised approach to how we traversed the mountains, the passes, the streams. He held us together as a unit that was at its fittest best on the summit night. He was honest enough to flag off my falling Oxygen Saturation levels, and warn me of NO ASCEND if that didn’t improve. He dealt us with a firm hand when he had to, and with a gentle pat when we were at our weak points during the climb. The Summit Night by itself is a “Night on the Edge” kind of a Night, with heightened anticipation, an excitement bordering on a bit of tension, and in our case it only got compounded by an approaching snowstorm along the trail. One foot after the other gets you places I realised. Right through the 10 hour climb to the summit, I always focussed on one foot after the other, not at the exposed fall to my left, not at the peak stretching into the sky above me, but just on matching steps with the our guide, Avilash. Taking breaks when he asked us to, wearing jackets when he asked us to, drinking coffee and eating when he asked us to. A lot of the things become easier when you repose faith, unquestioningly in the leader of the expedition. No illusions of your capabilities, no ego to race ahead, just a sensible head to blindly follow instructions, without second guessing or acting silly.
The team making our way up to the summit
Climbing to the summit is optional, descending safely is compulsory, as Nitesh Sati put it. The descend from the summit is possibly the biggest challenge, when the body is exhausted after the ten hours of labouring through the night, but more importantly, the mind has seemingly achieved its lofty goal of reaching the summit and is now looking at the descent as a chore rather than a challenge!!!! I had to dip into unknown reserves of energy within myself to find my way down those 6 hours plus of descent. It was gruelling and brutal, but what had to be done had to be done, and I found my way to the Base Camp by about 3.30 p.m. the next evening.
Team on the summit!!
As I struggle to fit back in to the city life and to fulfilling my karma as a Financial Services Professional, I cant but wonder the usefulness of the lessons drawn from my every trip in the mountains, its applicability to life within the comforts of the city, its ever encompassing calmness and tranquillity that makes life back in the city so much more easier to navigate. Making the most of available resources, never for a moment linger on the impossibility of anything, respect the available conditions and emerge victorious within those boundaries, the ability to call it quits if that’s what it is meant to be, and still keeping a smile on, and planning for the next big brutal yet calming adventure in the Mountains sooner rather than later !!!!!!! Thank you White Magic for being an integral part of my EVERY Himalayan outing so far, hoping for many more !!!!!
Comments
Stok Kangri article
Very well written and beautiful photographs. More to see ?
information on treks
Hi,
I'd like to be informed about the treks you are undertaking. Also interested in the mountaineering course.
thanks
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