A nice link to high altitude medicine

http://www.altitudemedicine.org/index.php

How not to do Benog Tibba or How we screwed up ourselves on the easiest trek

DO NOT START THIS TREK FROM LIBRARY CHOWK AS SUGGESTED IN OTHER POSTS, START FROM CLOUD'S END, TAKE A CAR TILL THAT POINT

It takes royalty to screw yourself climbing something as simple as Benog Tibba, something that we did on our Benog Trek.

We (Lasha, Aakash and I) had been planning a trek for a while. Although some of my friends like to take everyone along, I o the other hand believe don't plan too much.

Benog Tibba is a small hill in Massouri with a small temple on top. We did not know much about the terrane but from what it looked like it would be simple. It would also be a case of writing a good blog because most information on the trek is sketchy and incomplete.

So the four of us (Lasha, Aakash, Zaid and me)  met up at my place around 10 at night and drove down to Massouri. We reached around 6 in the morning and walked into an Army cross country drill.

Aakash figured out entertaining and educational ways of finding a room and by 9ish we were off to our trek.

The problem with Benog Tibba is that the route is not well documented and one doesn't know how and where to start from. This Blog will hopefully solve some of gaps and provide future travelers.

The Start

By the time we had booked our hotel eaten our breakfast and were ready to start it was almost 9 AM. We were on Mall road, Massouri and started from Gandhi Chawk towards Clouds end resort, its a good 7 Km walk and takes you through points of absolutely no interest. The road has no particular interesting detours except for perhaps the house of George Everest.

A Better Start

If you are smart unlike us, you could shave off a good 14 Km walk form your trek by driving till Clouds End.

Climbing the Hill

At the entrance gate of Clouds End Resort there exists a detour towards right with a small blocking  using a pipe. The temple on the peak is visible from the starting point The Climb towards Benog is odd, it starts with a descent. The idea is to climb down the first hill and then on top of the other.

There is no water or food available on this trek and the path is rather unknown and hence clean.

The walk itself is mostly under trees in shade.

The path is one single and route with no detours. Finally as one is almost at the end of the trek there is a huge climb which ends with flat grounds and the temple visible.

Sketching

Not much of a post, but I want to take up sketching. The idea is when I go for my next trek, I make at-least on sketch on one of the camps, may be I wont be able to make a sketch but I will take a picture and then sketch it later, I dont know.

In any case I am starting to invest in this skill.

Will keep you posted

Brahmtal, Part 4

Everyone has some baggage and top of the mountain is a great place to leave it, except you start accumulating new one when you come down. Perhaps thats why Everest changes lives.

The tale of the anatomically correct snowman and other adventures

We climbed down and were at our Brahmtal camp late in the afternoon. As we came down we had the best dish of Rajma Chawal ever. I was a bit tired and was in no mood to play so I went into my tent and just lied down. After some time Abhilasha and Akash came over and Akash wanted to build a snowman.

I doing the best at what I do created the structure and ordered them around for remainder of the hour. I did give it my finishing touch of a correct anatomy.

The construction crew and some stowaways

I fail to recall much about that evening and we slept early for we had to run down to Brahmtal lake before we would go back home.

The lake like any other fresh water alpine lake for this season was frozen and we took some pictures and started our descent, which felt like we were climbing most of the time. With my leg and Akash's shoulder we had given our stuff to be carried by mules today.

I could go on, but words are difficult to come by, we reached our basecamp with large number of stops and delays and the trek was over, leaving memories and new individuals who would b part of my Facebook list.

Brahmtal, Part 3

I have a different mindset than most people I climb with. It brings me to odd with them, for example I don't really care about cleaning up the mountains as India Hikes wants you to do, sure I wont create a mess but cleaning trash is not on my priority, my priority is getting on top as fast as I can. I need to prove to myself I can do it and everything else is secondary.

This however had a number of unwanted concomitant, to start with I miss the beauty of the mountains, I further am annoyed on breaks and stops and worst of all I am unable to relax. I belong to a generation when our parents our schools and our friends made us highly competitive and relaxing was not an option.

So our morning started with the usual dog and pony show, it was a steep climb to start with and I wanted to be at the striking distance of summit as summit days have a habit of getting too cold or too rainy or too snowy.

We had our pack lunch and the night before we had reduced our load to the bare necessities of life.

I cant recall much about the climb except that I wanted to keep one foot in front of other and march on. I was mostly quiet on this journey as I was scared of the descent.

We reached the summit around lunch time and celebrated a birthday of one of our team members. We had some rice pudding and a group picture.

Nature is odd it can be beautiful and ugly and scary and inviting at the same time, It provides you with clarity in mind and yet fear of life. As an Indian I am able to manage contradictions and overloading of life and phenomena. However mountains leave me speechless and  with a sense of aww. I am unable to have enough command over the english language and nor do picture capture the complex perception one feels of standing on top.

We had a quick lunch on top as the weather deteriorated and started climbing down. It is then I made a critical mistake, in fear of a possible leg injury I ran down quickly and soon my knee started showing signs of discomfort.

My heart almost jumped out of as fear gripped me, but I slowed my pace and continued down.

Most of our journy back to Brhamtal was uneventful, except when we lost our way and almost shat in our pants.

Coming up the portrait of an anatomically correct snowman!

Brahmtal, Part 2

Not sure how many of my readers live near nature, our city lives have made us impervious to the smells of nature and mountains and cleanliness of villages seem strange.

Today however was not going to be one of those days, it was the day before we would start trek and that means an eleven hour ride on dusty, smoky dirty road.

I usually prefer a smaller jeep as compared to a bus. We landed around a time early enough that I do not care admit and the five of us wondered aimlessly on the railway station.

At some point of time it was admitted that our true goal was to start a trek and finding our transport would be an invaluable step towards achieving it. As a titter of chill ran through our spines we exited the railway station multiple times in colorful fashion until it was again realized that calling our transport coordinator though obvious, but a helpful step would align us in the general direction of our cabs.

Finally we rounded up our people and as luck would have it five of us got into a Jeep as we proverbially marched towards our destination Lohagunj. I would like our readers to know more about this however I am afraid details of such journeys if published would have an impact on to the future of adventure sports in India and I would conclude by saying we reached our base camp in one piece.

As we reached our base camp we met our trek lead Arvind and went for a rather invasive medical test which would from thereon continue everyday on trek and haunt us for remainder of our lives, I think Aakash also got some exams that are best left for imagination.

There were scores of sessions, describing how mountain etiquette like laughing and breathing on a trek. We went though a number of skills like ranger roll and finally when confidence was high gear like crampons were issued to the team.

Towards Bekaltal.... I Think!

Next morning started at Indian Stretchable time around 8ish. We did our morning chores and breakfast. We went through a round of odd warmup and immediately started towards Bekaltal.

We were led by Hira Bhai our front runner and guide. 

I had my doubts about the trek, I was surrounded by people in twenty something and here I was in late thirty's; I was scared would I be able to manage the pace? What about my knee, all this was haunting me.

I had convinced myself I would be the slowest on the trek which led me to put an extra effort.

It was day 0, we all didn't know each other that well so the trek was mostly silent for me and I had to run up the hill, to prove to myself I had it in me.

It was day 0 of the trek so there were obvious kinks and then some not so obvious kinks, we were carrying our lunch for trek and the water was plentiful during the trek. 

The group rather slow was still making progress under given time limits. I say as a group we were slow with rather caution, I do not know if I was faster due to my fears or was the group slower? Was I missing sights in my haste?

Most of our trek was an uphill battle, which is not an issue for me, I prefer climbing up to coming down.

After couple of hours of walking we were in a relatively flat area which felt good. We took a number of picture there and as people went past me some struggling others tired.

Treks have a habit of changing people, for good! During the trek I realized I should help anyone in need.

We reached our camp under the time limit where we had snacks and I had a splitting headache as I in my infinite wisdom had not brought my sun hat.

 Later in the day we went for an acclamation walk to Bekaltal, where I helped people on snow, I guess I can cross off, helping people from my list.

The remainder of the evening was uneventful and the pictures I share are much more interesting.

These pics are in no particular order, just some memories from our first day of walking