Travelogue - Friendship Peak

The following travelogue - focused on travellers instead of the journey - is inspired by Manu Joseph's miraculous description of his Chadar trek (https://bit.ly/2FhglO7). If you don't have the patience to read mine, do read his. It's the most unique form of travel writing out there.

The Woodbine in Manali looks too opulent a hotel to not have an elevator. The lobby is small but well-furnished. One corner has four sets of large couches arranged in the shape of a square, a thick red carpet covers slightly over half the floor area, and there are two wooden doors duly marked ‘He’ and ‘She’. No underpaid, untalented artists smearing the bathroom doors with moustaches that could be confused for lips and vice versa, leading to embarrassing situations. Just the letters displayed in bold – the way he likes it.

As he walks up the stairs to the first floor, where the four other trekkers from the group – all of them strangers to each other – are housed, he wonders why there isn’t an elevator. Maybe it has to do with the fact that a lot of the hotel’s clientele, just like himself, is part of the trekking community, and prefers taking stairs. Climbing up, he feels his muscles twitch, eager to conquer the 17,300 feet mountain that lies ahead of him. As he rings the doorbell of Room 102, a bald, stout man with an uncanny resemblance to Seinfeld’s George Costanza, answers. ‘Phew, I am not going to be the baldest person on this trek’, the words almost escape the confines of his oral cavity as he surveys George standing before him. He introduces himself to George as Fighter, explaining that he loved to fight his way through life. He doesn’t reveal that he was once known as Winner, a name he had liked far better.

 The snow-covered Friendship Peak in the distance

“So, where all have you trekked?”, Fighter asks George, a question that helps trekkers flex their muscles as much as break the ice. George, a government-employed scientist, proudly declares that he has under his belt several high-altitude jaunts, including the dreaded Chadar, a trek Fighter knows he would never dare attempt because of the cold. Fighter’s accomplishments are feebler, but he is fitter and at least a decade younger. ‘Enough time to outdo this guy’, Fighter thinks to himself, barely suppressing a soliloquy. Over tea, they discuss that the upcoming week-long trek to Friendship Peak is going to be the highest and the most difficult for both of them.

George tells Fighter that Room 201 has been reserved for a girl. “A girl? I thought this trek was a sausage fest”, says Fighter, already hoping that the girl is old and married, so that he can focus entirely on the trek. Human and natural beauty are almost mutually exclusive occurrences in the higher reaches of the Himalayas, but when they co-exist, it leads to confusion and chaos. Together they go through the list of trekkers, and settle on the only name which could remotely be a girl’s. Fighter calls her Hermaphrodite. George asks for the meaning and grins widely upon knowing – “I thought being gay was weird enough.” To make it easier to pronounce, they decide to call her Herma.

Just then, there is a knock on the door. George answers. A tall, fighting fit, dark-skinned man with salt pepper hair and beard, about 50 years of age, walks in. He looks capable of dating a hot young airhostess, but has a family with two kids. A man made for Everest, confined to Friendship Peak. A businessman from Mumbai, his trekking repertoire ranges from Kang Yatse II (6250 metres) to Mera Peak (6476 metres), and he once climbed Stok Kangri – India’s highest trekking summit – as an aside (“I was actually there to run the Khardung La Ultra Marathon”). Milind is a regular on India’s nascent ultra-marathon circuit, but his greatest achievement is that he has got there without resorting to a keto diet. George is about to share the Herma joke with Milind when Fighter stops him, fearing Milind might start running a Pinkathon in protest.

Obviously impressed with his feats, George asks Milind for the secret sauce. Milind reveals that the secret sauce is a group of four close friends and his love for running and the mountains. He emphasizes that long-distance running and high-altitude trekking are “personal endeavours” and not competitions, and casually follows it up with “Be it running or climbing, I always make sure I stand first among the four of us.”

Fighter calculates that he has a bit over two decades to match Milind’s feats, but it is probably not going to be enough. He has never run beyond a half-marathon, and lacks the expertise or the desire to climb so many difficult mountains. Winner would have got perturbed and started making plans, but Fighter, instead, suppresses the thought.

When Milind steps into the washroom, George confides in Fighter that he thinks Milind’s is a family business, not a self-made one, but avoids asking him this because he gets the impression that Milind understands only English. Fighter is a tad uncomfortable at this display of intimacy by a stranger, but secretly hopes that George is right about Milind’s business.

Milind gets a call from the group’s trek leader, who asks all of them to assemble in the lobby below. He tells him he needs time, and for some reason Fighter and George think they need time too, and wait till Milind’s ready. Finally, the three of them come face to face with Herma, a fifth trekker and the leader. George, giggling, whispers to Fighter that Herma’s looks don’t justify her name. But they can both see that all those years of climbing have made her old and weary, and heave a collective sigh of relief. The 40-year old trek leader’s teeth are soiled and the cheap red scarf around his neck makes him look like a Bhai fan. He stands leaning against a pillar and shoots off incoherent instructions about how to avoid AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness), especially on the summit day when the team would go from 13,000 feet to 17,300 feet in the space of less than 10 hours. “Since you’re all reasonably experienced, I don’t need to tell you the little details”, he says. Then, without warning, he pulls out huge white Scarpa boots, each weighing about 3kg, which would have to be worn to negotiate the thick snow on the summit day. Except Milind, who is carrying his own light-weight snow shoes, the rest are used to walking only in trekking shoes and unsure how they would walk in 3kg boots. “We will leave tomorrow morning at 9”, he says before walking off, leaving the round of introductions upon the trekkers themselves.

Herma – an avid trekker and a yoga teacher – is unusually petite and demure for a sardarni, and laughs a little too hard when Milind passes a snide remark on George’s weight. No one, including George, thinks it’s too early for snide remarks; everyone’s in awe of Milind’s climbing roster, fitness and looks. The fifth trekker – a  Bong who hates fish – is wearing a t-shirt that screams “IIT Bombay” and points diligently to the caption while introducing himself. Fighter, an IIT-reject himself, is alarmed. He knows the adage ‘empty vessels…’ holds most true for those who have done only their master’s degree from the IITs. He considers them fake IITians. “Oh awesome, I always wanted to go there. What did you study?”, he asks, disguising his probe as admiration. “I studied....um, bioengineering”, comes the response. “I didn’t know IIT B offered a bachelor’s in bioengineering”, presses Fighter. “Well, it doesn’t. I did M.Sc. Bioengineering from there”, says the fake-degree Phenku before changing the topic, but the damage has been done. Phenku doesn’t wear a similar t-shirt for the course of the trek. Fighter’s bitterness over having failed to make it to the hallowed institution has claimed another victim. His mind briefly drifts to the day people stopped calling him Winner.

The trekkers differ in their views on how tough the Friendship Peak summit is going to be in the big boots, but are unanimous in their opinion that their leader is a Leader Only In Name – a LOIN, which turns out to be an apt gender-neutral euphemism for what they come to think of him later during the trek.

Over the next two days, the five trekkers negotiate a moderately difficult trek up to the base camp. Speed or stamina, Herma gives each man a run for his money and leaves behind Phenku and George, who are always at the end, by a long margin. Though shorn of snow itself, the base camp is cradled among towering snow peaks. The 6000m+ Deo Tibba and Indrasan tease from a distance, while their shorter cousins Friendship Peak and Hanuman Tibba look deceptively climbable. Pointing to his altimeter, George exclaims that the group has, for the first time on the trek, breached the 4000 metre above sea level mark. “No, you’re wrong”, intervenes Milind forcefully, pointing to his own altimeter, which shows a figure just shy of the 4k mark. Everyone agrees with him.

The trail

View from basecamp tents

Herma, being the only woman, is privileged to a single tent. Fighter, too, sneaks out a tent for himself making up smelly feet as an excuse. About a month back, while zeroing in on Friendship Peak as the choice of trek, he had realised that the name of the mountain might have subconsciously influenced his decision. He had been broken by years of loneliness and wanted some genuine company. But after the lure of being alone in a tent proves irresistible, he knows that the malaise had more to do with himself than with others.

The trail

On the evening the trekkers reach the base camp, they are led to a large snow patch nearby to get acquainted with the gigantic boots, crampons, ice axe and safety equipment including harness and rope. LOIN explains that the safety equipment is there “just in case…” The team learns the basics of ice-climbing and self-arrest using ice axes in case of a fall. Milind, wearing lighter boots and trained in ice-climbing, literally runs up the patch even as others struggle to put one step after another. The only one remotely close on his heels is Herma, seeing which George wonders whether it’s the opportunity of spending lone time with Milind that’s driving her. After barely 60 minutes of slipping and tumbling in the snow, LOIN declares that the team has had enough training to successfully make a nonstop 8-hour climb in much deeper snow on the summit day. Pleas for more training go unheeded.

The trekkers soaking up the sun on the morning before the rain hit

Back from the training, Fighter hurriedly ventures out looking for a spot to relieve himself before it gets dark. There are two kinds of people in the high mountains – those who choose the nature to answer its calls, and those who choose the cramped toilet tents. Fighter is clearly the former. He can only sleep with the knowledge that he washed, and not just wiped, which is the only option available in tents. For this, he puts up with carrying a big water bottle, soap, and walking far away to find a spot that’s previously unused and provides him the right balance and cover, which could take up to 15 minutes. Every time he finds such a spot, he credits himself for the discovery but wonders how he had missed it so far.

“Why do they need a tent for it?” – The Cow

That night, the trekkers are treated to a sumptuous dinner of matar paneer which ends with gulabjamun. For city folk on a difficult trek, the one thing that suffers an even greater shock than the muscles is the body clock. Dinner’s served by 7:30PM and, in the absence of internet and electricity, one usually retires to bed – sleeping bag in this case – by 9PM. The fatigue ensures that sleeplessness, despite the claustrophobia inside a tent, isn’t a problem.

  The training session with ice axe and the huge Scarpa boots

Tonight though, the team won’t be sleeping peacefully, for the summit climb is scheduled to begin at midnight. Peaks with heavy snow are best climbed in the dark because sunlight softens up the snow, which makes both ascent and descent far more time-consuming and treacherous. The threat of weather’s turning on a dime is also lowest during early morning hours.

Perhaps the heartbroken unfairly blame the wavering affections of their former lover as the epitome of fickleness. To get some solace, they need to witness the weather on high mountains. At the time the team went into the dining tent, the weather had been crisp and warm – perfect for the summit ascent. By the time they step out, the base camp is enveloped in a pall of menacing dark clouds, and rain’s pouring down. LOIN sounds the alarm, “Rain here means snow on the summit. We can’t ascend in fresh, soft snow. If this doesn’t clear up, we might have to postpone the ascent by another day”. Thankfully, the schedule has a built-in reserve day to deal with exactly such an eventuality. But that night, little did the team know that one reserve day won’t be enough.

The next dry moment they witness comes exactly 60 hours later. The only thing more difficult than living in the mountains is living there while it rains. To those who choose the outside to answer nature’s call, a cold and wet butt is worse than a cold and dry one; and to those who choose the toilet tents, wet poop smells worse than dry poop. Moreover, the greatest charm of mountains – being out in the midst of nature – is lost, which is exactly what happens with the team as they spend most of the two days huddled inside the dining tent, making it to their soaked sleeping tents only after dark. The fact that everyone’s trying to postpone finishing their business doesn’t make for a pleasant-smelling dining tent.

To pass time, they turns to movies. George and LOIN are carrying some in their phones, but after LOIN refuses to share his, they’re reduced to seven, three of which belong to the Taken trilogy. The debate over which one to play first is settled as soon as Red Sparrow’s name pops up. “Man, I haven’t seen a woman in a week, and it has Jennifer Lawrence’s sex scenes”, says Phenku excitedly. It is at that moment the group embarrassingly realises they’re not all-male, even though Herma’s tried hard to keep it that way the past few days. They then sheepishly agree upon Argo. Over the next two days, the team would polish off seven movies on a 6-inch screen without external speakers, battling the noise made by raindrops falling on top of the dining tent. Given that Liam Neeson’s movies require the least hearing, they’re left disappointed when he stops after only three consecutive attempts at saving his family. At some point during the trilogy, Milind changes his wet clothes for dry ones. Fighter notices he doesn’t have abs, and wonders whether anyone without abs should be called Milind.

Every hour the team mates break their torpor by venturing outside, hoping that the weather has become better. Every hour their hopes are dashed. The mountaineering folklore is loaded with warnings about AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness), but it will remain incomplete until it adds Acute Rain Sickness (ARS) to its lexicon. The gloom and sloth induced by mountain rains has a knack of cracking open the toughest of trekkers. Hungry to touch the summit till the moment the rain hit, the team members are now down with homesickness to varying degrees. “B***d I really need to get back home to sort out my shit”, mutters Milind, and adds hurriedly, “all professional of course”, finally confirming that he does indeed speak Hindi. “I know what you mean”, concurs Herma, and deflects questions by Phenku on what’s troubling her. The marriages of both the married trekkers in the group seem to be on shaky ground. Is this their true motivation for spending so much time in the mountains?

The unmarried trekkers have their own problems. Phenku wonders whether the mini avalanche that rumbled down Hanuman Tibba is a result of a nuclear explosion afar. Unsure, he hopes that the explosion eliminates all the myriad non-trekking tourists of Manali so that he can make his home there. George takes time to fall asleep once inside the sleeping bag because he likes to contemplate how his life might have changed in the days he’s been cut off from civilization. Three nights of sleeping in a wet tent have made Fighter unsure about whether travel is a singularly rewarding activity. “If other gratifying pursuits of human life – romance, sex, food, audio-visual entertainment – can leave one confused and regretful, why not travel?”, he asks others, who want to agree but are unsure in the face of evidence to the contrary presented by IT professionals who gave up their low-paid sinecures to turn into only slightly higher-paid travel bloggers. He fiercely counters everyone, including Milind, who tries to pass off the 3-day ordeal as a “learning experience”.

The tourists that make Phenku wish for a nuclear explosion

The final river crossing with the rescuer holding the rope

After the rain eats up the reserve day and some more, the team decides to descend back to Manali. Their love for mountains, regret of not making the summit and slippery downward slopes are up against one thing – the promise of civilizational comfort. The zing in their steps shows that the latter far outweighs everything else. They face three river crossings of which the last, an especially raging and deep one, has to be negotiated using a rope. Back in The Woodbine, nothing except the room numbers allotted to them has changed. Almost disappointingly, there have been no nuke explosions and all the tourists are alive. Everyone’s jobs and family members are secure. Staying true to the name of the mountain they tried to climb, the trekkers make promises to see each other again, but they all know promises are meant to be broken. It would take a lot more than a week-long trip to the hills to change their lives.