AM I GOOD AT TREKKING??

Well i was intrigued to answer this question by one of my chaiwala group ( a small group in USC that meets on Wednesdays for a chat over a cup of tea). When i was telling the group about my recent trip to Yosemite and how dissapointed was I with all the people in my group( because they were scared to complete the trail), One female in the group asked me if i was very experienced or good in hiking and all. Well! I paused for a second and thought in my mind, what really should be the answer to this question. With subtle humbleness and pride i said "oh yes! I have gone on some good treks back in India and here in California". She smiled and the discussion ended. But the thought kept on running through my mind," Was I really good in trekking?".

Despite of being on so many treks, I still had a doubt about this question. The reason for this doubt can be my feeling of always falling short for something or the other on every trek. Sometimes its the equipment, amount of food, too much weight, improper clothes and etc.The list continues.

My first trek was a day hike in Dalhousie where i went on one of my IEEE trips in First year of my undergrad. It was a nice uphill and well laid trail. As I was walking with a large group so the feeling of adventure didn't strike me on most part of the trek except when we had to jump a barbed wire on a slippery hill ( a slip from there would have landed us...may be dead..or whatever!). I remember Raghav Sehgal having a hard time crossing it as he feared that he had more chances of slipping as he was heavier then others.. It was so much fun to watch him..(and he will probably kill me if he sees this!)

The second trip was to Nainital, where our dear seniors didn't let us trek as they were so afraid..or us messing up. I remember me getting really pissed at them, but doing nothing as they were " the senoirs"..but yes! we did hike a bit till the top of the mountain to a place called snowpoint ( one can see the whole nainital from there). I remember that morning I was trying to persuade one of our senoirs "Ankur" who was leading the hike. Gathering all my courage and overcoming my introvertism,I asked him if i could please go to the trek with him and he asked me if i had good shoes. I jumped with thrill and said" yes! i have new ones and showed him how friction won't be a problem. He agreed to take me with him and yes of course! i was jumping with thrill..

In all these things, I strongly remember that i loved hiking more than looking at stupid historic monuments. It was thrilling and challenging and thankfully i never had to pursuade my friends to do it as they were all always ready for all the challenging trips that we went to later on.

Our first serious trek was a 9 km trek from chandrataal (4300 meters in the Himalayas)to kunzumpass (4551 m). It was a guided tour and all the equippment was provided by the guy we hired to take us to chandrataal and kunzum pass thereafter. He gave us camp, sleeping bags, transportation and food but still surving that night in chandratal was a real task of our lives. Our guide had by mistake got lesser number of sleeping bags then we actually were, so for all of us it was difficult to pass that one night as it was ...freaking cold!!!!. At 4 in the morning, i had a feeling i would die of cold or something especially coz i had not enough warm clothes and in the thrill of reaching there (without... a thought) I had put my feet in the cold waters of chandrataal lake, making them terribly cold. After we got through that night somehow, we were greeted with swesome breakfast, but the next day , still, was no relief, as we had to go on trekking from chandrataal to kunzumpass with an ascend of 600mts. The trek has very thin air which made it extremely difficult to breathe. We weren't carrying any luggage or backpacks..but i am thankful we didn't. With a lot of short halts we managed to finish the trek somehow.

You must be wondering, why we put ourselves to such misery. The reason is simple, the places we saw after every difficult trek were so amazingly beautiful that it can keep up the spritis of even a dying man!

After that trek i wished for going on a unguided trek. A guided one felt so lame and boring to sound... [:P].

This was kinda fulfilled on my ladhak trip where we trekked from spituk to stok la and we did almost everything on our own. We hired a guide again , but this time it was a single person as compared to a group or company in earlier case. This guide was a weird fellow and well acquinted with the area so he helped us with the way. Yes! back then I had yet on switched over to reading maps. But the trek was fun! we hiked long ditances in conditions like thin air, extreme sunlight , too much fog, no laid up trails, to many mosquitos ( eeeehhhh...) and etc. We did make mistake like not carrying a daypack to carry our little food and water for trek , so we had to coax our guide take out water from the luggage ( which he had packed firmly) .Our careless guide had lost a few rods of our camp beacuse of which our camp became distorted and we had to spend a night sturgulling with rain falling over our sleeping bags and into our tent. All these things at the height of 4600mts was a little difficult to handle. But we made through the whole trek with a good sense of accomplishment. Again, the place was unbelievable breathtaking!

The another task was to learn how to walk with our backpacks. Its easy to walk without carrying any luggage, but in real life ( :P) ...yes in real life..when you don't hire a guide everytime you go on a trek you have carry your food, camp clothes and other equipment with you, trekking with so much stuff to carry forces you to be wise with choosing everything you put in you backpack. It is a big challenge unless you do some reading or ask the already experienced hikers for tips to pack your backpack. Unfortunately , I learnt the hard way. After every trek I made, there were things I learnt. So literally, I finally learnt a lot of things after a zillion number of screw ups!

The treks in california started with a day hike from my house to griffet observatory ( 10 miles one way) . It happened because...on fine day..my friend decided to go on a long walk... :D

Well on a serious note! the first trek was a trek in grand canyon. This was the " Bright Angeles trail" and it lead us to the " indian garden campgroud" which was 1.5 miles from the plateau point. It was a 5 miles downhill trek and consisted of part of the way in snow, part of it in ice and mud and the rest of it rugged with stones and etc. So really..it was a package deal! We camped there overnight, and cooked the delicious ready to eat meals form MTR. We even had enough time to grab a drink of brandy to keep us warm. :) ( or alternatively in happy state). One of the mistakes on this trip was to not carry enough flash lights followed by a second mistake of avoiding weather casts and ignoring importance of starting early to hike up the hill. We had to pay for these mistakes by getting stuck in the snowstorm (because we avoided the weather cast) with only two torch lights for a group of 7 people ( the way was not visible coz of the storm..and uphill is risky) and walking in the dark ( as we started late)..Does it sound to you like ..we were on a suicide mission...? . Apparently...we were! The last mistake was to not carry enough water. So Literally, we were stuck in the storm, with no water or food, only two torch lights and tons of load in our backpacks. hi hi hi..yaaa it really was an experience. But i learnt tremendously in this short trip.

My last trip was to Yosemite. I wanted to trek from the valley to the Half Dome, but had to come back as my friends couldn't keep up with the extremet conditions they were put too.. may be they were looking for more luxury then i offered them ( which was none.. :P). I then missed my old group I had back in India.. :( . (Will post a pic of Half dome once i have conquored it :( )

I Still have a long way ahead of me..i still need to learn a lot of things before i call myself a professional hiker, but so far I am holding on good! I yes! with proud I can say that" I am an experienced Hiker" may be of a different sort.. :D