BenIndia: Trekking the Himalayas With Our Six Indian Brothers

Well it turns out the size of our trekking group was two; Us. However two foreigners going up into the Himalayas requires at least 6 local Indians; four to carry our camping stuff, one to cook for us, and one to guide us. Don't worry, we did carry ourselves up the mountain.

We began our trek with a 6 hr OMG (oh my goodness) jeep ride through some very curvy mountains. Finally we arrived at a town called Uttarkashi, the home of our local mountain guide, Rajveer. The next day we began our trek, passing through little villages where we saw the locals cultivating their mountainous terrain and and herding their livestock through the ravines. We even passed our guides father on our way up as he was making his daily commute from Agoda to Sanga Chatti (the "bigger" village). We made camp that night where we promptly put on every garment that we possessed, as we were now at 7000 ft elevation and certainly nowhere near the equator. It was at this point that we started questioning the sanity of traveling from the heat of Africa to the heights of the Himalayas.

The next day we felt acclimatized and continued our ascent where we passed apes jumping from the tree tops and saw soaring eagles landing in their nests. The air was filled with songs of birds. We arrived at a seasonal village that is only occupied in the summer by cattle grazers. Now we were at 9500 ft and the view was truly breathtaking as we were surrounded from every direction by snow peaked mountains.

The next morning we woke up to a surprise, an early summer snow. So much for our fine efforst at acclimatizing! We quickly found ourselves in our Sherpa's hut, huddled by their fire, discussing our new plans for the day. The snow made it impossible for our porters to move camp to our next destination. So with our day packs, our guide and two others we hike to and from our next campsite of Dodital; a still frozen lake nestled beneath 2 mountain peaks. We learned that we were the first trekkers to hike there for the year 2012.

Although the snow changed some of our plans, with the help of our 6 Indian brothers the snow quickly turned into a playground. The next day we hiked about 2 miles up the mountain behind us and used it as a sledding hill, a place to perform snow acrobats and to have many a snowball fights. It felt like we were 12 again playing with our own brothers. That evening we shared a campfire and learned about their cultural and religious beliefs. We also learned a new way to play gin rummy, ( a form we still don't quite understand and never ever won. ;)

We are grateful to have had this opportunity to witness the awe-inspiring beauty of the Himalayan range and to have had the unique experience of befriending our guides, learning more about the northern Indian culture and seeing the natural way they live in these mountains.