The morning finally came. Off to the unknown today! We were an excited group. The description of this day in our itinerary read: "From Kishtwar (5200') to the roadhead, about three hours' drive to a camp high above the gorge of the Chenab River. Sleep at a hut above Galhar." Yes, we would be in a vehicle again, the last wheeled transportation for many miles and days. Kishtwar was as far as regular vehicles could go though; for today, Ashraf had arranged to rent a big truck that could handle the road, which got rapidly worse after Kishtwar until it turned into a foot path near a bridge a few miles before Galhar.
The plan was to drive to the bridge with our truck, there to meet our mules and mule drivers, or "pony men" as they were called. The mules would be our trucks for the next few days, while we walked through Kashmir, until we got near the high pass of Umasi La, 17,168 feet, where porters would meet us and carry our gear over the pass into Zanskar. In Zanskar we would meet a second group of mules and pony men, who would have additional supplies; we would only carry enough food with us now to get us over Umasi La.
First we had breakfast of course, then we packed up our gear and put our duffels in a pile to be loaded into the truck, which had not yet arrived. The staff packed their own gear, and all of the equipment we were bringing. There seemed to be a small mountain of equipment! In addition to all the personal stuff, there were two large tents, the kitchen tent and the mess tent: seven small tents: pads to go under the sleeping bags (supplied by Mountain Travel): food, cooking gear (a large item), lanterns...we would have as many luxuries as possible on this trip, and they all had to be carried - including the chickens, of course, who traveled in a large shallow woven basket with a net secured over the top. The chickens were miserable most of the time.
We waited for at least an hour for our truck to arrive. It was an interesting hour. A group of townspeople appeared on our lawn shortly after we finished breakfast. They were members of the local town council, and had come there to be interviewed by a reporter from, I think, Srinagar, about the recent elections in Kashmir which had been accompanied by a little violence and considerable interest. Some military people or policemen (I couldn't tell) were there too. One of them introduced himself, and then we all got our pictures taken with him. I think perhaps that was to obtain a picture for their files, just in case something happened to us.
It was hard to realize that we were intending to go to a place where few Westerners had gone before us; we had a difficult route to travel, and some people felt we might not make it. One fellow who visited us the evening we arrived said that he had tried to go over the pass a few days before, but the pass was closed because of heavy snow. We had looked towards the mountains that night to see clouds and lightening, and obviously some bad weather was ahead of us. We all felt concerned, but what could we do? Wait for the truck - which was just what we did.
Eventually it arrived, a huge monster of a truck with a crew cab and a big open bed (protected by sides) where our gear would be stowed, and most of us would sit. There was room for three inside the cab with the drivers, and Mary, Ann and Nat were given the honor of sitting in there. The rest of us got in back and found more-or-less comfortable positions. Ashraf assured us that he had rented the very best truck that was for hire in Kishtwar. This great truck had a platform atop the cab where Ashraf and some of the staff sat. Off we went!
Caption(Trek Route with Selected Land Features)
The road really did get a lot worse after Kishtwar. The truck had no suspension to speak of, and the ride in back was pretty rough, though fun. It was also dusty (of course!); most of us again wet our bandannas and wore them over our mouths and noses. Fred got tired of sitting in the bed, where the only view was behind us, over the tailgate, and he clambered up to the top of a pile of gear to see better. I joined him there, and after a while ended up on top of the platform, where I had a superb view and really enjoyed the ride. Everyone did not enjoy the ride as much as I did, however. The truck was big, the road narrow, the turns sharp, and the drop off to the side was amazingly precipitous. I said to myself what I always say in such a situation, when I have no control over what is happening; the driver doesn't want to die, either! So I gave it no more thought, and enjoyed the view tremendously as we drove along the Chenab River gorge, in and out of the folds of the land.
We encountered some pedestrians, and occasional groups of donkeys or mules. Sometimes we had to stop, and during one stop Mary, Ann and Nat poured out of the cab and scrambled into the back with us, saying that it was really terrifying in there. I thought they meant the drop-offs! I didn't feel frightened; I thought they had had the best view, and I wanted to sit in the cab. At the next stop Rob moved quickly, climbed down the side of the truck and got into the cab with Scot. I didn't move quickly enough and got left behind, disgruntled at missing all the fun. I found out later that what had been frightening in the cab was the driving, not the drop-offs; the two drivers kept changing positions while the truck was moving! In addition the man not driving had to hold on to the shifter, because it would not stay in gear without assistance. We decided the drivers were probably behaving foolishly because they were trying to impress three strange women. They stopped their nonsense when Scot and Rob got into the cab. Rob told me later that the ride in the cab was not all roses; the cab fitted loosely to the bed of the truck, and screeched and grated horribly every time the truck went over a bump. The road, of course, was one bump after another.
After a while Rob left the cab and joined me on the roof. Other than the danger from an occasional low branch, that was a great place to be. In many places the road was so narrow that, from atop the truck, it could not be seen at all; the view down the side of the truck just continued for a few hundred feet to the river far below us.
Calling that truck the best in Kishtwar says horrible things about the rest of the Kishtwar vehicle population. That truck was a wreck. Once we heard a sound like a gunshot; later, when we stopped for something (we stopped a lot), Rob found the source of the noise - a snapped leaf spring, on the downhill side of the truck, no less. The tires were the baldest I have ever seen, except for the tires on that first taxi we took in Delhi from the airport to Claridges Hotel. The fuel line dragged on the ground, and was patched with tape. The truck had two really serious failings though, that far overshadowed the other minor ones. The first became apparent when the truck died on a hill; it lacked a starter!
You must understand, this was a BIG truck. Really BIG. I have no idea how much it weighed; tons and tons and tons. Every time we pushed it - and we often had to push it - it weighed a bit more. Good thing we were a big group! The first time it happened the staff got out and told us to stay put. But the truck kept stalling (the drivers were about the most incompetent drivers I have ever seen anywhere in my life) and Rob was the first of the trekkers to get down and start helping. The rest of us followed. Once the truck died after inching past another big truck. That vehicle was kind enough to push us to get us started again. A few times we died going uphill. You would think it a simple matter to push a truck backwards, let it get up a bit of speed, and pop the clutch. Nothing simple about it! The drivers didn't know how to drive backwards, and kept stepping on the brake. They couldn't steer backwards, and kept having to slow down to avoid going off the road. They didn't have the concept of popping a clutch any too firmly in mind, either. It was incredibly depressing to watch those turkeys inching down a hill, finally reaching the point where there was no hill left, with the truck remaining unstarted. The only thing left to do of course was to push it back up the hill and try again. AAARRRGGHHH!
It was maddening, but I think many of us were sustained by our excitement over starting the trip. I was irritated at the drivers, tired of pushing the truck, and anxious to start walking, but I couldn't get too upset; I was too euphoric about beginning the trek. Poor Ashraf, though. He seemed coldly furious. He had hired the truck, and it was his job to see that things like this went smoothly. Scot was angry and impatient about the delay. I think this was the first time Ashraf had worked for Scot or Mountain Travel, and perhaps he thought that the problems might give Scot a bad impression of his, Ashraf's, competence. I don't know what Scot was thinking, but none of these difficulties seemed like Ashraf's fault to me. Ashraf was always, in all situations, scrupulously polite to us, and always cheerful. He maintained his composure when talking to us, but he became a different person when he talked to the drivers. I didn't understand the words, but the tone was plain enough. He didn't seem to think those drivers were worth much! Neither did we.
To make our lives even jollier, our truck's second major failing became apparent. It ran out of gas. It was hard to believe that two people could possibly be dumb enough to set off in their big gas-guzzler on a drive that would take a good part of the day, with a nearly empty gas tank. I guess maybe they were broke, and were hoping that by some magic the truck would make it, they would get paid, and they could buy gas. Then again, maybe they were idiots. Well, it was too far to walk with all our gear (we considered it; it would have been very satisfying to leave that truck behind!), and the mules were still some miles ahead, so Ashraf and Scot donated our cooking kerosene to the truck to get us to the bridge. We could replace the kerosene in Galhar.
Ashraf swore he wasn't going to pay the drivers a single rupee; so far as I know he didn't, but he didn't tell them that until after we got as far as we could with the truck. I had the feeling from that day forward that Ashraf was a great guy to have as a friend, and a perfect companion in rough country, but he could be a tough guy to work for. Those men deserved it, though. Rob really found them hard to understand. Gas is expensive there, and that truck surely burned lots of gas. Fuel lines are cheap, yet they drove that truck around with a leaky fuel line. Where is the sense in that?
At last the truck died in a spot that Scot and Ashraf decided was close enough to the bridge to make it feasible for us to get out and walk, and for the mules to be able to pick up our gear. Of course we could have walked the whole way, and after pushing the truck for a while we would have been happy to do so! But mules walk slowly, so we needed that junk heap to get us to a place close enough that the mules could walk there, and back to our camping place before night. It was absolutely great to put on our packs and head for the bridge.
I don't know how far we walked that day, a few miles, enough to stretch our legs and relax and begin to enjoy the countryside. It was beautiful, though repetitious. The topography had been pretty much the same since before we arrived in Kishtwar; the gorge with the river far below was on our left, as we traveled east along the side of the hills. The path was sinuous; it would approach the river gorge, then follow the hills to our right, into a fold of the land and away from the river, then back towards the river again, so that for every mile the river traveled, we traveled two or four. It all looked the same, but it was dramatic country, stark and dry and beautiful. We could make out a few mountain peaks, far ahead. That was where we were headed.
We made an interesting discovery about the native vegetation while we were walking. The most common weed in the area was marijuana! It was absolutely everywhere at this altitude, and was commonly used as fodder for animals. The trucks of the mountains are mules; we passed many, many mule trains loaded with supplies, going into the mountains or returning, and we were reminded that although what we walked on looked like a foot path to us, and was often barely wide enough for two people abreast or a laden mule, it was a major highway into the mountains. Not a highway - the highway. There was no other way to get where we were going. We had to redefine "highway". Several times in this area I noticed a pony man with an armload of marijuana, feeding it to his mules as they walked along. Was it just fodder to him? Did it help to calm the mules? I don't know.
On our way, we passed through the little town of Galhar. We were popular attractions there, as we would be in every town we passed through for the rest of the trek. After we left Srinagar, we saw no other Westerners at all. People that looked like us were not a common sight in this part of the world. Many things about us appeared exotic, I imagine; particularly our clothes, especially shorts on the women who were wearing them. The hill people were mostly Hindu though, not Moslem, and they had a more liberal attitude about such things. My blonde hair came in for its share of stares, too. I guess there was nothing about us that wasn't strange and odd, except for the umbrellas we carried. We had all bought umbrellas at Scot's suggestion, and they were heaven-sent as protection from the sun, as well as the rain. The Indians often carried umbrellas too, when out walking. I wonder if they picked up that habit from the British? It is a most sensible way to hike.
Galhar was a tiny, dirty little town. We stopped there for lunch. Today, as on all days while we were trekking, we carried lunches prepared for us that morning by Sibra, the cook. Lunches varied a lot. Sometimes there was a piece of chicken. Almost always there was a hard boiled egg. Usually there was a piece of Amul chocolate (an Indian brand that we all liked), and several hard candies, too. Often there was a small foil-wrapped piece of cheese; Amul processed cheese, which I really disliked, but many other people enjoyed. A package of crackers was often in evidence, as were packages of coconut cookies that were tasty even when stale or slightly damp. One package would last me for a few days. Sometimes we would have boiled potatoes; that was another popular item, as were chupatis, flat cakes of unleavened bread a lot like tortillas, made with wheat flour. Rarely we would have a piece of fruit, always boiled first to insure cleanliness. When we began to run out of food, our lunches for a while consisted of crackers, chocolate and cookies. Once we had cans of the worst tuna fish in the world. I usually love tuna fish, but not this stuff - it looked and smelled just like cat food. It tasted worse than it smelled! Twice we had small cans of beans.
I don't remember what we had for lunch each day, but I remember that first day we had hard-boiled eggs. I like hard-boiled eggs, but they don't like me; usually when I eat one, I taste it for hours, sometimes a day afterwards. Occasionally I take a chance and eat one anyway, but this day I gave my egg to Rob. We both noticed that the shell of the egg had been cracked (our lunch food was just placed in plastic sacks and carried in our packs, so delicate items were sometimes crushed a little).
There was a tea stall in Galhar; even the tiniest towns in that area boasted a tea stall. Scot suggested we go inside for lunch, as the day was hot and sunny, and some of us joined him. He had tea; Rob and I refrained. We had already had a taste of intestinal troubles, and didn't want to invite more unnecessarily by drinking out of strange tea cups.
Some people ate outdoors, and after lunch we joined them. I remember a funny incident; Fred and Gerry were sitting on a bench outside a little shed, eating their lunch and watching the locals who were watching them back. A sheep was tied to the side of the shed. Suddenly, without warning or any provocation that I could see, the sheep just lost control and began jumping and twisting at the end of its rope. Before Fred could get out of the way, he was sprinkled with mud (or sheep dung). Attacked by a Kashmiri sheep!
After lunch it wasn't far to the spot where we were supposed to camp. Our troubles with the truck had spoiled a good idea that Scot and Ashraf had come up with. Our itinerary left us no rest days. We had to walk every day and keep more or less to our written schedule. That was fine if everything went as planned, but such a tight schedule meant problems if we ran into any unforeseen delays. We could imagine many possible reasons for delay; porter problems, weather problems, problems fording a river, etc. So they thought it would be great if we could manage to get a day ahead of schedule and leave a rest day available, to use for dealing with problems, or for a real rest-and-laundry day, if everyone wanted one. This first day of trekking was a light one and we could have gone on a considerable distance farther if it hadn't been for the fact that we were tied to our mules, and they had had to go back a few unexpected miles to pick up our stuff from the broken-down truck, and wouldn't have been able to catch us. So we stopped early that day, about 2:00 P.M.
The "hut" where we were to camp that night was another government bungalow. It was a lot more primitive than the bungalows in Kishtwar. There was no toilet, though there was an outhouse; it was perched on the side of a hill a few hundred yards from the hut, at a most interesting angle. When we arrived at the spot we all felt grateful that it was a comfortable distance beyond town (no spectators). There was a shed below the hut on the road, where the pony men would stay and stable the mules. The hut itself was up two steep flights of stone steps - when the mules arrived, it was hard work carrying all of our stuff up there. The hut was locked when we arrived, but someone found the person with the key, and we explored. The building was dark, damp and very dirty. Some of the rooms inside were locked. We had access to a front room that included two narrow beds, a middle room, a small "bathroom" that was as dark as a cellar but did contain a water pipe, and a back room that appeared to be a kitchen of sorts. My toilet articles were in my duffel, down the road on a mule somewhere and therefore unavailable, and I couldn't have a wash yet - so Rob and I decided to go for a little walk with Colleen.
We strolled up the road to a spot where some road work was going on. The people there had a dump truck, and were attempting to back it up a slanting, steep ramp-type side road that angled away from the main road. We watched them, and they watched us too intently I am afraid, because the driver of the truck forgot what he was doing and let the rear wheel of the vehicle slip off the edge of the ramp. The soil was soft, and the truck immediately tipped towards us at a dangerous angle. It was right above us and we all thought for sure the huge thing was going to fall on our heads! We ran thirty feet down the road, then stopped to watch. The driver tried to get the truck back onto the ramp, but it only dug into the soft dirt and tipped more dangerously. If it had fallen, it could easily have rolled right across the road and down the steep bank on the other side, all the way to the river far below. They gave up; so did we, and we walked back to the hut. We all felt a bit responsible. I think the distraction of our presence was the cause of the accident (particularly the distraction of Colleen's shorts!).
Back at the hut, Mary and Nat had had a wash and said it felt great, and I wanted to give it a try. We all had no idea when our next opportunity to bathe would be, so there was a general feeling that we ought to wash whenever the opportunity presented itself. I borrowed shampoo and went into the tiny bathroom. It was pretty grim, though once again I was grateful for any source of running water. Of course this water was cold. The pipe came out of the wall at thigh height, and the floor was absolutely filthy, though there was a mouldy wooden platform to stand on. I managed to clean myself pretty thoroughly, going through some contortions I didn't know I was capable of! It did feel good, though I never became a big fan of icy washes.
While I was bathing Rob took another walk with Ann and Jim; I felt hurt that he had gone off without me while I was spending a few minutes under the water, so when he returned he and I took yet another walk. There really wasn't much else to do, after all, while we waited for the mules. We thought of climbing down to the river, but it would have been a very stiff climb back up, the slope was covered with brush and loose rocks, and somehow I always kept the thought in my mind that if I got hurt, even just turned an ankle, the trip could be all over for me right there. That thought inspired caution. So we went upslope, away from the river, instead.
We followed a pretty little stream for a while, up into what looked like someone's fields (not planted) and pasture. We saw a man sleeping by the stream, and enjoyed the sound of the water; it was a peaceful spot. We were looking around us when we were surprised by the sudden appearance of a man carrying a scythe and looking angry. He spoke no English, but his appearance and the tone of his voice quickly convinced us that he was telling us to leave in no uncertain terms. The scythe, and the way he was holding it, didn't make him look any friendlier, so we headed back for the road. On the way to the hut we got caught in a sudden rain, and we found shelter under a big overhanging tree beside the road. Soon we were joined by two women, one carrying a baby, who (as usual) found us amusing. They said with signs that we should stay put, the rain would let up soon. Served us right for going off without our umbrellas! The rain didn't completely stop for quite a while, but it did slacken; the women left, and so did we.
Everyone spent time watching down the road for the mules. The wait seemed long, but eventually they did arrive, laden with our gear. The pony men unloaded the animals, and most of us pitched in to help carry things up the stairs. The first flight of steps ended at a small terraced area where someone had a vegetable garden; then there was a second flight, and a second terrace where the hut was located. The hill was steep, and the only place for tents was on the little patch of ground in front of the hut. Even when they were pitched almost touching each other, there was room for only five tents. Rob and I shared a tent, Fred and Gerry another, and Ann and Mary a third. Nat and Colleen had each come on the trip alone, and shared a tent. Jim had come alone too, but he had paid an extra fee to be able to have a tent to himself. Normally Scot and Ashraf each had a tent also; for this night, they decided to sleep in the hut, leaving the tents to the rest of us.
The tents provided for us were adequate. They were big enough for two sleeping bags, with room at each side for a duffel (wide enough to sleep three in a pinch). They were tepee-style, with a separate rain fly. Mountain Travel also supplied each of us with a pad for placing beneath her sleeping bag. Because I knew that pads would be provided, I had saved space and weight in my luggage by leaving my beloved Therma-rest pad at home. Some people had brought their own pads anyway. I was lucky, and ended up with two pads beneath me, which was really comfortable, almost luxurious. Rob's ultra-fancy Stephenson's sleeping bag has, among many other features, an integral down-filled air mattress that inflates with a valve on its stuff sack. He sleeps in comfort on that and has no need of more padding, so I got to use his pad every night, as well as my own.
I had borrowed Rob's old polypropylene sleeping bag; it proved to be adequate, but if we had run into any really cold weather, I would have been sleeping in my clothes. As things turned out though, I was glad for my simple bag. Every morning I just stuffed my bag, popped it into my duffel, packed up my other things and was ready to go. We were awakened each morning about 6:30 A.M. with tea brought to our tents, and were supposed to be dressed and have our duffels packed and in a pile ready to load on the mules by 7:00 A.M., when we would meet in the mess tent for breakfast. Poor Rob had to deflate his air mattress each morning, and roll his sleeping bag carefully before stuffing it to avoid damaging it, and invariably it took him a lot longer to get ready to go in the morning, than it took me. He also had to inflate the mattress each night. Once the poor guy, in the hope of saving time and energy, used his sleeping pad instead of inflating his integral air mattress; but I raised such a stink about being back on just one pad, instead of the two I had grown accustomed to, that he never did it again. The price of technology! But if the weather had gotten cold, he would have been in better shape than anyone else on the trek.
With evening came dinner. I am sure we had chicken, because we had chicken every night, except when we ran out and had things like a slice of cabbage with an egg on top. Our chickens were, I believe, former members of the Indian Olympic team, competing in marathon races or perhaps the pentathlon. They were the toughest critters I have ever bumped into on a plate. Actually, no, I never bumped into one; good thing too, I'm sure I would have sustained a concussion. Often the best thing about dinner was the soup. Sibra must have brought a pressure cooker with him, and we had soup (usually chicken-based) every night as a first course. The food was never very good, and after a while the sameness of it began to become almost repellent. But I'm sure Sibra always tried his best. He always provided a dessert too, usually based on pudding or jello.
I suppose I personally enjoyed the breakfasts most, though Rob will tell you that all the meals were equally dismal. For breakfast we always had cereal and eggs (it's hard to kill an egg), choice of tea, coffee or Bournvita (a chocolate-type beverage), and toast with butter, cheese and jelly until the bread got too mouldy even for us; then Sibra started making chupatis for breakfast, which were super, much tastier than the bread.
I am an inveterate coffee drinker, but it was funny, while on the trek I don't recall having coffee once. I always drank tea; moreover, though I always drink tea black and hate sugar in it (though I love a spoonful of honey), on the trek I drank my tea with both milk and sugar. The tea was always freshly steeped and good, and also somehow it seemed to quench my thirst more than coffee.
Downing enough liquid to stay hydrated was a perpetual problem. We exercised hard, and we needed to drink a great deal, but all day all we had to drink was our iodinated water, and it just didn't taste good. Also in some open areas finding a private place to use for a toilet was difficult, and I think sometimes the women would drink less than we should have, in an effort to avoid the problem. Often I would go all day without urinating once; and if Fred said it once, he said it a hundred times, it was important to keep our fluid intake high, particularly at high altitudes. One thing that did help the water was Orange or Lemon Squeeze; these Squeezes are a semi-concentrated cross between soda (not carbonated) and fruit juice. A little added to our water bottles in the morning made at least the first bottle of water a lot more palatable.
We were all supposed to have with us at least two one-liter water bottles; not everyone did. Rob and I had three between us, and we could have used another. When the temperature was cold, it took longer for the iodine to render the water fit to drink, and sometimes it was a long way between water sources, so a few times we just ran out and stayed thirsty for a while. I took to carrying a bottle in my hand and sipping almost constantly; leaving the bottle in the pack was more convenient for walking, but not for drinking. Sometimes we got fresh limes - they were great in our water. Part of the overall plan for food was to try to purchase fresh vegetables and meat animals as we went along. That plan works better in some places (for instance, in Nepal) than in others. Where we were, people didn't have much spare food to sell to us.
Back to dinner at Galhar. One of the luxuries we brought with us was a long, low table. It was normally set up in the mess tent, and pads were placed around it for us to sit on while we ate. This night the table was set up in the front room of the hut, since there was no room to set up the mess tent, and no need. We were served dinner by Indrapol, one of the cook's helpers. We got to know and like Indrapol; he was a great guy, really cheerful, hard-working and friendly. He worked in the winter as a court clerk in Delhi; in the summer he liked to find a job that would get him out into the mountains. He was the person that woke us every morning with a pot of tea, brought us tea and a snack after we arrived at our campsite (it was usually a few hours between arriving in camp and having dinner), and he served us dinner too, though he ate with the other staff members. Scot had introduced us to Indrapol back in Kishtwar, and suggested we could remember his name because it was so similar to "Interpol". That mnemonic device worked very well; so well, in fact, that Rob called him Interpol more than once!
Rob didn't eat much at dinner; he said he didn't feel right. He rallied when dessert appeared and took a big helping, but he hadn't eaten more than a few bites when he suddenly put down his plate, hurriedly excused himself and rushed outside to throw up. I felt guilty at that; I had been thinking that he was just being picky about the food, and of course he was really feeling rotten all along. Right after dinner we all retired, but Rob was in for a rough night. He would have a little respite, then out of the tent he would go again, with dry heaves. That went on all night. Luckily our tents, pitched on the little piece of ground in front of the hut, were right next to the retaining wall that held up that second terrace; all Rob had to do was leave the tent and lie down on his stomach, and he would be facing the vegetable garden on the terrace below us (lest you think it was impolite to throw up on a stranger's vegetables, let me add that after the first time he really had nothing left to throw up).
Of course I was awake most of the night too. Early in the morning, perhaps about 2:00 A.M., I felt worried enough about Rob that I got out of the tent and woke Fred. Fred and Gerry were in the tent next to ours, so close that our tent walls nearly touched. I was hoping that Fred could give Rob a shot to calm his stomach. Rob was getting pretty dehydrated, and also he was exhausted and in pain, and we had a long day ahead of us. Fred felt that it would be best if Rob just waited it out, so he continued to suffer until the morning. Because he still felt dreadful, before breakfast Fred gave him a shot; he told us it would calm Rob's stomach, but would also make him drowsy. Just what he needed, on top of a sleepless night!
Scot was pretty worried about Rob making it through the day, and offered to try to find him a horse to ride, but Rob said he could walk. Masculine pride? Had I had the authority, I would have forced him to take a horse. Fred told him to consume nothing, not even water, for a while; that was rough because of course Rob had a raging thirst by this time. We had brought some World Health Organization O.R.S. (oral replacement salts) with us, but the solution tasted like saline - unappetizing to say the least - and Fred gave us some great stuff he had called ERG, that contained the same electrolytes, but was fruit-flavored. I say "great" because it tasted a lot better than plain O.R.S., but salty, warm, dilute Zarex about describes it. Anyway, that was for later, after Rob had gone for a few hours without feeling sick. I packed up most of Rob's stuff, as well as my own, while he managed to dress and help, and we set off.
Today, as usual, we left without doing anything about breaking camp ourselves. Once our duffels were packed and in a pile we were free to go; the staff cleaned up breakfast and packed all the equipment, the pony men loaded the mules, and they would follow us. We weren't required to stay together at all, as long as we stayed on the right trail. Usually Scot spent most of his time in the lead, though he would drop back and hike with people. Often there was a space of a few hours between the leaders and the last of our group. The staff, coming behind, would be sure that there were no stragglers and that everyone was O.K.; some of the staff would forge ahead, but one of them was always hiking with the slowest trek member to bring up the rear. If we hiked at the right pace, the mules would pass us a little after noon, and camp would already be set up when we got there. There was no point in hurrying up to get to the camp site early, since usually the most interesting part of the day was the walking, not the camp site, and until the gear arrived there would be nothing to do but sit on a log, often in the rain.
This day was described in the itinerary as follows: "Trek from Galhar to Sasho (8 - 10 hours), a long day walking up and down through dense forests in the Chenab River Canyon. Sleep in bungalow." I was pretty worried about that "long day" stuff; Rob was really in bad shape. We had to carry some things with us - lunch (for me), water, umbrellas, rain gear, miscellaneous - not a whole lot, but with our camera, it added up. I put everything I could fit into my pack, leaving Rob's almost empty.
At the beginning of the day Rob could hardly walk. He was nearly asleep on his feet from the combination of a night awake and the shot Fred had administered, and he wavered back and forth across the trail, like a caricature of a drunkard trying to take a sobriety test - but it wasn't even remotely funny. We had 20 or 25 kilometers to walk, much of it along the edge of a steep drop, and Rob was woozy and stumbling over rocks in the trail - I was worried that he would trip and go right over the side in places, and I spent most of the morning holding on to his elbow, or (where the path was too narrow to walk abreast) being constantly ready to grab him from behind if he should stumble. To compound his misery, he continued to feel nauseous, and periodically had to stop and retch, or just sit down for a moment. He wanted nothing but to stop and sleep; a few times I let him sit down and I think he dozed right off sitting on a rock.
We started out first but soon everyone else passed us, and we were the last ones of the group. I was grateful that Rob was still moving! The overall elevation gain in walking to Sasho was only about 300 feet, but we gained and lost many times that on the trail. It seemed interminable; down almost to the river, then up again to a high cliff, then down again, over and over. About noon we caught up to most of the others, who had finished lunch and were resting on the rocks in a river we crossed at that point. It was a beautiful spot, especially to poor Rob who could lie down on a rock in the sun and sleep for a little while. We had come less than halfway to our camping site.
After the river came a long, steep, relentless climb; I really wondered if Rob would make it. At that point I was so tired, I wondered if I would make it myself! Ashraf spent part of the afternoon walking with us, and he was wonderful. He encouraged Rob constantly, praised the effort he was making, and walked along at our snail's pace without complaint. By the middle of the afternoon Rob's nausea had abated; he was of course still exhausted, but feeling a bit better.
While Rob's condition was improving, mine was going downhill. My stomach was fine, but I was carrying a heavy pack and the camera, for a long time I carried Rob's pack as well as my own, I hadn't had any sleep, and I was pooped. Earlier in the day Ashraf, realizing how tired I was, had tried to convince me to let a staff member carry my pack. I refused, of course! I had too much pride, even though Ashraf could be insistent when he was convinced he knew what was best. At some point in the afternoon I realized that I just couldn't carry both packs and the camera any more, and gave Rob's pack to the silent fellow who was walking with us at Ashraf's direction (he was carrying nothing of his own). Later in the day I switched packs with him and gave him my heavier pack. I have carried a heavy pack in thigh-deep snow in the Adirondacks, and have walked at much higher altitudes, or in shoes that didn't fit and were painful, but never have I had a rougher day!
Walking high above the Chenab with Ashraf at one point, we came upon a logging operation. Ashraf explained that much higher above us trees were cut down by hand, and roughly shaped with hand tools into rectangular beams. He showed us the elevated wires that lowered the beams to the trail area, where we were standing. Several logging companies worked together and shared the wire log transporters; to avoid confusion, initials were carved into each log, to identify the owner. At the trail where we were, the beams were stacked into huge piles. Then they were sent down another wire to the river far below, and floated downstream to towns where they could be retrieved, and used or sent on down the road. While driving to Kishtwar we had noticed huge stacks of beams beside the river at some of the towns along the way, and had wondered if the beams came from upstream. Now we were seeing one of the sources. I imagine the wood was very valuable, since India's forests have been decimated for fuel and fodder. Reforestation projects are common, but it can be hard to convince people to leave young trees alone when the people need wood for warmth and cooking. We did not see the logs being transported, no one was working the apparatus on the day we were there, but we did notice one beam suspended from the wire, more than halfway down the slope between us and the Chenab.
That afternoon we walked for a long time with Nat, Mary and Colleen. It grew hot, and I was grateful for the protection of my umbrella. We were all working hard, and Rob soon had plenty of company in his thirsty state. Unfortunately, after the river where we had lunch, there was no water to be had. Colleen had brought only one canteen with her, and as the afternoon wore on I think Mary gave Colleen some of her water. The total amount of water between the five of us was too limited to allow much sharing. Each of us needed the water she had. I worried about Nat; she was not young, she was too heavy, and she looked terrible. As I recall she ran out of water completely, and later in the afternoon we gave her some of ours. I felt so sorry for her! She kept sitting down in the shade to rest and gather her strength before tackling another stretch of the trail. She certainly exhibited a lot of determination. It seemed as though our path went uphill relentlessly all afternoon, as the sun shone hotter and hotter. I suppose I felt especially guilty about Nat because by that time I was carrying only Rob's light pack, having forgotten my pride and given my heavy one to the cook's helper. Rob, of course, was carrying nothing. But we had both had a sleepless night, Rob was still sick, and I had been carrying too much weight all morning and was exhausted. None of that seemed too important though when I saw poor Nat sitting by the trail, overheated and exhausted, trying to gather the strength to put one foot in front of the other.
Late in the afternoon we left Mary and Nat behind, and walked on slowly with Colleen. Her knee was causing her pain, but she wanted to keep moving, probably feeling that the sooner she reached the end of the trail for that day, the sooner she could sit down for a good long rest. Rob was feeling pretty chipper by then; he was able to drink and satisfy the thirst that had been driving him crazy, he wasn't carrying anything, and perhaps the effect of the shot was wearing off. He ended the day with more energy than I had!
Walking well behind everyone but Mary and Nat, we knew we must be getting close to the camp site, but we didn't know where it was. We came to a place where several trails met, and though we had been following boot prints (very distinctive in an area where everyone wears straw sandals), at this place the trail was well trodden by hoofs and confusing. Rob took off in one direction to see if he could figure out where everyone had gone; Colleen and I, with our silent shadow (later I learned his name was Gani; he never said anything, and I don't think he spoke any English) went in another direction. We found a hut by the roadside where some men were having tea; Gani asked them which trail our group had taken, and they gestured down a path, but they must have been confused because it was the wrong trail; we walked along it for a while before we realized our mistake. Colleen and I felt pretty discouraged; I was tired, she was too and had a hurt knee to boot, and we weren't in the mood to play hide and seek. Eventually we found the right path, and climbed up a steep, long slope to the hut, to find Rob waiting for us; I was a bit peeved that he hadn't come back to show us the way, or at least called to us, but he thought we'd be right behind him and hadn't reckoned on our wrong directions.
This bungalow area was pleasant. There were three buildings, each with a big porch. We could only get into one of the buildings, so Sibra set up his kitchen in there, and we ate on that porch. The other two porches were for sleeping. The women rolled out their bags on one porch, the men on the other. These huts, like the one the night before, were set on the shoulder of a steep hill. There was enough level ground to pitch just one tent, and Rob and I got the tent, because he had been so sick. But as I said, by then he was feeling better, and was able to help put our things into the tent.
The mules were tethered out beyond the kitchen building, on the way to the outhouse, except for a few who wandered around eating the marijuana that was growing everywhere with incredible luxuriousness. We took a picture of one mule, knee deep in green and looking contented. After unloading their animals the pony men were free to do as they pleased, and that afternoon we could smell the hashish they were smoking; it seemed rather quaint, the men and mules getting high together after a hard day of work.
We had an interesting conversation about the marijuana with Indrapol and Yasim. They called marijuana "ganja", and we gathered from what they said that hashish is so plentiful and easy to obtain in Kashmir that smoking ganja is considered a bit low class! We speculated together on how amusing it would be to harvest some marijuana for cooking; we had a good laugh as we pictured Sibra baking marijuana into his biscuits, and Scot eating them. We broached the subject to Scot that evening, and he found the idea amusing, too. Since you're all curious, I'll tell you that we didn't do any cooking with the marijuana, and to my knowledge, no one on the trek smoked any, either.
Next to the bungalows was a lovely mountain stream. Before we arrived Ann had taken advantage of it and had a wash, so Colleen and I decided to do the same, and to do some of our laundry. We clambered up the slope to what looked like a likely spot, and had the coldest bath you can imagine! I chickened out when it came to hair. Colleen's hair is very short, and it is quick to rinse, but I would have had to hold my head under that freezing water for much longer to get the shampoo out, and I just couldn't make myself do it. Each night we were supposed to have warm water for washing, and soon the routine would settle down enough that we could count on that warm water, and on having enough to wash hair as well as bodies, if we were thrifty. But there was no warm water yet. We each washed out some clothes and returned to camp. Then some of the men went up to wash; Rob went too, and felt well enough to do more laundry. When we strung rope along the porch to hang our things to dry, it looked like home!
That evening, although of course he ate almost nothing, Rob felt well enough to join everyone at dinner, and the main topic of conversation was his illness, and what might have caused it. Rob and I held to the Cracked Egg Theory. If you recall, at lunch the day before I had given Rob my hard boiled egg, which had been cracked. That was the only thing he ate that I didn't eat. Fred thought that since the eggs had been boiled only that morning, even though mine was cracked there hadn't been enough time for the egg to go bad. Fred made sense, but at the same time we couldn't think of anything else that could have made Rob so sick; Fred admitted that the symptoms sounded like food poisoning, so we really decided nothing, but Rob and I retained a measure of distrust for hard boiled eggs - cracked ones, anyway! We retired early; in fact it became our habit to retire most every night right after dinner, and we all slept like logs.
Next morning I felt like a new woman. Today was to be another long day; "Sasho to Gulab Garh (8 - 10 hours). Descend to the Chenab River, passing the caravans of Guja and Gaddi sheep-herding nomads. Pass through cultivated fields near the village of Atholi, with its Hindu animistic temples. Cross the Chenab and camp on a sandy beach at Gulab Garh, near the ruined fort of the old Dogra rulers. Camp in tents from now on." Sounded good to me! I hadn't even noticed the countryside the day before; I had been too tired, and too concerned about Rob. I was ready to make up for it by having a great day. Rob felt good too. Today we were to gain some more elevation; Gulab Garh, "Place of the Roses" as Ashraf translated it for us, was about 6,000 feet.
We were beginning to feel that we were getting out into the boondocks. The people were dressed in more ragged clothes, and none of them spoke much English. We never saw any sheep-herding nomads, but the land was beautiful, though harsh; we were still walking along the side of what varied from a very steep hill to a cliff, through country arid in appearance, with scrubby trees and brush. It was tough to find a private place to use as a toilet; going off the path always required some climbing, and big trees were not common. In places our road went across a rock face, and would change from a dirt path to a log construction built out from the cliff. These "sidewalks" always seemed perfectly safe and sturdy to me; after all, mule trains used them daily. The farther we went, the more mules we saw.
Rob and I walked part of the day with Colleen, Mary and Nat, who were the slowest walkers. Rob was still feeling drained of energy. I think Mary could have been up in front, but she chose to walk slowly. Nat was a deliberate, careful walker, and Colleen was still having trouble with her knee. The night before Fred had told her there was nothing he could do for her; he wasn't even sure just what she had done to it. Scot has had bad knees for years, and he lent Colleen a knee brace of his to wear. Scot, and later others of us, also tried to show her how to walk properly; to take small steps, especially going uphill, and keep her feet a bit pigeon toed to avoid unnecessary weight on her knees: to walk downhill with her bad leg somewhat stiff, not to put her weight on it when the knee was bent. Colleen seemed to have trouble following that advice; her steps still looked too big to me. But I couldn't feel the pain in her knee! I gave her advice based on what had helped me with a knee injury not long before we left on our vacation, but she could have had something very different wrong with her knee. I'm sure she was doing what felt best for it. If it did not improve, she would have the option of returning to Kishtwar, and leaving the trek, when the pony men turned around before we crossed Umasi La. After that there could be no turning around except for an extreme emergency. She had a few days to decide, and to see how her knee behaved. It was too bad we couldn't let her rest her knee for a day, but there was no way to do that unless she wanted to try to hire a horse from someone. I guess Colleen was not a horse person, and preferred to suffer with her knee.
I remember noticing, on this day and following days, how cultivated the land was, despite its inhospitability. Across the river, on the other side of the gorge, we saw occasional small settlements; obviously this land could not support many people. But in every possible place the land was terraced so that some kind of crop could be grown. I don't mean that we were always walking through fields, but it impressed me that in such a barren place, people had put so much effort into clearing a few square feet to grow food. The terraces were beautiful to look at; they made attractive patterns on the hillsides.
I also remember an extremely steep, long slope we descended that day. The trail switchbacked across the face of the hill for perhaps half a mile; we left our walking companions behind at this point, because Colleen's knee forced her to go very slowly downhill, and Nat and Mary wanted to stay with her. I think Colleen's distress brought out Mary's nursing inclinations and training. I don't have the best knees in the world, and I usually prefer uphills to downhills, but I have such a vivid memory of going down and down that slope and feeling grateful that I wasn't walking in the other direction! We didn't run into any mule trains on that stretch of trail, but I thought too of how hard the mules would have to work when going uphill loaded.
The mules we saw (there were few horses) were almost without exception healthy, strong looking creatures. They worked hard for a living, but they were obviously fed well too. I noticed some galls on our pack mules, but they all were fat and sassy. Ashraf told us that a mule represents about as much investment to a Kashmiri, as an average car does to an American. I suppose a fair bit of money can be made hauling supplies on mules, and since they represent such a major investment, it isn't surprising that people take good care of them. None of the mules are led on the trail. Many of them wear halters, and some of them sport various decorations - colorful ribbons or pompons. I suppose those are favorite mules. They respond to verbal commands and seem to understand their job very well. The mule drivers usually walk along behind the animals, and encourage them to keep a good pace, either by talking (or yelling), whistling, clucking, or sometimes resorting to the use of a small switch. It was not uncommon to see a man feeding treats to his mules as they walked along.
We were warned that mules have the right of way on the trails, and we should get to the side and stand still when mules were passing. It was prudent to stand on the uphill side of the path; a frightened (or heavily loaded) mule could possibly knock a person off the edge. It was also important to stand still. Many of the mules found us intimidating; I suppose we looked and smelled strange, not like the people they were used to. More than once I met a mule at a bend in the path, and obviously gave the mule quite a start; it would sometimes stop dead and fix me with the most accusing look, perhaps wondering if I could possibly be a Dreaded Mule Eater! After a few of these encounters I started feeling a little perverse, and would assure the mule who was staring at me that I ate mules every day for dinner, and sometimes for breakfast too - poor things, I think some of them believed me, but a shout from the mule driver would get them moving again.
There were some rocky, steep places in the path that were difficult even for us to negotiate, and it was amazing to see the mules going over bad ground. Their feet are small, and they place them with amazing concentration in a safe place, then stare at the ground to find another spot with safe footing so they can advance, every muscle bunched with tension and effort. Sometimes in bad places the mule drivers would go to the head of the line to encourage the head mule to go on, and it always did. I spent some time teaching Rob the difference between a mule and a horse. It is funny to think that something so obvious to one person, might be subtle and hard to see to another person. To me, a mule just doesn't look much like a horse at all. To Rob, they are awfully similar. Well, I guess one switching power supply looks just like another to me! I got a lot of enjoyment out of watching those mules.
I was anxious to get to Atholi, and anxious to see the Place of the Roses, though Ashraf assured us there wouldn't be any roses there and indeed he didn't know why it was named for roses. Each kilometer we had to walk seemed especially long today. I felt good, and Rob was doing amazingly well after his terrible experience the day before. But I wanted to get somewhere, and see something different. I had thought about my expectations before I left on the trip. Initially I had been most excited about seeing the Himalayas; I had wanted to see them ever since I was a child. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that the most interesting part of the trip would probably prove to be the people. It was a rare opportunity to see people that were in every sense a world apart from me. I wanted to see how they lived, what their towns were like. The towns we had passed through had been close enough to Kishtwar to be somewhat Westernized. Now we were far enough into the hills that the people would be relatively untouched, and their culture a lot more uncontaminated.
We continued walking after lunch, much closer to the level of the river now, and again in company with Mary, Nat and Colleen. After a while we came to a pretty spot, a little cove with a big sandy beach beside the river. We forsook the trail to take a short cut across the sand. It felt soft and good to our feet after all the rocks we had been walking on. I suddenly felt exhausted, and a little dizzy, and I told Rob I wanted to sit down for a minute, so we told our companions to keep going and we chose a log for our seat. While we were resting Scot and Fred came walking down a side trail from the hills. They had had a hot bath! Scot told us that high above us was the village of Totopani, "Hot Water", which was blessed with hot springs. He had taken Fred up the hill to show him, and to have a wash. There wasn't time though for Rob and I to go up ourselves, and anyway all our washing things were packed in our duffels and on a mule somewhere.
We got up to walk along with Fred and Scot, and I began to feel dizzy again, and sick to my stomach. Oh no, I thought, remembering Rob's recent troubles. Now its my turn. It certainly was! I only remember parts of the rest of the day. Whatever was wrong with me was incredibly sudden in onset, and very severe. I felt as though I were in a fog; I hardly realized that other people were around. I threw up a few times; I tried to walk in between spasms, but it was almost impossible to do so. I kept having to sit down, and I felt as though I would pass out, though I don't think I did. At some point Scot and Fred left us to go on ahead. Then Yasim appeared. He asked me if I wanted a horse. I told him that I could walk, but Rob told him yes, I needed a horse, and Yasim left us. I remember while we were waiting beside the trail, two men came along. I suppose it was obvious that something was wrong. Rob explained to them that I was sick, and that help was coming, but they only spoke a little English. I remember one of them took my pulse. For some reason that made me feel secure: his hand on my wrist felt like it knew what it was doing. They offered to take us to a doctor, or to bring a doctor, I don't know which. Rob had a hard time making them understand that we had a doctor with us, and that we would be all right. They must have been nice people, to be so concerned about the plight of two strangers.
After a while Yasim came back with a horse. I remember that. The man who owned the horse didn't speak English, but he understood that I was sick and needed to ride on his horse to Gulab Garh. Before he would let me get on the horse, he took both my hands in his and held my palms together; then he said some words softly over my hands, punctuating his speech with puffs of smoke that he blew over my wrists. This ritual seemed to go on forever. I was squatting on a rock; I felt as though I would topple over at any moment, but I managed to see it through. For some reason I got it into my head that what he was doing was saying a spell or blessing over me so that his horse would be willing to carry me. Later Yasim told me that the man had been saying a prayer for my recovery. I don't remember how I got on the horse.
We had been under the impression that our camping place was nearby, but in fact it was three miles or so ahead. I never would have been able to walk so far. Yasim stayed beside me to be sure that I stayed on the horse. He had quite a job; we crossed at least one river, and scrambled over rocks; Yasim exhibited some fast footwork. He stayed beside me somehow, though. I guess Rob must have been carrying my pack, or perhaps Yasim had it. Rob followed behind. After a while Scot joined us and walked with Rob. The horse went along at a good clip, and they had to hustle to keep up. Atholi was a pretty good sized town, up on a high hill overlooking the river. The horse just charged right up the hill. Poor Rob and Scot had to move along pretty quickly to keep up, and Rob, at least, was tired. Of course lots of people turned out to stare as we went through Atholi; I recall that vaguely, but I didn't care at the time. On the other side of town there was a steep, rocky hill to descend, and they all decided it would be safer if I got off the horse and walked. Rob helped me, and at the bottom, when it was safe to get on the horse again, he just picked me up and tossed me onto the animal. I was impressed! Very gallant indeed. Then it was only a half mile or so, over a big bridge, and down to the others of our group who were waiting. The horse cost 20 rupees. That has to be the cheapest ambulance service in existence!
I was exhausted and wanted desperately to lie down. Our tents weren't set up yet, and I collapsed on the ground gratefully. Evidently the pony men had misunderstood about our destination, and gone a bit farther along the trail. Ashraf went to find them. Meanwhile there was nothing to do but wait. It was cloudy and getting colder. The people from the town of Gulab Garh stood around staring at us, of course, and especially at me. One of the children stole Indrapol's pack. That was a blow; all his personal supplies were in there, and he could ill afford to lose it. However next day a woman who had seen the theft happen got the pack back for him, so he was lucky. We were warned not to trust people, not to leave things around, not to leave anything outside the tent at night. I'm sure most of the people there were honest, but our exotic possessions were quite a temptation. We had to wait a while for Ashraf to return with the mules. At least I didn't feel sick to my stomach any more, but I began having attacks of diarrhea, and I was grateful to crawl into the first tent that was set up down on the beach, and rest at last.
I think I must have had a fever. I felt freezing cold, then hot, and I saw people and things that couldn't have been there. Fred came over to give me an injection. He warned me that it would hurt; he wasn't kidding! That was a real whopper of a shot. I remember it well! I also remember feeling that I would die of thirst, for sure. But Fred told me not to drink anything for a while. Later he allowed me sips of water with ERG dissolved in it. I had never tasted anything so wonderful in my life! My stomach calmed down much quicker than Rob's had. If we had the same thing, it certainly manifested itself differently. Rob never felt like he had a fever. Rob didn't have diarrhea either, and I had a pretty bad bout of it. So perhaps we were suffering from different ailments.
This was our first real campsite, the first place where an outhouse hadn't been available, so it was the first time our toilet tent was set up. The name, "toilet tent", does not precisely describe the object. It was more of a "toilet wind break"; a large, heavy sheet of plastic, hung on three upright poles, placed a distance from camp. The idea, more than to provide privacy, was to confine our wastes in one place so they could be buried before we left. The plastic provided a wall; behind it we could relieve ourselves in seclusion. The toilet wasn't covered, as the word "tent" implies. Usually the poles were placed close to a large rock, so there really was a fair amount of privacy.
Next morning dawned cloudy and rain threatened. I had passed a peaceful night, and though I felt drained from the day before, my stomach felt stable and my diarrhea had stopped, so by comparison I felt great! Today we would be walking away from our old companion, the Chenab River, and up the Bhut Nalla. The description of the day's planned walk explained - "Gulab Garh to Chautu (about 7 hours). Cross the bridge over the Bhut Nalla, walking through some interesting villages with fine examples of Hindu Shiva temples. The valley opens up to a magnificent meadow with sandy beaches and the river widens to nearly lake size. Climb higher, passing through heavy forest and past logging operations. Camp in forest (approx. 7,700')." Leaving the Chenab River valley, the road climbed steeply up slopes of black ash material. Rob and I chugged along with Mary, Nat and Colleen, who was still suffering because of her ailing knee.
Before we had gone far it began to rain. We were really too warm to want to wear our rain gear; the temperature was cool, but we were burning plenty of calories walking along. Our faithful umbrellas proved as useful for keeping rain off our packs, as they had for keeping the sun out of our eyes. Rob and I had two umbrellas with very different personalities and attributes. Rob had bought the first one after Scot told us we would need umbrellas. He had a hard time finding an umbrella in Delhi, and bought the first one he found, which was expensive (100 rupees) and imported from Taiwan. It was dark blue, and very light weight. Its best feature was that it collapsed to half its expanded length when not in use, and came with a plastic sheath that covered it nicely. In collapsed form it fit right inside my pack, and so was convenient to carry on airplanes, as well as on the trail when not in use. Its major drawback was that it leaked. This was the day we discovered that fact. Rob found our second umbrella shortly after purchasing the first one. Pity he didn't find them in reverse order! It was a genuine Made In India umbrella and sold for 40 rupees. It embodied the essential spirit of Umbrella; black, cloth, plain, it couldn't collapse and its handle was only imitation leather; but it proved to be absolutely waterproof, and it would have taken a strong wind to invert it. We took turns carrying each umbrella. The collapsible umbrella didn't leak too badly. Carrying an umbrella constantly in the hand, for hours at a stretch, can be surprisingly tiring. Because the umbrellas were of different weights and lengths, carrying one used our arm muscles in a different position than carrying the other. So it was restful to switch now and then.
We often met local people along the trail. Most people were friendly, and would greet us with a "Namaste'!" and a smile; custom dictates that when greeting a person, the tips of the fingers are placed together, and the steepled hand is raised to touch the forehead with fingertips, while the head is inclined in a slight bow. People who were less polite, or less well brought up, would make only a token gesture, raising just one hand to touch the forehead with fingertips. Since most of us always were carrying something in at least one hand and often in both (water bottle, umbrella, food, camera, etc.) we mostly used the abbreviated form of the gesture. It was amazing how quickly a smile, bow and "Namaste'!" on my part would evoke an answering smile and salute from an unsmiling, sullen looking person. Most of the people seemed friendly, but when they met us on the trail, they probably felt unsure about how we would react to them, and how we might behave. One benefit of being in an area where few Westerners have been before, is that the chances of a rude idiot having been there before you to give the locals a bad impression is much reduced. I particularly remember one woman we saw on the trail. She was dressed in a white sari with gold embroidery, and Scot thought that she looked like she was going to a wedding. It seemed strange to see her way out there in the hills, walking along the muddy path in the rain, in her beautiful dress.
This day was a short one. Scot had never been this way before, and the trail notes he was following were unclear about just where our intended camping site was located. At the place described in the itinerary as "...magnificent meadow with sandy beaches...the river widens to nearly lake size", we halted for the day. It was only 2:00 P.M., but some of us were feeling a bit like walking wounded and really appreciated a long rest. The people who had been in the area before agreed that they had no idea where our designated camp site might be, and no one could remember any possible camping area for so large a group ahead. This spot was lovely! There was a large grassy meadow for pitching tents, a cave that the pony men appropriated for their own use when they arrived, plenty of grazing for the mules, a choice of good spots for the toilet tent, and all that lovely river for washing water!
The river was full of sand, and deepened very gradually from the beach, so it was hard to find a spot deep enough for washing. The river was too large and swift for swimming. Most of the group managed to have a good wash in the shallows; a few people found a spring up the trail and washed there. I was still feeling run down and tired from the day before, and I didn't have the energy to fight the cold water. I did wash some of our dirty underwear, and once again lines were rigged and drying laundry made the place look like home. Unfortunately, since showers continued on and off all afternoon, the actual "drying" was minimal. Later, because there was so much free time, the staff boiled a big pot of hot water, and we all got some for washing. I got the royal treatment - Rob washed my hair for me! That felt grand. There was even enough water for me to use for a sponge bath. Unfortunately my timing was bad. While I was zipped up tight in my tent washing, a group of religious pilgrims came by, and entertained us with a song and colorful dance. Before I could finish washing and get my clothes on, they were finished and gone, and I missed the show.
I remember that evening Rob looked at me with a wild light in his eyes and said, "Do you realize that we're in the HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS? In a few days we'll be going over a SEVENTEEN THOUSAND FOOT PASS!!!" Wow, I thought. It's really true. It's really happening. Here we are in the middle of nowhere in India, for heaven's sake, heading for unknown territory, soon to see places very few Westerners have seen. I felt so fortunate to be there, so excited I could hardly contain myself, and wildly curious about what would happen next. I wouldn't have traded places with anyone in the world. I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else. That moment of revelation was one of the high points of the trip for me. I don't think I ever felt that overwhelming sense of happiness and excitement again. I also admit to feeling a bit of trepidation over what we might encounter - I suppose that added some spice to my excitement.
The next day was described as follows: "Chauta to Lo-sa-ling (about 5-6 hours). Temperatures start to cool off here as we gain altitude. Pass many more Hindu animistic temples. About a half-hour past Machail, near the first Tibetan village we encounter, establish camp (9,200')." The day dawned rainy, and it continued to rain until late afternoon. The rain made for messy gear and dirty boots. Rob and I were fastidious about keeping our tent clean, but each night when the tents were set up we took pot luck and never got the same tent twice. Unfortunately other people were not as careful to keep their tents clean as we were, and we were not enthused about having to clean up someone else's mess every evening before we could relax. So we proposed that everyone keep the same tents from now on. That proposal was accepted; unfortunately the tent we got for our own started out dirty, but once we got it clean, it stayed that way.
This day would be longer than planned, because we had stopped sooner the day before. In fact, I never learned where "Chauta", our planned camping site, was located, though we must have walked past it that day. We got an early start, and walked along the river. Soon after leaving camp we encountered the logging operations described in the itinerary for the previous day. The "logs" were hand-squared beams; they had already been rough-cut higher in the mountains. At the site we passed, thousands of huge beams were stacked up. The men working there used piles of beams as crude houses; we could see the smoke from their cooking fires rising as we passed. All along the shore for perhaps a mile walkways were built of boards. Men carried the beams along these walkways, where the footing was easier than on the beach. The beams were huge, and the men small; it was astonishing to us that they could manage to carry such great weights. The logs were carried with forehead straps tied to ropes around the wood. The men hoisted the beams onto their backs somehow, and with the forehead strap bearing much of the weight, off they went. They looked like greyhounds - skinny, short, with the muscles and tendons of their legs standing out in sharp relief.
Soon we crossed the river, and the trail began to climb. We walked through tall forests of pine and fir, with occasional views of the river below. This was the day we began to encounter snow. First we saw small patches of the stuff; soon we were crossing huge old avalanches that had fallen in the spring and blocked the trail. The river narrowed and began to look more like a mountain river, albeit a large one. It was fast and deep. The trail became increasingly muddy. We were glad to have gaiters. We were also grateful for all the coats of Sno-seal on our boots. The temperature was cold, cold enough to make our breath visible, but the work we were doing was enough to keep us warm. Rob wore his Gore-Tex, and carried our Indian umbrella to keep his pack dry. I wore my poncho over my pack, with only a T-shirt underneath, and thus avoided carrying an umbrella. It sure got cold fast when we stopped for a break, though! I had to don my heavy sweater to make even the shortest rest comfortable.
Close to lunchtime we met a shepherd on the trail, in the middle of an avalanche area. He had two obviously sick sheep with him, and was carrying one of them. He was a picturesque old man with a sweet, toothless smile, and Rob asked permission to take his picture. He didn't seem to understand, but he kept on smiling, so Rob took the shot. The man did not react to the camera with the slightest change of expression, and we both felt convinced that he didn't understand what a camera was.
Shortly afterwards we met Scot, Jim, Ann, Fred and Gerry having lunch in a beautiful spot overlooking the river, and we joined them. Since my illness I hadn't been hungry, and I was content with half a chupati and some water. Rob was still eating when the old man with the sheep came ambling down the trail and sat near us. We thought it would be polite to offer him something. What did he want? Rob's water bottle! Scot felt it would be unwise to let a stranger drink from the bottle. What puzzled us was his request for water in an area where small snow-fed streams were everywhere. It didn't seem that local people would have had any trouble finding plenty of water to drink. Our water, of course, had been iodinated. At these cold temperatures we were allowing the iodine about an hour to do its work of purification, so if we had given our water away, we would have been without water for at least an hour plus the time it took us to find the next stream. Rob gave the man a chupati instead, and he seemed happy with that. Maybe he thought we had something more interesting in our bottles than mere water! I think he would have been surprised at the awful taste, if we had given him some to drink.
We walked together with the others for a while after lunch. This was the first day we had walked for any distance with Scot. His calves were the most muscular I have ever seen, and veins stood out beneath the skin. He walked with tiny steps, as he had learned from the Sherpas of Nepal, small people who carry very heavy loads in the mountains, and avoid damaging their knees by taking the smallest steps possible. Scot told us that Sherpas might carry well over 100 pounds apiece on a trek, at high altitudes, up steep rocky mountain trails. I was already taking short steps, but after following Scot for a while, I found myself taking even smaller steps, and I have retained that change in walking style. It makes a tremendous difference in the strain your body feels; especially it makes a difference to knees.
We hadn't gone far when we came to a bridge across the river. We followed Scot and Ann across the bridge and up a hill to a town. There we discovered the probable destination of the man with the sick sheep; an animal husbandry research station was the first building we came to. These mountain towns were primitive. The buildings were of adobe, dark and filthy, though some boasted old, weatherbeaten wood carvings on the doorways. Often the level of the path was above the lower floor of the houses. These towns had been in existence for a long time.
People invariably lined up in the street, in doorways and on roofs to watch us go by. We walked through town to a chorus of "Namaste'!"; it was impossible to say hello to everyone who greeted us, but we tried. The children especially found us funny, and would collapse in giggles when we acknowledged them. I have to confess though that I found the stares and the attention wearing. People from different cultures have different standards of politeness. We would consider it rude to stare so openly at strangers, but I don't believe the townspeople meant to be rude. Or perhaps they did; maybe they found us so strange in appearance that we weren't covered under normal rules for social behavior.
The paths through towns were sometimes ankle-deep in mud, and human excrement was not an uncommon sight. While passing through one town later in the day, Rob and I took a wrong turn, and went around town on the "toilet trail" instead of walking through the middle of town on the main path. Evidently one trail is chosen as a latrine, and everyone visits it. There are no pit toilets or other sanitary facilities available. I thought the towns were dirty, but I hesitated to say so. I tried not to criticize just because I found things different. But I felt better when Scot, who has spent years in that part of the world and lives much of his time in Nepal, said that he found the towns and people filthy too. He often compared Nepal and Kashmir, to the latter's disadvantage.
Now and then we would meet children, obviously school children, who would invariably ask us the time. We thought that perhaps they were practising their English; asking the time of day is a phrase a beginning scholar might have mastered. But we also met adults who asked us the same question, and later we found out that watches are an important status symbol in the mountains, and the people wanted to look at ours. Usually that was the only English phrase they knew!
You might find it surprising that any English would be spoken by these people, but England ruled India for a long time, and until just recently, when it was supplanted by Hindi, English was the official language in India for government and commerce. India has over a thousand languages in use - the 1982 Hammond Almanac says "...over 1,652 languages and dialects..." are spoken - and people need to agree on a common way to communicate. It seemed strange to me that Indians would choose English, the language of an occupying colonial government. But since the English ran the country for so many years, official documents were written in English, and many Indians - the military, civil servants, personal servants, merchants - had to learn it. Perhaps the foreign tongue was more widespread in use than any particular native Indian language. Today merchants in cities master several tongues as a matter of course, to be able to communicate with their customers. A houseboy on one of the Manora houseboats, a young fellow, spoke German and Spanish as well as English, and could also write in Spanish and English. I found that pretty impressive!
In this town we were greeted effusively by the agriculturalist who ran the animal husbandry center. He was glad for the opportunity to brush up on his English, and he offered us tea. Rob, Ann and I looked at one another and decided together to pass up the chance. None of us was anxious to risk catching something. Scot accepted the invitation; the rest of us walked on out of town. Ann wanted to walk faster than Rob and I did, and soon we two were alone on the trail.
We hadn't gone far when we were stopped by two excited men. They had something to tell us, but they spoke no English, and tried their best to convey something to us with sign language that we were too slow to understand. Finally Rob grasped the basic idea and looked across the river, where they were pointing as they talked. As he watched, he saw a flash of red - that was Jim, in his distinctive red rain gear, on the wrong side of the river! He had been behind the four of us, and failed to cross the bridge before the town. At that point in the trail it was hard to tell whether the main path led over the bridge, or straight ahead along the same side of the river. Jim had guessed wrong. We shouted at the tops of our lungs, and saw him wave. I think he had already realized his mistake and turned around. Poor Jim! That mistake added a few miles to his hike that day.
We were grateful to those guys who took so much trouble to show us our lost fellow trekker. I guess our clothing marked us unmistakably as Westerners, and part of a group. They must have noticed Jim and wondered where on earth someone like that had come from - then they encountered us, and realized we were all part of the same set.
Since our group was usually well spread out on the trail, getting lost was always a possibility. Back at Sasho, when Rob, Colleen, Gani and I had been confused about the trail, an arrow drawn by the leaders would have eliminated all confusion. Mary and Nat also got lost that day, and we had had a discussion about the problem with Scot. Now Jim was suffering. The problem was that the right trail was always perfectly obvious to Scot (he had the trail notes, after all), and he wasn't as sensitive as he might have been to the places where intersecting trails made the right choice difficult for the rest of us. After Jim's mishap, Scot was more careful about marking the trail when there was a chance for someone to take a wrong turn.
The countryside had really changed its appearance with the increasing altitude. The land was thickly forested, and there were frequent streams that crossed the path. We found it easier to obtain water, though the water was always full of particulates. We learned to strain our water; a bandanna over the mouth of a water bottle filtered out at least the larger particulates. We didn't quibble about the small stuff, since we had no choice. Every morning Sibra would boil a big pot of water for us to use in our water bottles, so that we could start the day, at least, with water free from the taste of iodine. Unfortunately, the boiled water often carried a strong taste of ashes, and even Lemon or Orange Squeeze couldn't hide the flavor, which was unpleasant. So we depended increasingly on the local streams.
The local people also depended on these streams, for more than drinking and washing; we began to see little mills for grinding grain, located on the streams and using water power to turn the grindstones. Around towns the local agriculture featured rice, with beautifully walled paddies and irrigation canals. Sheep and goats were common near towns, and we saw an occasional flock along the trail. The mule trains had become much less frequent, I suppose because we were getting into a region where there were few people.
Fred and Gerry caught up with us, and we walked along with them for the rest of the afternoon. I had come to like them more; they were aggressive and confident people, but they told good jokes, and I was happy that I was feeling more comfortable around them. Rob liked them less all the time. He found their ignorance of equipment and camping irritating, and I think he judged them rude; I guess it was a case of conflicting personalities.
We hiked along together. For a while I walked first, watching for Scot's distinctive shoe prints in the muddy trail to be sure that we stayed on the right path. Then we switched places, and Fred walked in front. When I walk first, I pay careful attention to the trail, but when I walk behind, I depend on the leader to watch the path, and I relax and enjoy the scenery. I should have paid more attention, because after we had followed Fred for a while it became obvious that we were lost. We were on the proper side of the river, so we weren't lost in a global sense, but we were no longer on the right trail, and were faced with the choice of backtracking and trying to pick up the trail again, or going forward and trying to rejoin it.
At this point we were walking over a very rocky, difficult area, on a ledge high over the river on our right, with a cliff to our left. We all agreed that the trail was up on top of the cliff somewhere. Rob was determined to go on, and he kept walking forward. Fred and Gerry thought the route ahead - up a steep rock wall - looked uninviting, so they turned around and began backtracking. I had hoped that we would all stay together; it seemed unwise to split up, but I couldn't let Rob go off alone, so I went after him. I joined him after a scramble up the rocks, and we rested for a bit, then continued in the direction we had been going. It seemed as though we were on a path. It was a faint trail, obviously not the main trail, but we were willing to follow it as long as it continued in the direction we wanted to go.
We hadn't gone far, when who should we see catching up to us, but Ashraf! As I recall he had followed our tracks. Jim was with him; Ashraf had met Jim after he had retraced his steps to the bridge and got back on the right trail. Ashraf told us to keep going as we were, and he left to get the doctors. He felt, as I had, that it would be better if we all stayed together. We walked over a really huge old avalanche, then over the shoulder of a giant snow bridge that spanned the river. I never felt comfortable walking on those things. I knew intellectually that the snow was compacted and very dense, I weighed next to nothing in that context, and the path was perfectly safe. At the same time I could hear water running beneath us from the melting snow, and I knew the stuff had to collapse some day - I said some fervent prayers that this would not be the day!
Soon we could see poor Fred and Gerry behind and below us, and Ashraf caught us up and passed us, traveling more quickly than we could up the steep slope. We crossed the last snow bridge and gained the grass, and our path seemed to go straight up. That was a scramble! When we finally reached the top Ashraf was sitting and smiling at us, talking with a local sheep herder. We got some rest waiting for poor Fred and Gerry, who were a bit put out when they reached us - Fred was mumbling something about being past forty and not in shape for this kind of climbing. They were irritated because, after retracing their steps once to try to find the path, they had had to turn around and walk over the same ground again, because Ashraf had told them to follow us. But Ashraf explained that they would have had to go back a long way to rejoin the main trail; also that the main trail gained the same amount of elevation as the trail we were on, only more gradually, so it went uphill for a long time. Our trail was shorter and steeper, so that it was more effort, but for a shorter distance.
After a rest, we all got up and continued walking together. Our side jaunt had taken us past a town, we learned later. Scot and Ann had reached that town, and sat down to take a break and wait for the rest of us. They waited for a long time, but we never showed up, and they couldn't understand what happened! They both felt the correct trail had been plain to see. Perhaps it was; I hadn't been paying attention, but I'm sure Fred didn't deliberately get us lost, so it was probably another time when an arrow in the trail would have been helpful.
The six of us continued on the main trail, headed for Machail. It wasn't far. We began to see fields of rice growing beside the path, and passed a lovely little Hindu temple perched on a rock to the left of the trail, covered with relief carvings of animals - sure signs of "civilization". Sure enough, we soon spotted the town at the crest of a gentle rise.
It had been a long day in the rain, and we were all mighty glad to reach our destination. Ashraf and Scot had decided to stop at Machail, not to continue for another half-hour as the itinerary suggested we do. Jim, Fred and Gerry all shared the problem of wet feet. Jim said his boots squished as he walked - that's a lot of water! Fred was concerned. Machail was at 9,200 feet, and definitely chilly. In the next few days we would be going over a 17,000 foot pass; from now on we would see more snow, and the weather would grow colder. Fred worried about the danger of frostbite; it would be difficult, if not impossible to dry wet boots now, and although we had a little bit of Sno-seal left, there was probably not enough to render their boots waterproof, even if they could have been dried.
Rob suggested hypothermia might prove a greater danger than frostbite. Hypothermia is a condition of lowered body temperature. It can occur at temperatures in the 50's; of course the risk is greater at lower temperatures. Wet clothes are a prime cause of hypothermia. Even when people are exercising, evaporation from wet clothing can carry away a dangerous amount of body heat. Fred's main worry was frostbite however, and he was beginning to wonder if he really wanted to continue on the trek. As he put it, he was only 40, and he needed all his toes for tennis! It was not worth risking their loss to see Zanskar.
Gerry was also beginning to express disenchantment with our adventure. He explained that his idea of a vacation included a lot more sunshine and beaches, and a lot less mud and rain! I think that Gerry was even less mentally prepared than Fred for the trek. I think perhaps it seemed to them, back in California, that the trek would be an interesting thing to do, entailing lots of physical exertion; since they were both physically fit and enjoyed exercise, they looked forward to that. But I don't think they were prepared for bad and monotonous food, days of rain, human excrement on the trail, pushing a giant truck to get it started...I guess the trek wasn't enough fun for them. At this point there was still the option of turning around with the pony men, who would soon be leaving us to return to Kishtwar. Colleen was considering this option because of her knee, and Fred and Gerry could have gone back with her. Jim, with his usual intrepid outlook, refused to worry about his wet feet. I never heard him mention the possibility of turning around.
Machail consisted of the usual collection of dingy buildings and curious, staring inhabitants. Machail boasted an added feature - a police station! The police chief was from Kishtwar, and would spend six months in Machail before going home to be relieved by another police officer. Machail was pretty much out in the boondocks, even from the perspective of a resident of Kishtwar. The chief kindly offered us the use of the police station. We were the first of our group to arrive there, and we went inside to get out of the rain and try to dry our wet things.
The room was very dark and dirty, but there were two beds that we were invited to sit on, and a fireplace. After taking off our wettest things, we busied ourselves getting a fire started. Unfortunately the fireplace either had no flue, or the flue was totally blocked, because the smoke just poured out into the room - but it was a source of heat. We sat on the beds (covered first with ponchos to discourage any wee beasties that might inhabit the blankets), and taking off our boots and socks, we set them before the fire to dry. Fred's and Gerry's boots and thick wool socks were really soaked, and I spent some time crouching before the fire with Fred, rigging sticks to hang the socks as close to the fire as possible, and turning socks and boots to prevent them from burning. A group of local adolescents found us interesting, and hung around just inside the doorway, inspiring some fear in us for our packs; the room was so dark and filled with smoke that it was hard to see across it, and our packs could probably have been stolen without our knowledge.
Before too long the rest of the trek members arrived, then the pony men and mules, and everyone but me began to set up camp. I stayed inside turning boots and socks and enduring the smoke. After the men left the room the boys grew bolder and came closer to see what I was doing. They didn't strike me as particularly friendly for some reason, and for the first time I felt uncomfortable around local people; but I stayed at my post.
Soon Ann, Colleen, Scot, Mary and Nat came inside to rest and get dry, and I went outside to find a beautiful afternoon. The rain had stopped, the air was delightfully fresh and crisp, and the clouds were breaking up, revealing tall mountain peaks ahead of us. I don't know how high those peaks were, but we were at 9,000 feet and they were a lot higher, barren, majestic, and covered with snow. What an inspiring sight! I was so anxious to climb up into that beautiful high country.
Indrapol brought around some tea, and the daily afternoon treat. I remember that day it was peanuts fried with onions. Does that sound strange? They were delicious! Sibra made two big plates full for us, and they vanished in the wink of an eye. I fully intended to make them when I got home, and until just now, I had forgotten all about it! I'll have to rectify that oversight.
Eating peanuts and having dry shoes on my feet made a big difference in my attitude towards life. When Rob suggested we climb the hill behind the camp, I was ready. I felt full of energy, but that feeling didn't last long! The hill was a lot steeper and higher than it looked, and before we had gone far we admitted to one another that we just didn't have the desire to struggle all the way up to the top. So we found a big flat rock and rested, looking through Rob's binoculars at the camp and the mountains around us, and taking pictures. The evening sun reflecting off the snow on the peaks was stunningly beautiful. From our vantage point we could also see storm clouds lurking in the mountains, and we felt concern about the weather. We needed decent weather to go over the pass, and rain at this altitude meant snow at 17,000 feet. But it was impossible to worry too much; we felt too good, and the vista was too beautiful. All around us on the hill our mules cropped the grass, and I felt full of contentment.
Perhaps word got out somehow that some of us were doctors, or perhaps people in remote areas just hope for the best when they see Westerners, but several sick people came to our camp, hoping to find help. Fred gave some eye drops to a man with an eye infection; he said he doubted the drops would help, but they probably made the man feel better. A woman brought a very sick baby to Fred. The child was about six months old, emaciated and soon to die; it was born with a serious malfunction in its body chemistry: it couldn't assimilate protein properly, and was slowly starving to death. Fred said he was surprised that it had lived as long as it had. Of course there was nothing he could do. He had seen a lot of children like that in Africa. Ashraf was interpreting for Fred; Fred told Ashraf that the baby was dying, but I don't know what Ashraf told the child's mother.
I think it was early that evening that the first rumors of trouble reached my ears. The porters who were to carry our loads onward from Machail had arrived, but had expressed concern to Ashraf about the weather and the amount of snow on the pass. If you recall, way back in Kishtwar a man had told us that he couldn't get over the pass because of snow, and we all began to feel worried - but I put my worry aside, for two reasons. First, I had confidence in Ashraf, in his ability to deal with people, and convince the porters to go on. Second, I had some faith in good old human avarice; the porters were being paid, as I recall, $5.00 a day to carry our stuff. That is a good pay in India! People like government clerks or police might make $40.00 a month. We saw an advertisement in a Delhi paper for a computer engineer, wanting someone with more experience than Rob has, for $3,000.00 a year. In that context, $5.00 a day is a respectable salary. I didn't think those men would want to lose such good wages. Their leader came around to heft our duffel bags and check their weight. He frowned a lot, and I felt nervous (what if he decided that my duffel was too heavy and refused to carry it?), but my fears were baseless and I knew that too, because I had weighed the duffel in Srinagar and it was under the limit of 14 kg. I didn't think that the man would bother to look at our duffels so carefully if he didn't intend to go through with the arrangement, though - one more reason not to worry too seriously about it.
My optimism was premature. At dinner Scot gave us two pieces of bad news. First, the porters were refusing to go over the pass. Ashraf had tried very hard to change their minds, but they seemed adamant. The snow was too deep, it was too dangerous, and they were afraid to go. The second piece of bad news was that someone had stolen our climbing rope. Scot had brought one 200 foot climbing rope; we might have needed to rope up to cross the glacier, and also might have needed it for river crossings. Scot was furious.
I guess at the time the loss of the rope didn't seem all that important to me, but the loss of the porters was a crippling blow. I couldn't believe that they would really leave us flat. I couldn't believe that Ashraf wouldn't be able to convince them somehow to go on. None of us could believe that our trek might be over right there in Machail - it had barely begun! We had been through some unpleasant times, but it all had seemed worth it, now that we were beginning to get up into the mountains, beginning to see the country we had come to see.
Ashraf convinced the porters to stay the night; he would talk to them again in the morning. He warned us about leaving anything at all outside our tents that night. Scot and Ashraf decided that we would stay in Machail the next day, to give us time to think about the problems we faced, and perhaps time to change the porters' minds. A very discouraged, unhappy group retired for sleep.
Next day was described in our itinerary as follows: "Lo-sa-ling to Sum-tsam-drog-sa (about 3-4 hours). Leave the Bhut Nalla River and trek into a narrow, alpine V-shaped valley which gives access to the higher plateau of the Himalayan foothills. Pass through a Tibetan village and continue past several waterfalls and small bridges to a large open valley called "the valley of the pregnant horses". Camp at an idyllic spot near the river at about 10,600 feet." I really wanted to see the pregnant horses! Scot warned me though that there were no horses there - that even if by some miracle we went on and saw the valley, I wouldn't be observing any horses.
I would have been happy to see whatever was ahead, horses or no horses. But it was not to be. Ashraf held another consultation with the head of the porters. He was adamant. They would go on under only one condition - that we wait at Machail for three consecutive days of clear weather first. That seemed impossible to us all, much as we wanted to continue. We had planned to be resupplied on the other side of the pass, and we just didn't have enough food to wait an undetermined length of time for three days of clear weather. This day was not raining, but the clouds were hanging heavy overhead, and it seemed unlikely that we would have three consecutive days of good weather any time soon.
Rob and I had bought trip insurance in the States, at the recommendation of Mountain Travel. The implication had been that trip insurance would cover us if anything went wrong. No, we had not read our policy. This seemed a good time to get it out. We read it, then we gave it to Jim to read, and we all agreed that these circumstances were not covered. If we'd had to leave the trek for illness or injury we would have been reimbursed, but there was no provision for coverage under the present circumstances. Colleen was the only person who might have been covered under the provisions of the policy, because of her knee, but she hadn't bought insurance.
We were a very despondent group. At least we could do our laundry! Up the hill from the tents was a spring where the local people got water. Having clean water available and convenient was one bright spot in our otherwise bleak morning, and we all bathed and did some wash there. Scot said that he wanted to go for a hike later that morning - did anyone want to come? No one did. He warned us that if any woman felt like taking a walk, she should go with a companion - that it probably wasn't safe for a woman to walk around alone.
We all spent some time discussing what we would do. Rob and I took a walk to talk things over. Rob was feeling very discouraged, and toying with the idea of chucking the rest of our trip plans and going right back home. I sure didn't want to do that! Scot had offered to try to think up a small trek that we could do for the remainder of the month (we had over two weeks remaining in India). Rob was feeling so disgusted with everything that he wasn't keen on a substitute trek either - he felt like he wanted to get away from bad food and upset stomachs completely, and the heck with seeing any more of India. Some of the other trek members wanted to give Scot a chance to think of something. Mary and Ann especially didn't want to cut their trip short. Fred and Gerry had been thinking about turning around anyway; I think they were the least upset of any of us. They had planned to go to Bangkok when they left India, and if the trek was cut short, they could go that much sooner. Colleen was worried about her knee; she wanted to see more of India, but she wasn't sure she could handle much more walking. Everyone felt disappointed, Scot as much as anyone, and he left to walk on up the trail. After he was gone I decided to go with him; I felt depressed, by Rob's discouraged attitude as well as by the truncation of the trek, and I thought a hard hike might do me some good, so off I went.
I walked fast and had hopes of being able to catch up with Scot. The countryside was really pretty. The Bhut Nalla was fast and beautiful, and along our side of the river the land was flat for a few hundred yards, enough room for people to live and crops to be grown. I encountered a few people, then a big herd of sheep. The silly creatures found me intimidating, even though I stood still off the trail to let them by. Some of them panicked, and I helped the shepherds shoo them back onto the trail again.
Before I had gone more than a mile or two, Rob caught up to me. He had run most of the way from Machail; after I left camp he began to worry because Scot had warned us against walking alone, and he didn't know if I would be able to catch up with Scot. That was a caring thing for him to do, and I felt warmed by his concern, especially since rain was threatening and he had run off without his rain gear. I agreed to walk with him until we found Scot, and we walked quickly on through giant boulders, then along cliffs above the river. After about an hour we decided that we probably wouldn't be able to catch Scot, so we had a bite to eat and returned to camp.
Late in the afternoon Scot returned. He had hiked up the river as far as the bridge, to find that the bridge was down. Even without the desertion of our porters, the river would have proved a serious obstacle to us. Here's where our climbing rope would have proved its worth! The river was not only fast but deep, and without a rope, it would have been dangerous to attempt a crossing. Ashraf searched the gear of the pony men, and found part of the missing rope; they had stolen it and cut it up, and it was therefore useless to us. Scot was angry, as was Ashraf, but if we had to return to Kishtwar we needed the mules to carry our supplies and gear, and getting too tough on the pony men would not have been wise. They had agreed to carry us back to Kishtwar, for a price, and alienating them now might have resulted in our being stranded in Machail - not an inviting prospect! So not much was said to them at that time.
We were all beginning to realize that we had no option but to turn around. If the porters were afraid to attempt the pass despite the high wages offered, it might have been too dangerous for us, too, despite our superior clothing and equipment. Some of us discussed the possibility of consolidating our gear and attempting to go on without porters. Rob and I were all set to try it; Ann, Mary, Nat and Jim were also game I think, and I'll bet Ashraf would have given it a try (I don't know about Indrapol, Sibra or Gani). Scot might have been inclined to consider that option, but not everyone could or would consider it; Fred and Gerry seemed to feel the idea was foolhardy, and Colleen's knee would have probably forced her to turn around in any case. Scot could not go on with some of the group and leave the rest to return alone; he had the responsibility for our safety, and his vote overruled ours, so he decided we had to turn around.
One last depressing note (as if we needed another reason to be depressed!) - there was no way to return to Kishtwar except by the trail we had come in on. We looked at the maps Scot had of the region, but every alternate route we considered was blocked by glaciers and mountains. There was only one way in, and one way out. I wonder if you can realize how discouraging that was! The trek so far had been O.K., but only in the context of the trek as a whole - the drive to Kishtwar had been grueling, the first few days of walking had been hot and not altogether inspiring, and we had just arrived at some interesting country and good walking. It was as though we hadn't gotten a single thing at all out of the trip (or for our money - everyone was thinking about finances). The trip at that point was a total waste; that's how we all felt. Scot was apologetic; he, too, had wanted to see this part of India, he had never been down these trails before, and he hated to turn back. But we all had to take our medicine. In the morning we would head back down the long road to Kishtwar.