Mountain Moments...a journey down the memory lane

( First published in the Commemorative Souvenir 2006 /75th anniversary of first ascent of Mt. Kamet - published by the Himalayan Club, Kolkata, 
 with editorial support of Meher H. Mehta & Priyadarshi Gupta)

Memories of a summit day on Kamet

--  by Hemant Thete

Flap, flap, flap…., the flapping sound kept on incessantly.  “Helicopter!” I asked myself.  I could also hear a gushing sound nearby. There must be a big stream around!  The flapping sound now abated. It must be going away, I thought. The copter must be finding it difficult to land. Is it looking for us?  “Delay”, I cried out.  He was in the adjacent tent, but the wind had again picked up and I couldn’t hear his reply.  With the return of the wind, the flapping again started, followed by the incessant gushing sound .The wind now turned into a roaring tornado. Where was this stream?,  I wondered. There was no stream around here yesterday! As I opened my mouth to shout out again to Delay again, a sudden flash in my mind brought me back to the reality of the situation. “How could there be a helicopter at such an altitude?” This alarming thought woke me up from my reverie.  With my eyes still closed, I tried to visualize the plight I was in and soon realized that the flapping sound was coming from the untied outer sheet of my tent.  The peg must have loosened itself from the snow. I attempted to emerge from my daze and look outside and saw that fresh snow had heavily weighed down the tent-sheets. I feebly pushed at the tent covers and managed to displace some of  the accumulated heap of snow. With more space available inside the tent now, my breathing became less hypoxic and my thought clearer. The zipper of my tent seemed stuck and my numb fingers struggled to undo it through the thick mittens I had been wearing. I succeeded eventually and perused the heavy snow collected outside. A thick white veil of fog blocked my view of the upper realm of Kamet. My befuddled mind instinctively quizzed about the time, but my watch seemed to have become “cold-struck” and non functional.  Looking left I found that Delay was sitting at the entrance of his tent oblivious of the weather, humming something in Nepali. I envied him for his fortitude and ability to accept the worst of situations in the best of spirits.  “Kaise ho saab?” he enquired without looking up towards me.  “Thik hoon bhai, thakaan hein yaar?”, I replied honestly.  I was indeed exhausted.  The edge of my endurance seemed close at hand. I again enquired about the time.  “It’s eleven”, Delay informed me.  “Eleven?” I wondered out aloud.  I must have slept for about 3 hours since my return in the morning. I was severely fatigued, with strange thoughts and visions churning in my mind. Was I hallucinating in broad daylight? 

Trying to get a grip on myself, I enquired, “Unki koi khabar?”.  “Na”, Delay replied.  “Summit toe ho gaya honga, Nahi?” I asked.  “Ha, ho bhi sakta hein”, Delay sounded rather philosophical. The thick white veil around us was slowly thinning and I scrambled out of the tent after slipping into my warm Koflach boots. Standing outside the tent I turned and looked in the direction of Meade’s Col. The slopes were quite visible and suddenly I noticed four tiny dots, one behind another, just on the edge of the slope, possibly  about a thousand feet higher  than from where I was standing.  It seemed unclear as to  whether they were returning from the summit or  were still  approaching it.  Occasionally I could hear voices from the direction of the climb especially that of  Himalaya Sherpa’s. Were they really voices or figments of my imagination? Altitude can play funny games with one’s mind,  I told myself. The wind strengthened once again and thick clouds soon engulfed the surrounding landscape. The Abi Gamin ridge, the west face of Kamet and the Meade’s Col were soon enshrouded by the rapidly thickening  white veil. The howling wind sounded like a Banshee’s howl, adding to the eeriness of the strange world around me.

Delay suddenly shouted, “Saabji, ander chalo, weather pack ho gaya”, and unwillingly I entered the tent. The thin tent fabric provided little protection from the chaos that pervaded the outside world. Delay  felt that our summit team members were still about an hour short of the summit and I began to feel worried. Would they make it to the top and return safely.?  Tiny pellets of snow again started their rain-dance on the tent’s  outer flap and resumed tormenting my tired oxygen starved mind. Delay, possibly to encourage himself ,began singing his strange song, this time  more loudly.  He also began melting snow to make water for our members who would probably return with parched throats.

It had been well past 2 am on the summit day, when we had started our slow climb up the slopes towards Meade’s Col.  The route was a constant ascent along the left slope, as Himalaya Sherpa had said it would be. Sanjay Mane, Deepak Kale, Vibhu Puri and I  were the team members being assisted by Himalaya Sherpa, Mingmar, Khushal Rana and Gyalbo. It had been an exhausting effort trying to get ourselves ready for the summit attempt and to commence the climb along the frozen wilderness. Suitably roped, we started off, step by step towards our objective. We were soon plodding through ankle deep snow. We would stop every now and then to adjust our crampons, but in actual reality to catch our breath, without seemingly appearing to do so! Soon though, our breathing became heavy and out of synchronization to our walking rhythm.  Himalaya Sherpa kept goading and instructing us. So we continued to move upwards in a disjointed manner.  Being dark, our vision was limited to the path of our torch beams. We could see no stars above in the sky.  The snow thickened, and I found myself paddling in its loose and slippery mass.  A step forward would result in slipping two-steps back. These efforts left me panting and totally out of breathe. My sub-conscious realization soon became apparent that my aspirations of summiting Kamet would soon end. I struggled on nevertheless for some time, but it eventually became inevitable that I had to take a hard decision on my continuing. Being roped to my team mates and being hopelessly out of rhythm would mean obstructing the faster progress of the others.  It was not that the others were finding it easy going either, but then Vibhu and Deepak were quite young and Sanjay seemed quite strong and fit. I reckoned that they would be able to harmonize their climbing rhythm faster than I. At that height I also was aware that slow and gradual climbing would have enabled me achieve a proper walking rhythm, but being roped  to the others  meant that I would have to move faster than what I was  capable of then.

I eventually conveyed my decision to Sanjay (our deputy leader) and Himalaya Sherpa, both of whom who acceded to my wish to turn back.  It was well past 4 am and the mountain slope was dimly lit by the pre-dawn glow. The sun would soon rise and I should be able to return to the summit camp on my own, suggested Himalaya Sherpa. I un-roped myself and stood there for awhile watching the slow and laboured struggle upwards of the others , till they disappeared above a small snow hump. The calmness of the dawn was quite moving. The deep blue sky had tendrils of soft clouds floating in a gentle breeze. It was a lovely morning indeed. Being all by myself in this lonely expansion of eternal white, I savored deeply its poignant beauty. In that period of darkness, at the time I was contemplating turning back, I had almost felt like crying out of frustration. Yet, within moments of turning my back to the summit, I was now enjoying the most beautiful mountainscape I ever had a chance to observe. In the awakening dawn, I could see the small black humps of our summit camp.  Our footprints in the snow could be traced all the way to it.  Beyond our summit camp, the slope eased gently towards the right and disappeared behind a huge protrusion towards our Camp 4. To the left, the strengthening morning light lighted the Abi Gamin ridge. My thoughts began drifting down memory lane……Back in September’ 95 during a Mt  Jogin expedition, I had to spent nearly 4 hours after midnight, all by myself  in pitch darkness on the  famous 800-ft wall between ABC and the upper snowfield. Then too, I had been privileged to witness a magnificent dawn, behind the beautiful Mt Thalaysagar. Four days later I had climbed Mt Jogin-3 and Mt Jogin-1.

Himalaya Sherpa had suggested that I try and attempt Mt Abi Gamin along with Delay, who was ensconced at the summit camp. On my return to it, when I asked Delay to accompany me, he did not appear in the mood for it as he had not climbed on Mt Abi Gamin before. Not wishing to push him, nor wanting to go down to a lower camp yet, I decided to spend those morning hours basking in the warm sun at the summit camp, itself.  The soft dawn soon turned into a hot morning. But the warmth of the new day was soon short lived as thick clouds started to emerge from across the distant mountains. I had just finished gulping a cup of steaming hot tea that  Delay had prepared, when I found that the  weather  had changed dramatically and the wind, rather ominously, had quickened its pace and so turned into a  roaring gale. We retreated into the warmth of our tents. The thought of attempting the summit again after the return of the first team, slowly began fading from my mind. I felt rather tired, and at this height, just lying down in the primitive comforts of my tent would slowly de-energize my body. Besides, there was limited food available with us. All the supporting staff would also be exhausted after the first summit attempt.  We had already spent one full day at this height and were feeling the effects of high altitude .The climb from Camp-4 (22,000 ft) to the summit camp (23,300ft) had been rather tiring as the strong sun reflecting on the adjoining snow slopes had scorched us severely.  Upto Camp-4, a cloud cover had protected us from the strong solar irradiation. What was expected to be a three hour walk to the summit camp, had taken us almost 5 hours. The possibility of attempting the summit that same night seemed out of the question. We decided to spend an entire day at the summit camp, acclimatizing to the altitude.  At a short stretch before arriving at the summit camp, a small crevasse had almost swallowed me. I had somehow managed to grab a foothold on the crevasse wall and had hung on precariously. Sanjay then had carefully crossed the fragile snow bridge and provided me rope support to enable me to climb out safely. This incident had sapped a lot out of me and had left me totally dissipated.

Turning back from the summit attempt had not bruised my ego much. I have always felt that there is more to an expedition than the mere ascent of a summit. To me, it was more important to return back safely, and to assimilate the accumulated knowledge gained from each new expedition.  One of my friends had been enchanted by Mt Kamet and  had  attempted  to climb Kamet twice, but had to return from summit camp on both occasions.  The thought of ‘safe return’ reminded me of Avinash Korde, our leader in Bhagirathi-II expedition in September ’97, who had lost his life while returning from the summit. Avinash’s memory  always preyed in the back of my mind. The’ Nagpur Mountaineers’, Nagpur had planned Bhagirathi-II as a pre-Kamet expedition.  But his tragic death during that expedition had had a discouraging effect on our club membership. Consequently, we had not been able to raise a suitable team to challenge a giant like Mt  Kamet. ‘Saad Mountaineers’, Mumbai provided the opportunity and I grabbed it, no questions asked. That was August ’99. Yet, here again, I had just abandoned a final summit attempt!

The night prior to the summit attempt, strangely, Sanjay Mane remembered Avinash Korde. He knew about Avinash’s Kamet dream. “Look, Hemant,” Sanjay had said. “He (Avinash) was aiming for Kamet and we should do whatever is possible to attain the summit.  It would be a tribute to his memory”. But, I well knew that in the high mountains there was no place for idealistic thinking. Foolish idealism could result in calamitous consequences. “It’s one thing to remember him and his dream and cherish his memory as that of a good climber. I would always respect him for the efforts he had made on behalf of the Mt Bhagirathi expedition, but that  should not be the basis of our going for the summit,” I had told Sanjay. “We should rely on our own abilities and prevailing circumstances.  There should be no sad feelings if there was  no summit attained.  We can always come back; mountains are immortal, man is not”. A thought of the previous night’s conversation was playing the devil in my mind!

The weather outside the tent became calmer.  Yet the devil in my mind would not leave me alone! My instincts were signaling that things were not all good. My thoughts again returned to our ’97 expedition to Mt Bhagirathi . I had been returning from the summit camp to the ABC, thinking that Avinash was following me. The weather kept playing foul with us. One moment the upper ridges were visible, yet the next moment everything seemed enveloped by thick mist and fog.  It had been a lonely walk for 2 hours. Just as I approached the ABC site, I looked back to the mountain. There seemed no human movement behind on its upper ridges. Why was he not coming down? My mind panicked. Ominous clouds were gathering in the sky above. On the U-shaped rim of the mountain massif, the clouds seemed to form a ‘gigantic hole’, seemingly getting ready to swallow all in sight. The sight frightened me immensely.  Worsening weather and the ensuing  blizzard made it impossible for us to search any further for him. Next day, we found Avinash’s body on one of the side slopes. 

I tried to shake off this unpleasant memory and tried to concentrate on the situation at hand.   It was still windy and unclear outside. Being well past 2 pm, the summit team should have been on its return journey.  They would be expected to come back any moment now, I thought.  I sat at the entrance of the tent. Water and Tea was now ready, as was confirmed by Delay. I tried to consider winding up of the Summit camp tents.  There were not many things lying around any way. It would definitely not take too much time to close the camp, in case we had to wind up and move down to the lower camp. But the deteriorating weather seemed to discourage any down- ward movement till probably the evening. My exposed face felt chilled in the wind but I suppressed my urge to drink more tea.  ‘Let them come down first ’ was the  predominant thought in my mind.

Delay’s enthusiasm for singing had also abated. The waiting was getting tiring and nerve wracking. “Sir ji”, Delay interrupted the string of my musings down memory lane. “ Dekho, Awaj a rahi hein”.  I scrambled out of the tent, steadied myself, and looked up towards the Meade’s Col.  Visibility on the upper slopes was still poor, but there seemed some movement on it. I could hear someone shouting and calling out to me.  It was Himalaya Sherpa calling out   “Hemant, Hemant”.  He then shouted, “Summit was achieved, but Sanjay is feeling exhausted and is being helped back downwards”. With ice axe in one hand, I took some quick steps forward  then came back to collect a bottle of water , at the same time shouting  to Delay to be ready with some more.  Visibility was indeed poor.  I had to adjust my  walking direction after every few steps.  I just kept walking, step by step, into the white curtain. I could see almost nothing. All I knew was that the route went continuously upwards. Fortunately, our tracks were still visible.  Slowly some moving forms became visible. They appeared like inebriated zombies. I could hear my own heart pounding fast in alarm.  First came Vibhu, followed by Deepak.  “Congrats”, I mumbled sofltly , and then stopped in my tracks as I saw Sanjay being supported by Mingmar and Khushal, with Himalaya following closely behind.  Sanjay was wearing a feather jacket and his  face told its own story. His mouth was open, and he had a very distant look in his eyes.  Strands of frozen icicles had formed on his cheeks and nose.  “Hello, Sanjay”, I tried to speak to him again.  But his eyes looked focused elsewhere .Was he looking for the tents?  “Chalo sab thik ho jayega, bas hum log pahunch hi gaye hein”.  I tried to comfort him while taking his arms over my shoulders and relieved Khushal. Delay, who had followed me, then relieved Mingmar. We slowly walked back towards the summit camp, it seemed like a long walk indeed. The howling of the wind had abated by now and fresh snow had ceased to fall. The clouds accumulated above seemed to stifle the afternoon light. The soft crunching of snow by our boots and my thumping heart were the only sounds I could hear. It was late afternoon when we reached the safety of the tents. 

It was the beginning of a long and a painful journey off the mountain…we continued our journey downwards, camp by camp up to Niti village.  Sanjay’s health was seemingly improving. On 16^th August, we celebrated our success with villagers of Niti. On the morning of 17^th August, we began preparing to move Sanjay on horseback towards Ghamsali from where we could have managed a jeep to the nearest hospital in Joshimath, just a matter of 2-3 hours. Sanjay was being readied to move on the horse, and just when we thought that the ordeal was beginning to get over, he collapsed never to rise again. Life of a prominent mountaineer – colleague thus cut short.

The devil playing in my mind on that fateful summit day, had drummed up an evil satire, for me, once again. These memories keep haunting me, from time to time. Yet, I climb on, not knowing really, why?