Luggage & Shepards: India Part I
“Beware of the shepards – they are very cunning”. Great, I thought, this is just what we need….
One might describe expedition climbing as a long, multi-week adventure travel experience with the goal of safely conveying yourself, your partners, and several very heavy duffle bags of climbing gear in good health to a remote mountain basecamp, then turning around and reversing the entire trip, with a short climb sandwiched in the between. Lost baggage, third world parasites, washed out highways – frequently the real crux of a climbing expedition has nothing to do with climbing.
The warning came from an amiable local citizen of Tingrit who called in at our Kiva cook tent for a spot of tea. Tingrit is literally the end of the road: a small stone hamlet pressed into the deep folds of the Lahul Valley in the mountain state of Himachal Pradesh, India. We were on our way to the Miyar Valley, a small constellation of brilliant peaks and glaciers lost in the immeasurable universe of the Himalayas.
But this spring, a secret dossier worked its way into my hands, and I knew I had to go to India. It was put together by a team of British climbers, detailing the Jangpar Glacier, a side valley of the Miyar. It was glossy and professional, containing many color pictures of spectacular alpine architecture. And the best part – it was all unclimbed. The British had visited the area in the spring of 2004, put hampered by an unusually deep snow pack, they were thwarted in their efforts to climb all but one small mountaineering peak. Here were the proverbial keys to the castle – Pat Goodman, Dave Sharratt and I were soon packing our bags.
The world doesn’t pay enough attention to India – even though it is a remarkable place, and a country that will certainly play a pivotal role in the coming chapters of our world’s history. India’s “Tryst with destiny”, as Jawahar Nehru, the country’s first prime minister put it, begins with it’s people – and there are currently 1.1 billion of them. India is home to the largest Hindu population in the world, and third largest Muslim population (after Pakistan and Indonesia), plus millions more Sikhs and Buddhists, and myriad localized tribal groups that are impossible to count. Though it second in population to China, estimated growth rates project that India will overtake people China as the world’s largest country by 2040. And here’s the amazing part: it’s a democracy. This is not to say that the Indian government doesn’t have its share of problems, but it is a functioning republic, more so than . Certainly the answers to some of the thorniest questions of our times are hidden in this diverse, sentimental, flamboyant culture.
Not that any of this was really on my mind when our plane landed at Gandhi International Airport in India’s capital city of Delhi on a simmering August evening. At the start of an expedition, I am always hyper-focused on one goal: getting to basecamp. Often, this can be the crux of the entire trip – buddy was recently stymied in Pakistan this summer because the Though we had planned to sleep for the night and catch a bus to the city of Manali, the jumping off point to the mountains of the Himachal Pradesh, we quickly found that our taxi driver was open to negotiation. So it was that we immediately left Delhi on what eventually became a twenty hour, go for broke, Indian road trip. Our driver, a charismatic Sikh who went by the anglicized nickname of “Happy” needed to pull over several times to nap, but he kept us supplied with tasty local food and beer, and was would pull over when we had to piss – what more could you ask for?
The party getting started.
I’m always amazed at how backpacker towns all seem the same — and Manali is what you could describe as a “destination backpacker town”. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in Yangshuo, China, Chalten, Argentina, or Tamarindo, Costa Rica, these places are all about making hippies feel good about themselves for traveling while subtly providing all the comforts of back home (cheap drugs, food that won’t make you sick, and the ability to check your email every ten feet). Anyways, it took only a day in Manali to buy food, arrange a cook, (Maybe the only fortunate legacy from India’s two centuries of colonial rule is that most Indians speak at least a little English) and then we were off again. This time it was a 10 hour drive over the Rhotang Pass and down into the Lahul Valley: basically a ten hour, 4×4 mission in a jeep to reach Tingrit.
The Miyar Valley is definitely off the beaten track. Over the past ten years, Italian, Spanish, and Slovenian climbers have visited the area, but only at the rate of one or two expeditions a year. Nobody in Tingrit has even thought to open up a tea house yet, so we camped on the lawn of the local grade school. Farming is the main source of income in the Miyar – particularly a wonderfully fat strain of green peas that are cultivated in terraced gardens, then harvested and sold all over India. Higher up, the valley is used as grazing lands for thousands of goat, sheep, and cattle.
Other than acclimatizing by smoking beedie cigarettes with our porters, my main occupation during the approach hike to basecamp was restraining Mr. Sharratt from breaking his ankles on the many appealing bouldering problems we passed along the way. (Recall that the goal of expeditioning is to get to basecamp in good health.) Dave’s nickname is “the Monster”, and for good reason: the guy craves hard rock climbing the way the rest of us need beer and oxygen to survive. On the map the British had made of the approach, one spot about a day below basecamp was clearly labeled “massive blocks”. Dave was first out of camp that morning, racing up valley towards the mysterious boulders. By mid-afternoon we had reached the blocks – an impressive boulder field that tumbled across a well grazed flat field from a hillside to the east. Dave ran around like a kid in a candy store, while I issued strong warnings to not screw the whole trip with a twisted ankle and provided spots.
So it was that we had our first encounter with the infamous shepards, while Pat and I were laying on the grass drying our socks and watching the Monster boulder. Three scrappy looking fellows approached us, carry several water jugs and towing a goat on a leash. What to do – should we hide our gear, run for cover, pretend to be asleep? Pat and I tried to play it cool as they sat down next to us and offered us a sketchy looking drink as a gesture of friendship. “Be careful Freddie”, Pat whispered between his teeth. “These guys… they are cunning.”
I’m still not sure what happened next, but within fifteen minutes one of them had appropriated Dave’s MP3 player., I had given another my two lighters and a pen, we were officially made blood brothers to the shepards – and we were all smashed.
Luckily we made it to basecamp the next day, a bit tired and hung-over, but having nevertheless succeeded in the first goal of expedition climbing.
River polished bouldering, sketchy road travel, the pastoral Miyar Valley, and beautiful sunsets.
