My first visit to the Mountains

7 min readApr 3, 2020

“Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.” — David McCullough Jr

In this article, I am going to share my experiences with my first visit to the mountains. It is full of uncertainties, fun and challenges.

This visit gives me a lot of life lessons, which I shared in this blog — “A Journey to the Mountains”

Hope you enjoy this read!

How it started

It was the time of a new year, 2020 when I came to know that Adventure Club of IIT Kanpur is organizing a trek to mountains in March. I thought why not to give it a try this time and see what trekking is. But before trekking, we have to attend the 40 days conditioning so that we can become fit and complete the trek without much difficulty. There were some levels of the trek from harshest to modest and based on the performance of conditioning; coordinators shortlist people for treks. The first one was Kanchenjunga Base Camp (KBC) and the second one was the Goechala trek.

That time I was thinking, the more difficult the trek is, the more enjoyable it be (but later I proved wrong!). The conditioning time was 5:45 am to 7:30 am and waking up at 5:00 am is challenging during the winter of January in Kanpur. But I was determined to give my best in conditioning, always tried to push my limits and performed well in their running events. Conditioning was really challenging but very healthy and increased stamina very much. Finally, I completed 8 km in 42 mins which was a good performance and based on that I got KBC trek.

The Journey

Finally, after 40 days of conditioning, we were all set for the trek and very excited to face the future challenges. We packed our rucksack with clothes, sleeping bag and snacks which we had to carry with us while climbing. The weight of rucksack was around 15–16 kg. Club coordinators appointed me as trek doctor, so I had to move with another 2–3 kg bag of medicines.

Our tickets from Kanpur to New Jalpai Guri (NJP) was not confirmed, so we went via bus to NJP and from NJP to Yuksam via cab. We had to start our journey from Yuksam. We reach Yuksam by 10:00 pm, 7th March’20. Yuksam is at the height of 1700 m above sea level. Our target is to reach the height of 5500 m. The problem with high altitude is that as we go up, the oxygen level decreases in the air, which causes some issues like headache, vomiting, weakness and sometimes AMS (acute mountain sickness).

So finally our journey started from 8th March morning

Day 1 — Yuksam to Tshoka

On day 1, we have to walk 17 km of distance and gain elevation of around 1200 m along with our rucksacks. We ate our breakfast, and after that started our journey around 8:00 am.

At the start, the journey seems good and enjoyable, but after some time, the body gets tired. All the way was like moving uphill and downhill. I thought I would enjoy the journey, but later I realised it’s not true, I was feeling pain in my body, I wanted a long rest, but we have to move to reach the destination on time. I am with my other friends, we all motivating each other. I could feel that the oxygen level in air was decreasing.

Finally, we reach Tshoka around 4:00 pm. The temperature was around 5˚C. We took a rest and after that ate our dinner (taste was not good!!). Some of my friends were feeling a headache but after taking medicine and rest. All us feeling well by morning.

Day 2 — Tshoka to Dzongri

On day 2, we have to walk around 12 km and gain elevation of about 1000 m. From previous day experience, we realised it would not going to be easy. But we had no way to go back, so after breakfast, we started our journey around 9:00 am.

That day we started encountering with snow, and we have to walk on that. Again that day too journey was not easy. I slipped a lot on snow. As we were gaining elevation, oxygen level decreases which decrease thinking capability. I started asking the question to myself why I am climbing, why I am giving so much pain to myself, what I will get out from this pain, how people can enjoy this pain? But I have no way to go back, and I have to move. Again this day too, we all motivated each other and help each other and finally reached our destination.

Many team members were feeling headache and fever, and some of them showing symptoms of AMS. They took medicine. That day we all were feeling very much tired. We didn’t want to eat anything, but we have to eat to provide energy to the body. We got our dinner, and its taste was horrible, but we have no choice. I started realising the importance of food which we get in IITK mess. Our body was paining. My shoes and clothes all were wet. That night temperature is too low that it freezes the water in my bottle.

Day 3 — Dzongri to Devralli Hills to Dzongri

It was around 5:15 am when our trek leader told us that we are going to Dzongri top to see the sunrise and we have to get ready in 15 mins. My body was well, but my motivation is too low that I don’t want to go. But he ordered me to go, and I am not able to refuse him out of respect. I wore wet shoes and clothes and went with them. The distance to Dzongri top is not much. My body doesn’t want to move. I am asking myself why should I go, why I am giving pain to myself, and after half distance, I just sat there and started thinking from where I get the motivation to move up. After some time I realised it’s all the mind which keeps you move up not the body, if your mind directs your body you can reach anywhere, but if your body directs your mind you can’t move. So after realised this, I started walking and reach Dzongri top which is at the height of 4200 m. There the view was awesome and mindblowing. Below is the image of that view.

We returned to our camp around 8:00 am. Now we have to start moving up towards the summit, but the health condition of some people was not well, and they can’t move up. So 13 out of 30 people rested at Dzongri and rested 17 decided to go to Goechala. I was in that 17. So we started our journey, the view was ultimate excellent, We were walking on top of the mountains where we saw only snow. The level of snow was to about our knees. But after moving 5 km and gaining a height of 4400 m, we realised yaks carrying our food couldn’t move in that snow level, and we have to stop our elevation till Devralli Hills.

We returned to Dzongri camp, where we met with our remaining friends. There we took rest and played cards. All were fine and well. It was a fantastic day for us.

Day 4 — Dzongri to Tshoka

Now we have to start our return journey. Elevation was over, and we have to only descent now. Moving down seems a little difficult than moving up because of knee pain. We know the path of the remaining journey, so it didn’t look much challenging, and we returned to Tshoka. There we played card games, took our dinner and enjoyed a lot.

Day 5 — Tshoka to Yuksam

Finally, this was the last day of our trek, and our body was paining. We just wanted to get off from our rucksacks. We all wanted to eat good food. I wanted to clean myself because that was the first time when I didn’t take a bath from 7 days.

At last, we reached Yuksam. We saw people around us, saw houses and got mobile connectivity. It looked all so refreshing after five days of complete cut-off from these. At night we ate tasty food, did dance around the bonfire and made a lot of fun.