Fall and Rise: Learnings from the Mountain

In Mountaineering you don't conquer peaks- you manage to get up there and get the heck out of there.

It is the 9th night of our expedition. We have already attempted a grueling climb to the top of Kang Yatse-1, a 6400 meters peak in the Markha Valley, Ladakh. Tonight, we will try our luck with the Kang Yatse-2 peak, 6200 meters high, and the second peak of the massif.

We are at the base camp at 5200 m, having not slept last night due to a summit attempt on the treacherous KY-1. Tonight is the only chance to push for KY-2 as the bad weather is predicted in a day or two. Me and my wife, Manmeet look at each other in our tent and both don’t know what to do. We are already exhausted after the unsuccessful attempt of KY-1 last night.

I am coughing with a sore throat since day 1 of the expedition, thanks to my poor decision to not acclimatize properly. I have a headache but no real symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness, and now I can’t recognize my voice. We decide that we will push nevertheless. We could not go back without a summit.

Lapu was our guide, a trained mountaineer, and a native of Zanskar Valley in Ladakh. Disha and Priya, our friends, and teammates are ready with their gear to climb at 10 PM sharp. Manmeet and I are slow and a little late due to fatigue. We delay the start of the climb by 20 minutes but it is no big deal as we start 2 hours early than the usual summit push at midnight. We start the climb with prayers offered to the Mountain Gods.

Lapu continues the hymns as he leads us toward the mountain. I am dead exhausted but push myself up the climb. I almost sleep while moving up. It is a stupid idea to push yourself in such conditions at high altitude but I was determined to summit the peak.

We take rest breaks as we have time to our advantage which is a blessing for me. Others in the team are in a slightly better condition than me. After 3 hours of consistent climbing, we reach a point where we need to put on the crampons as the ice climb begins for the summit.

I get frozen in the cold of the night as I struggle to fix my crampons which fail to fit me like last night. I forget to put on my windproof pant and as a result, I need to remove all gear again to get it on. Everyone has gotten slow due to the cold.

Meanwhile, we realize that Priya’s crampons have malfunctioned and the guide Lapu is getting restless fixing them. Somehow, we manage to make them work, but temporarily. This issue forces us to commit a serious mistake. We avoid getting roped up because Priya could potentially put the team at risk. We instead decide to hold the rope in hand and climb. Nevertheless, we move on and start pushing up the ice wall. It is a steep gradient and takes up a lot of energy to move up.

After struggling through the dark, one step at a time, we reach the area which was hit by an avalanche a day before. We could see the impact of the avalanche on the snowfield. It is scary to think of being caught in this situation. We move through this snowfield which seemed like a monster machine had ploughed it several feet deep.

We push ahead through the starry night without many stops with an infatuation to summit the peak. We are happy that in a few hours, we would be on the top of the mountain celebrating and congratulating each other. That is one of the few memories I have of that stretch. I don’t know how the time went away before I have a clear recollection of later events.

Now the dawn is changing the hue of the landscape. We can see different shades of the distant mountains that were not visible in the dark of the night. The moon failed in the night to bring out that spectrum of colours. We were spellbound by the beauty of the mountain. The time was around 5 AM and it had been 7 hours since we started for the summit. It would take another 3 hours before we could summit. The height was 6000 meters and the last 200 meters was a hard stretch with a steep gradient.

Disha was leading the pack. I was at the last. I was recording the climb with my camera and capturing the gradient, the rays of the sun, the canvas of mountains with beaming colours, and the snail’s pace of my team to cross this section. I could see the hard work that all three girls were putting in. Next was my turn to follow them.

Disha had now crossed Lapu and taken a few steps to the left. Priya and Manmeet were a few meters behind. The last I saw was that Disha tried to adjust her position. Then I shifted my eyes to the distant mountain. I instantly hear a disturbing, shrieking sound. I see Disha sliding down like a sled, head first, supine, desperately attempting to arrest the fall. Each one of us froze at that moment as Disha failed at every attempt to stop falling. Instead, the fall gets faster, and in no time she is gone, out of our sight.

It took me a while to realize that my friend and teammate had slid off the face of the mountain. We were fucked. A tragedy had struck us. I could see Manmeet and Priya above, traumatized and shaking. Lapu went down the face immediately. I asked Manmeet and Priya to stay calm and move towards the rock area away from the steep face where they could rest and not expose themselves to a similar fall which was much possible in panic.

I collected the rope for any contingency and descended behind Lapu to trace Disha. I was going as fast as I could. Had I stumbled on that gradient I would be gone too. But in times of crisis, you get more attentive in your actions. She was nowhere to be seen. A million thoughts ran through my mind. How would we face her family? What if she is alive but grievously injured? Would we be able to carry her back to safety?

After moving right on the face of the mountain, I could spot Lapu at a distance. He gave a sign from below which I could not understand. I thought there is some trouble. He pointed to his right which was a scree area. I could spot Disha rested against a rock, motionless. I moved down even faster to reach Lapu to know her fate.

Lapu told she was fine with no signs of injury but clearly in shock. I thanked the Gods of Mountain for having spared the life of our friend. I had not been so thankful my entire life. Probably, life trumpets all the achievements of the world. Disha had been saved by the arrest of a narrow and shallow crevasse, 250 meters below. She would have probably died had she fallen into a bigger crevasse or gotten hit by the rocky terrain below. She was lucky that the fall was a slide down the face of the mountain and not a fall from a vertical section.

Lapu went up again to bring the girls down. I went further down to where Disha was resting, numb, speechless, and frozen but alive, breathing life. She was braver than I could imagine.

That was the moment I felt my expedition was successful. The true summit was not at the 6200 meters that day, but on the scree where Disha rested, recovering from a traumatic fall that could have changed our lives forever. That was the moment I realized the importance of life. I also realized the purpose of mountaineering was to celebrate life and not the climb.