Walking in Clouds

A transparent Himalayan dawn was just breaking when we paused to catch our breath. Rivulets of sweat trickled down our faces in spite of the cool breeze blowing from the snowfields above. The thin, pure air intoxicated us. For hours in the predawn darkness we had relied on faint starlight to illuminate the narrow valley trail as we weaved our way through shadows created by monstrous boulders. When the first peaks were struck by the rising sun we felt like dancing in exhilaration.

“A holy man lives in the cave behind that wall,” said our guide, Bharat Shah. “We’ll pay our respects on the way down. Right now we need to get to Zero Point before the clouds come in and cover the view.”

We were on the fifth day of an eight-day trek to the base of Pindari Glacier, in the little-known Kumaon region of northern India. We hoped soon to reach the high point (literally and figuratively) of the trek, the viewpoint at the head of the Pindari Valley, known for obscure reasons as Zero Point. At 13,000 feet, it lies directly beneath 25,400-foot Nanda Devi peak, which is in the highest section of the Indian Himalayas.

While hordes of tourists pour into neighboring Nepal, India’s Kumaon region, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, presents a relatively untouristed corner of the Himalayas to the adventurous traveler. About 160 miles northeast of Delhi, it encompasses jungle-covered foothills, the tiger habitat at Corbett National Park, a number of hill stations (used by the British Raj to escape India’s summers), Hindu pilgrimage sites and a plethora of world-class mountains. With numerous peaks higher than 19,500 feet, the area rivals the most impressive ranges in Nepal or Pakistan.

After spending three years in the Peace Corps in Fiji and traveling all over Asia, I became attracted to places where the local culture hasn’t been overwhelmed by tourists. On previous trips to India and Nepal, I had visited many of the better-known locations in the Himalayas. This time I was inspired by a fellow traveler’s comment extolling India’s Kumaon region as a secret gem. Curious, I did some research. Fall was the best time to trek, and guidebooks convinced me, by their lack of information, that this would be an unfrequented area. My wife was willing to take a chance on an adventure.

We decided to arrange our trek locally in Kumaon instead of from the United States or Delhi. The idea was to save money, minimize our group (there were three of us, plus an Englishwoman we met along the way) and have more contact with the locals.

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After flying into Delhi, we headed up to Almora by train and bus. A picturesque hill town of traditional homes with carved wooden lintels, it was the ancient capital of the Chand rajahs and remains the main town of Kumaon. Situated on a horseshoe-shaped ridge, it enjoys a panoramic view of a 200-mile-long section of the Himalayas. In Almora, we happily spent a few days exploring the bazaar--with its slate-lined alleyways too narrow for motorized vehicles--while making arrangements for the trek.

In a tiny office on the main street, we located Bharat Shah, who operates High Adventure Trekking. We had been given his name by the manager of our hotel (the Holiday Home Tourist Bungalows), who had recommended Shah as a trustworthy guide. Shah’s cheerful yet calm manner and obvious love of the mountains so impressed us that we hired him on the spot. It turned out to be an excellent decision. Not only was Shah knowledgeable and well organized, he was wonderful company, and his rates were a fraction of what such a trek organized from the United States would have cost.

Shah stockpiled rice, lentils and wheat and arranged two donkeys and a donkey man to carry our packs and sleeping bags. He recommended that we stay in Almora for a few days to observe the annual October festival of the goddess Nanda Devi, for whom the mountain and range are named.

On the morning of the festival, a troupe of musicians in white and blue skirts, leggings and turbans paraded through the labyrinthine alleys of the old town. They were led by a pair of twirling sword dancers. In the evening, crowds of villagers from the surrounding area jammed into the courtyard of a ridge-top Hindu temple for a program of dance and music. Images of the goddess and her sister were carried on a palanquin through the streets.

The next day we crammed our gear and ourselves into an open-sided jeep and started on a roller-coaster ride along the narrow road that leads up and down ridges into the heart of the high country, eventually reaching the end of the road at the village of Song. We set off up the hill, tailed by curious schoolchildren, through terraced fields, past the village of Loharkhet, and arrived at the first rest house.

The Pindari Glacier trek is unusual in that at every stopping point along the way there is a government rest house for rent. Shah reserved ours in advance for about $5 per person, but we were told that it’s often possible to just show up and stay. The accommodations couldn’t be more basic: a bare concrete room. Each has a caretaker who will cook a simple meal of rice and lentils for his guests if requested. Other treks in the region require either camping in a tent or staying in a village.

In the morning, we climbed toward the gap in the green wall of mountains above us, the Dhakuri Pass, which we would have to cross to enter the Pindari Valley. As we struggled closer to the top, one foot in front of the other, we noticed that the afternoon clouds were moving in. It seemed inevitable that the view would be covered before we were able to see it. Shah kept us going, singing local folk songs, which he translated into English. We collapsed at the top, next to a simple Siva shrine that marked the pass. A couple dressed in their best clothes came up the path in the opposite direction carrying their sick young son. They were on their way to the nearest hospital, a day’s walk followed by a day’s bus ride away.

Then, unexpectedly, a window in the clouds opened for a moment to reveal the white wall of Panwali Dwar, a 21,650-foot peak at the forefront of the Nanda Devi range. Galvanized by this glimpse, we descended to the next rest house, located in a clearing among eerie moss-covered oak trees below the pass.

The clouds had obliterated the panorama again, so we concentrated on making ourselves comfortable in the spartan cabin. A party of mountain climbers from Calcutta appeared and settled into the second room of the rest house. At dusk the mists again withdrew, and below the rampart of white peaks we could see a narrow gash of the Pindari River, which we would be following to its headwaters.

Shah woke us before dawn with a gentle knock and cups of steaming tea. The donkey man and his charges were already heading off down the trail. The next stage of the trek passed the last village in the Pindari Valley, called Khati. Here the inhabitants live a medieval lifestyle in relative isolation from the rest of the world, growing millet on terraced fields and raising sheep for wool.

We strolled through the village, admiring the intricately carved wooden lintels above the doors and followed by a tail of children begging for sweets. The elders sat in the doorways smoking homemade hookahs in a reserved but not unfriendly silence. When they were addressed in Hindi they broke into grins and answered loquaciously in their mountain dialect. I noticed that the only signs of the 20th century in the village were small photovoltaic panels on the roof of each house, which the government had provided to power a weak light bulb at night.

The rest house lay just outside the village, and that night, shepherds and their flocks camped out in the meadow surrounding it. The men slept wrapped in their cloaks, huddled together with their enormous mastiffs and their sheep. The next morning, as they moved off down the trail in the opposite direction, the shepherds carried newborn lambs in their arms.

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From this point on we were entering wilderness. The valley narrowed, the torrent beneath was gray with glacial silt and the vegetation exploded in a riot of tropical oaks, bamboo and moss-covered rhododendrons 30 feet tall. Vines and epiphytes smothered every surface. The trail soon became problematic. Landslides scour the mountainsides each rainy season and are repaired in a makeshift way by the first parties up the valley each year when the rains end. Several times we crossed extremely unstable slopes, moving tentatively one by one. At one point the repaired trail was too narrow for the donkeys with their panniers of gear, and we had to unload them and hand the bags across.

Deep in the valley, the mountains were no longer visible, and we concentrated on making it safely to the next rest house at Dwali. The last barrier of the day was a bridge made of tree trunks lashed roughly together. Having crossed, we waited anxiously to make sure the donkeys with our equipment made it over as well.

From Dwali the river gorge narrowed even further, and the forest thinned. Tumbling down the precipices on either side of the gorge were waterfalls so high that their tops were lost in mist. Having started the trek in sweltering heat, we had passed through a temperate zone and were finally reaching an altitude that forced us to don layers of fleece and Gore-Tex.

The final rest house at Phurkiya is at 10,400 feet. It was far too cold to sit outside. Every once in a while we would emerge to watch the high peaks play hide and seek among the clouds. As the night air cooled, the clouds dissipated to reveal the moon-illuminated Nanda Khat peak (21,500 feet).

Waking to a starry predawn sky, we headed up the trail to Zero Point. The valley curved as it rose, hiding what was ahead. The frigid air began to warm as the sun burst over the ridge to the east, but fatigue and the effects of the altitude were setting in. By the time we passed the holy man’s cave, I had slowed to a snail’s pace.

Zero Point is on top of a ridge of glacial moraine. The clear weather held as we struggled up the slope until we reached a point from which we could appreciate the scene. We were surrounded by a semicircle of five peaks, each higher than 20,000 feet and covered with blue ice. Pindari Glacier pours in slow motion over a pass between two of the peaks, a chaos of crevasses and fallen boulders. From a cavern at its foot, the Pindari River rushes forth. Shah made an offering to the god Siva, as he had at each significant point along the trek.

As clouds slowly obscured the peaks, we headed back down to visit the holy man, who appeared happy to have a rare opportunity for conversation. He was dressed only in a saffron-colored cotton cloth. Speaking in Hindi translated by Shah, he told us his dream of building a temple for the goddess Nanda Devi here for Hindu pilgrims to visit. Although the holy man didn’t reveal the meaning of life to us, he did brew us a delicious cup of tea before we left.

Our return was not an anticlimax. The thrill of our experiences carried us back down the valley with appreciative eyes. We spent time exploring the village of Khati. Descending from Dhakuri Pass, we were followed by eagles that swooped above our heads. Shah suggested we spend one last day at Loharkhet rest house, where we had spent our first night. “To think about the mountains,” he said. It was an excellent suggestion. We weren’t ready for this magical week to end.

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GUIDEBOOK

Trekking Kumaon

Getting there: There are no nonstop flights to Delhi from LAX, but United offers direct flights (one stop), and Asiana and Singapore Airlines offer connecting service (with a change of planes). Advance-purchase, round-trip fares start at $1,170. A train from Old Delhi Station takes you to the village of Kathgodam; $20 per person, one way. From Kathgodam train station, buses and minivans wind up to Almora in a few hours; about $5 per person.

Where to stay: In Almora, Hotel Shikhar, on the main road (no phone number available, rooms $12 to $25), modest but acceptable. We stayed in the government-run Holiday Home Tourist Bungalows (telephone 011-91-5962-22-250); doubles about $7.

Arranging treks: While arranging treks in this area is difficult from the U.S., once you are in Almora the trekking companies are easy to find. We went with High Adventure Trekking on Mall Road, near Almora Book Depot. Cost was $18 per person, per day, including accommodations and food. Another trekking agency, opposite the post office, is called Discover Himalaya. Mountain Travel-Sobek, the California-based adventure tour operator, can arrange trips to the area. Cost is about $2,700 per person, depending on group size, not including air fare; tel. (510) 527-8100.

For more information: Government of India Tourist Office, 3550 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 204, Los Angeles 90010; (213) 380-8855.