That 21st of June 2014 monsoons were coming just around the corner and I would advice 1st week of September to October would be a good time for Bagini glacier. And if you need a porter scour Joshimath town especially around the GMVN hotel. I made the mistake of having contacted a fat manager of a travel company who provided me a porter who called himself a guide. So I had to carry my load till Ruing thankfully and the travel company couldn’t even give me a set of crampons for advance base camp of Changabang which they had promised me along with rope on the phone a week before I reached Joshimath. Then because of shortage of time I had to depend on the company for my forest permit for which they charged Rs 800 and I am sure it is only Rs 275. I just wanted to go away fron these wheeler dealers with this gaunt unsmiling high altitude porter to go shopping for rations like atta, rice and vegetables as I had picked up lentils, ghee, coffee satchets, onions and potatoes from Delhi including Danish real milk powder from Modern Bazar Vasant Lok. Then a SUV brought me and porter sahib to Jumma where the trek started crossing a bridge 2 kms uphill to Ruing village. My first feeling in this village of Ruing was one of peace and solitude lying in the flower beaded meadow which is the camping ground of Ruing village at 9000 feet where no electrical or mechanical vehicle can reach and pollute. My head in a vice like hold of this 6 year old naughty Bhotiya kid from the village who had self appointed himself as my masseur and my fingers being pulled and cracked by his two little compadres who were all freaking out to the strains of Dear Mister Fantasy by the 70’s band Traffic playing on external speakers attached to my latest Samsung wonder phone and anyway. Fom here onwards I was outa radio contact for a week and did not need the mobile’s battery usage limitatitions thrust on me mind. My next stop Dronagiri would be where I could use the services of a
satellite phone which is the only connection eith the wide world in the whole darn place and could call in reinforcements like a vehicle for my return trip and know the health of my son and how he was faring with our two dogs in Delhi. My young Bash Street kid straight outa the British Beano comics loved my Bhuira grapefruit jam and yes my porter so at that out finding it bitter had another culinary jolt packed with dynamite . The lil ‘un dug into my food pack and got out my remaining two tins of tuna and a chunk of Kalimpong cheese from La Marche a tony shopping centre in Vasant Lok shopping center. My porter lunged for the foodstuff but relented in giving a piece of cheese on being told so. So he whipped out a Swiss army pen knife and proceeded to cut a good chunk from the now shiny putrefying cheese as it had undergone summer heat for two days which included a 24 hour ride to Joshimath. He swallowed the larger part of the cheese and gave the children a wee bit augmented later by me.That was the best culinary jolt the porter got. The kids loved his expressions and they gorged themselves on cheese but I desisted as I can withstand blue cheese but didn't want to risk it. Haha, he barfed gagging on that delicacy that I had forgotten for 48 hours. I too stayed away seeing the porter’s reaction whose eyes were bulging and I wonder of he would develop blue veins hahaha. He even went about questioning me about why he had gotten poisoned by such a awful item ? Fixing him a cold beady stare which I am capable I asked the geezer who had asked him to shove the brick up his gullet. I had never seen a greedier person than his highness as he started snatching the bottle of jam from the kid's hands as he could sense it was harmless. In this game now having been dragged out of my relaxed countenance and I realised either he turvy just like Bill Aitken had described his run in with his pesky porter on the book ” The Nanda Devi Affair “. Si, I gave the man marching orders and told him to get busy with preparing tea as dinner time was still some time away. I got busy with the three tearaways kicking a ball ingeniously stitched from sheepskin patches and a bladder within all over the plateau that was the camping ground studded with stones and tent pegs and some burnt remnants of past expedition’s waste. Next morning we were off to climb the ridge that carried on till Dronagiri from Ruing and my lens could figure out a faint outline of a peak staring straight at me and my lens could figure out an outcrop on top of that peak and I at once knew it was Changabang I was looking straight in the face. Next came a descent into a nightmare of a landslide hit bowling alley of a dead glacier which one keeps looking upwards for shooting stones and boulders. That dry moraine was enough to shake me before I climbed out of that gorge to be faced by our next stop Dronagiri village. Having played soccer with the children in Dronagiri and having had survived on an omelette and bread for brunch en route I dug into my dinner at 6 p.m with gusto and then putting my night lantern hanging from the hook at the top of my tent I got down to my writing my trek diary is why I can recollect a few details which I am now elaborating on. Sleep came in waves and next morning without my cuppa coffee I decided to rush towards Nandi Kund on the opposite side of the village of Dronagiri valley. This is a lake from where one can peer into the core Nanda Devi biosphere and where loads of Bengalis visit during the Pujas in October. I had heard that a band of wild yak live in the jungle that crowd the slopes below Nandi Kund and my trying to muster my porter to accompany me was a chat out of some twisted novel.
Me : Let’s visit Nandi Kund !!
Porter : No, I look after our bags as do you wish to see your rucksack intact as people here crooks.
Me : I have met the people and they seem like a cobber lot and don’t look like thieves.
He : Okay, if theft does not take place will you carry your load across a river and then climb never ending ridges of moraine to reach the upper Bagini glacier. I go look for a porter for you.
Me : But that is tomorrow ; today it will be Nandi Kund.
He : But one yarsa gombu hunter going up today and he will carry your load today.
Me : But won’t he steal my stuff ?
He : No sir. I follow every step of him.
Me : So you are more bothered about my goodies and not me ( sic ) ?
He : Today you happy with me when you come back and I pitch tent for you on Bagini and cook meal for you. At that moment I felt like berating this oaf who wished to be paid Rs 650 to guard my rucksack and I did not know the route at all and would be left alone by this gent who wanted to go to Bagini glacier as a team of Americans had gone there with his parent company. So I gave this guy a piece of my mind and told him he was mine having paid a packet in Joshimath and I was going alone to Nandi Kund and if I did not see him on my return it was not going to be fun for me and not a happy time for him either. So I went alone to Nandi Kund to keep my date with the yaks whom my lens loved and the yaks kept a respectful distance from me............
TO BE CONTINUED
Langatoli is 3800 meters which I will take with eyes closed but I checked out the camp I made at upper Bagini glacier on my watch altimeter which was 4500 metres
himalayandreamscape 