The charm of Himalyan trekking

For a vast number of people, the Himalayas appear to be the Shangri-la, to others, the abode of God.

Trekking in the Himalayas is now quite enjoyable and has become comparatively easy with the development of lightweight equipment and clothing with booming tourist infrastructure. There are difficult treks as well as easy treks, long and short treks.

Vehicles, helicopters and aircraft are also available to explore the Himalayas according to one's resources, taste and leisure time. But you still find people in remote mountain villages who maintain the age old traditions and have not changed for generations. There is much that is new and interesting in the Himalayan villages.

In the high snows... mountaineering opportunities in the Himalayas excite even professionals. Stan Armington has rightly said that "Trekking is neither a wilderness experience nor is it a climbing trip".

Even at a height of 12,000 to 14,000 feet in secluded valleys, there are small village settlements tending their flocks of sheep and goats or herds of Yaks of nomadic shepherds and Gujjars. As a result, there are people on the trail to guide and help you - the trekkers. Articles of daily necessity are also available in these small hamlets. Even in the remote areas one can easily mix with the people and 'live off the land".

Most westerners find it difficult to comprehend this aspect and visualize their trekking trips to be the same as those organized in their national parks or in wilderness area of their respective countries.

Almost all the Himalayan valleys are full of rural settlements and the population gradually thins out with the rise in altitude. One always finds people on the trekking trails and there is no dearth of information as to trekking routes and directions.

Hill people are traditionally very hospitable and this adds pleasure to trekking in the Himalayas more than anywhere else. Some people believe that trekking in the Himalayas is a climbing trip where they have to negotiate rocky cliffs, thick jungles and uncharted routes. But this is not so.

In almost all Himalayan regions, the local people have well developed trails. There are routes from one village to the other, between adjoining mountain pastures and across well defined high altitude passes, where people travel from one valley to other for trade, cultural exchanges, religious activities and inter-marriages.

These mountain trails and high passes normally do not require any mountaineering skills or artificial climbing aids. Of course, at places, they are covered with snow and may have crevasses. However, these obstacles can usually be crossed without the aid of mountaineering equipment like ropes and pitons.

There are only a few difficult treks which need mountaineering techniques or equipment. An example is the trek to the Nanda Devi Sanctuary in India or a trek across several high passes which require special equipment to negotiate the glaciers.

Trekking is more enjoyable than climbing the peaks and offers spectacular scenic beauty. The Himalayan region, till now, has been comparatively less affected by the modern urban civilization with its industrial pollution. It provides an opportunity to be in natural surroundings and to get away from the milling crowds of the cities.

The trekker usually returns home rejuvenated, and with new enthusiasm to take up the challenges of city life.

The Himalayas are known to be youngfold mountains. Young, because these have been formed relatively recently in the earth's history, compared to older mountain ranges like the Aravallis in India, and the Appalachian in the USA. They are known as fold mountains because the mountains extend for 2500 km in length in a series of parallel ridges or folds.

Crux of the Himalayan geology.

The accepted theory about the formation of the Himalayas started to take shape in the year 1912 when German meteorologist Alfred Wegener developed his Theory of Continental Drift. According to Wegener, the earth was composed of several giant plates called tectonic plates. On these plates lie the continents and the oceans of the earth.

The continents were said to have formed a single mass at one point in time. From this single mass, today's continents have "drifted" apart from each other over a period of millions of years about 250 million years ago, all the earth's land was a single super continent called Pangea, which was surrounded by a large ocean.

Around 200 million years ago, an extensive sea stretched along the latitudinal area presently occupied by the Himalayas. This sea was named the Tethys. Around this period, the super continent Pangea began to gradually split into different land masses and move apart in different directions.

As a result rivers from both the northern Eurasian land mass (called Angara) and the southern Indian land mass (called Gondwana) started depositing large amounts of sediments into the shallow sea that was the Tethys.

There were marine animals called ammonites living in the sea at the time. The two land masses, the Eurasian and the Indian sub-continent, moved closer and closer. Indian plate was moving north about at the rate of about 15 cm per year (6 inches per year).

The initial mountain building process started about seventy million years ago when the two land masses (or plates) began to collide with each other. As a result, the already shallow seabed rapidly folded and was raised into longitudinal ridges and valleys.

About 65 million years ago, came the second phase of mountain building. The bed of the Tethys started rising again. The sea retreated, and the sea bed was elevated into high mountain ranges. Later, about 25 million years ago came another mountain building period which led to the formation of the low Shivalik ranges.

After this, periodic mountain building phases occurred as the Indian plate pushed against the Eurasian plates which led to the Himalayan ranges rising further. The last major phase occurred 600,000 years ago.

Although the phase of major upheaval of the Himalayas has passed, the Himalayas are still rising, albeit at a much slower rate. The Indian plate is continuously moving north at the rate of about 2 cms every year. Because of this reason the Himalayas are rising at the rate of about 5 millimetre per year. This means that the Himalayas are still geologically active and structurally unstable. For this reason, earthquakes are a frequent occurrence in the entire Himalayan region.

It has to be understood that it is impossible to detect the movement of the plates and uplifting of the Himalayas by casual observation. However, a modern technology called Global Positioning System (GPS) has made it possible to measure even such a slow movement of the plates.

The Alps in Europe are another example of a mountain chain that formed due to the collision of tectonic plates.

The Himalayas, over the centuries, have attracted trekkers, mountaineers, pilgrims and ascetics. Since time immemorial its rugged heights crowned with snow and draped in vast glaciers has lured man to pit his courage and ingenuity against its dangerous challenge.

Below the snowline at 18,000 feet, nature appears to relent and from the austere magnificence of the heights brings down to a different world of cascading water falls, lush green forests, flower-bedecked meadows and a variety of flora and fauna. Here the rivers flow clear blue and icy.

Here nestle small villages and hamlets with their diverse local customs, dances, folklore and architecture. The people are as vibrant as their surroundings and in many cases innocent of the sometimes dubious benefits of modern civilization.

Since ancient times, ascetics have climbed into these inhospitable heights in search of peace. In doing so, they have established places of pilgrimage that have become more than household names since their fame has spread to all parts of the world.

Names like Kailash Mansarovar, in Tibet, Thyang Boche in Nepal, and of course Badrinath, Kedarnath, Yamunotri, Gangotri of Uttarakhand. Then there is Amarnath in Kashmir and Hemis in Ladakh.

Those first mountaineers - whether ascetics, pilgrims, traders, hunters or shepherds - had no special training or climbing techniques, but acquired a high degree of skill from necessity and constant practice.

Having to cross the mountain passes at heights ranging from 1,500 m to 5,800 m, they designed ingenious equipment, food and clothing from indigenous material to help them combat the intense cold and negotiate the treacherous snow and ice.

Internet