Shekhar Singh currently works as a mountain guide in the western part of the Himalayas.
He enjoys mountain running, climbing ice and rock. Being a fresher in the professional
mountaineering, he wants to discover a way of climbing which makes him relate to the
mountains as a painter does with a canvas. Follow his adventures on Instagram
@shekhar297.
A Strong Team
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Kafnu
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No Man’s Land
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Ancora
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walk as long as 44 km in a day. Although it was really
tiring, we needed to reach the places to make things
happen. We walked a total distance of 950 km and
made a total ascent of 123432 feet. We also crossed
27 passes, out of which, 11 passes were more than
5000m above the sea level. I had to experience the
cold desert of Ladakh where the air was thin and
super dry. When we reached Kinnaur through Kafnu
pass, the air was more dense and humid, the smell of
which filled me with the enormous joy that you can
only experience when you do the trek. had to work with many innovative ideas. For instance,
we used a bandana and soaked it in the water from
the tent top and squeezed it inside for drinking water.
The river crossing was another big technical terrain
during the traverse as there were many rivers that we
had to cross multiple times. The biggest river we had
crossed was the Norboo Sumdo on the way to the
Parangla pass from Tsomoriri. Multiple channels of
the river can confuse you as to which one to choose.
At this point, one should know how to scout the river,
from where to cross it and at what time of the day.
During the traverse, we had four passes that could
be called technical terrain and which also are known
for the glacier terrain- Bhabha pass, Parangla Pass,
Lamkhaga pass and Kalindi Khal. Out of the four
passes, Kalindikhal was the most challenging as
it had a really huge glacier with open and hidden
creases and we required glacier travel equipment for
it. During this traverse, we also faced bad weather at
Kalindi pass which was the biggest difficulty we en-
dured in this traverse. We managed to adapt to the
situation really well, considering that we had limited
fuel for the ration period, ate only once a day and Landslides were also very challenging as we had to
endure them throughout the trail due to the prevail-
ing monsoons. Shepherd and bridges on the way
were always a sight to watch. Another big challenge
was the navigation as we had not explored the trail
before. I have done a few treks in the past and not
having a good map is always a really big problem.
Finding the route was challenging in the Kumaon and
Garhwal Himalayas and we lost the way many times
during the traverse. Through these ordeals, we also
learned many things like how to find the right trail,
how to ask for the trail from the villagers and break