Endurance
“My hands are frozen solid; I can’t move,” Shubho Da shouted, sitting at the edge of a frozen gully. By then, the sun had lost its warmth, and we were stranded in the icy environment until our eyes could see. “You have to move; there is no other way. Try using the dry gloves,” Surabhi shouted back. He did not flinch. Though Shubho Da, a 38-year-old corporate employee who goes on a trek once a year, was quite fit, would not have imagined such agony. “I had to make my way through the snow; why isn’t he moving; what's wrong?.” These thoughts rushed through my mind as I was descending. We had already experienced a snowstorm the day before; it was impossible to go along the mapped route, and now we were in an uncharted area with a dicey phone’s GPS; we had to get down this gully. There was indeed NO OTHER WAY!
I have been reading about the early expedition to Antarctica during the heroic age of exploration. I am mesmerised by people's spirit of adventure and resilience during that time. Be it the extreme race to the South Pole in 1911 between Caption Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen or the endeavour to find the magnetic South Pole by Sir Douglas Mawson. Among all these stories and gallant tales, there is a story of Sir Earnest Shackleton’s Endurance Expedition. In 1914, Sir Shackleton and his team of twenty seven men set out to attempt the first-ever land crossing of the Antarctic continent; a feat like this was attempted forty three years later. Unfortunately, after spending a winter trapped in dense ice floes in the Weddell Sea east of the Antarctic Peninsula, Endurance eventually wreaked. What follows is one of the most extraordinary voyages of survival ever recorded in human history. After sixteen weeks of surviving on the sea, eleven months on Endurance, four and a half months drifting on the ice floes, and almost five days on lifeboats, the crew finally landed on Elephant Island, two fifty kilometres northeast of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. The boss (as his crew liked to call him) knew that other ships rarely went to Elephant Island, so he and five others sailed across the turbulent Southern Ocean for thirteen hundred kilometres to South Georgia. They did this on a 23-foot open boat for sixteen days. Then Shackleton, with two companions, traversed the previously uncharted interiors of South Georgia, covering fifty one kilometres over treacherous mountains and glaciers, eventually reaching a whaling station in thirty six hours. Ultimately, he rescued all the members of his crew.
The film Interstellar also features a ship named Endurance. That spaceship takes Cooper and his team to a different galaxy, enticing them to venture into the unknown. Yet, Cooper endeavours just because of his love for his family. What follows is one of the best films in history, according to me. The first story is an account of actual events, and the second is a work of fiction, but endurance enables the characters to fulfil something remarkable, literally and figuratively. Both stories have deeply resonated with me; both are struggles against time. One labour through the vastness of cold and vast oceans in the inhabitable lands; the other spans the universe to reunite with his family again.
So, why all this build-up? The story I am about to narrate has endurance as its central theme. When I think about these stories of resilience, I can't help but think of my experience with endurance in the upcoming tale.
On December 2023, a group of three individuals, Surabhi, Shubho Da and me, planned a trek which links three Bugyals (the high-altitude pasture lands or meadows), Dayara, Siyari and Gidara, in the Gadwal region of Uttarakhand. Shubho Da, a seasoned trekker, came from Kolkata, lured by the enigma of the place. Surabhi, my accomplice, is a very skilled and resilient adventurer gifted with foresight. We wanted to do it in alpine style, i.e. carrying everything ourselves unsupported. That means we had to cut down weights to travel light and fast, including food that can barely last five days and limited fuel. We had a rough map to guide us along the trail and had enough experience to make impromptu decisions. Initially, I was sceptical about the project, considering this trek is not intended to be undertaken during the colder months. After the meadows of Dayara, a popular hiking spot in the winter, we would have no contact with the outside world. The route is not well-marked, and with snow on the traverses, the route would become sketchy in some areas. But we decided to go forward with the plan, as the winters of 2023 were dry, with little or no snow until then. Also, the forecast was almost clear, with one day of bad weather, but we were confident we would have crossed the tricky parts by then. So, we packed our bags and set out to Raithal, the trek's base village. Little did we know the journey would test our resilience like never before.
It was a pleasant day. Although a dense fog covered the path, we enjoyed being out in nature. The hike from Raithal to Dayara is delightful, with gradual slopes through dense Oak and Rhododendron trees; unlike other high-altitude treks in Uttarakhand, there are no pines. The smell of wood, the soothing greens, and the snow-capped giants at a distance all looked compelling. We made our first camp at Lower Gui; it was a pretty campsite in a forest clearing. As we finished our dinner, the prospect of seeing the meadow the next day excited us. We reflected on the previous treks we did together and had a jolly time talking about random things. It was cold, but we slept well inside our compact tent. A plentiful sun greeted us the next day, so we dried our tents and went ahead. The expansive views opened as we reached the meadow and had our first glimpses of the Gangotri and the Yamunotri ranges. The vibrant yellow grasses of the meadow were our companions, and we felt pleasantly warm, transiting the tremendous Dayara Bugyal. In areas like this, time becomes ductile, or so was Dayara's appeal, that I did not feel the flow of time. The atmosphere had a fragrance of eagerness, as if it was readying itself for fresh powder. Before we realised, we were at the end of the enchanted meadow. We found a broken shepherd hut and decided to camp as the sun was almost down, and it started getting cold. As there was no source of fresh water or snow to melt, we had to make do with what we had.
“I hope we are on the right track,” Surabhi said as we spread dry grasses on the cold and wet ground. As we crossed the meadow, we were the sole beings representing our species. I knew the journey would be lonely, as the area was primarily untouched and used only by the shepherds during the summers.
Yet, solitary profoundly affects a conscious being; it neither corresponds to unsinkable faith nor to prolong scepticism. In the solitude of the forest and the silence of the night, we were the intruders.
The next day, we were prepared to reach Surya Top. This path would take us through a long ridge into the second meadow, Siyari, as we crossed Devkund, the grand 180-degree views outstretched before us. We stopped at numerous points to make photographs and fathom the gigantic mountain ranges. The mighty Mt. Bandarpunch stood right in front of us with its flamboyance. It is among the most elegant mountains I have seen, and this ridge is the perfect vantage point for this mountain. The path was easy, so we reached our camp at Surya Top at 2 p.m. As we had limited fuel, we quickly set out to collect some foliage to make a fire to melt some snow; we were very thirsty at that point as we had not found any water. As the sun rolled down, cirrostratus clouds filled the sky.
Soon, a plethora of colours filled vast blues till the eyes could see. At first, the sky turned tangy orange, then magenta blanketed it. As a photographer, I struggled to compose my images, as that sorcery is complicated for a mortal being to conceive. “This is by far the most beautiful sunset I have seen this year.” Surabhi implied. I agreed. But those high clouds also meant that the forecast was correct, and we were soon about to be hit with a storm. We were ignorant and immersed ourselves in the grandeur of nature then. Who would have thought the upcoming storm was about to change the course of the entire journey!
Life seems endless; instead, it is a collection of fleeting moments we share with ourselves and others. In the book Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, Alfred Lansing writes, “In all the world, there is no desolation more complete than the polar night. It is a return to the Ice Age—no warmth, no life, no movement.” Yet humans have survived through the extreme ruthlessness of nature and written marvellous things about it. Life seems infinite as we experience joy, marvel, profoundness, resilience, and hope somewhere in these collections of fleeting moments, however desolate they are. That is what makes it worth living, to cherish and relive such moments in our imagination. I was experiencing one of those moments that evening, emulsified in a surplus of emotions.
The following day was blissful as well. The golden light beaming from Mt. Bandarpunch provided an ethereal glow to the entire landscape. We ate some chocolates and started our long and fateful journey. The clouds had begun to grow, and we had anticipated the storm would reach us at night. So we hurried our steps, but the path had now changed; snow-filled, steep north-facing pitches had replaced the gradual slopes. They require some technical skill to navigate through them. We had an ice axe, so I cut steps through the old snow with it. Since there was one ice axe, no ropes, and no crampons, a fall along the slopes could be fatal with nothing to arrest. Trailblazing on old ice presents challenges of its own. The snow is generally damp and slippery. The crunching exhausted us; we did not foresee this. The snow on the northern faces somehow survived through a significant time from the last snowfall, which we failed to register during our planning. Slowly and gradually, we moved forward, hoping to reach Gidara Bugyal by sundown.
We crossed the mountain pass. Negotiating through the snow-packed pitches had cost us time, and it was late afternoon. Around 4 p.m., we came across a 60-75-degree icy pitch, which seemed impossible without crampons. So, Shubho Da and I decided to climb the face of the hill and look for alternate routes, but there were none. “It's a dead end; what shall we do now?” Shubho Da stated. We sat there contemplating the next move. A thick fog was ready to roll towards us at a distance. At this point, we were exhausted, and my feet were almost about to go numb. With no safe way to move forward, we decided to camp there. Surabhi was not enthusiastic about this; she was gifted with great foresight and kept searching for a way. When she could not, she knew something drastic would follow. Now, we are at an exposed face of a mountain in December at around 4200m of elevation, awaiting a storm. Things could go wrong. Our only reassurance was that I knew the storm would last only 20–24 hours, so we took a calculated risk.
In Interstellar, when Cooper and his team decided to go to Miller’s planet, knowing it was near the Blackhole, it was a calculated risk. They took it anyway due to a lack of choice and desperation, but the thing about calculated risks is that sometimes they fail miserably because we fall short of analysing the risk-to-reward ratio. A huge wave struck them, and one of their crew members died; it flooded the ship, costing them decades; in short, their plan failed miserably. Somewhat similarly, we took a chance to camp there due to a lack of choices and desperation, which was not ideal. And it ended up being severe.
After setting camp, we witness another beautiful dusk. It was different from the day before; the high clouds were replaced with thick black clouds barely touching the enormous mountain ranges. A dense fog occasionally passed through our tent and hung between the golden rays and the distant ranges. The whole area was consumed in a dynamic dance of its elements. I hoped to get a small window of static weather the following morning to make our way through the icy slopes and reach the meadow. “The meadow would be safer during the storm than this exposed face.” I thought while looking at the clouds. We slept in anticipation. The night was calmer than we expected, but it was bloody cold. I woke up early to check the weather, but there was a complete white-out, to my disappointment. From a distance, our tent looked like a saucer floating in the abyss. We had no choice but to wait there and face the storm's wrath. Then, with the ferocity of an angry emperor, the sky hauled, and it began to snow. We were confined to our tents until the storm prevailed. “I miss my mother’s mutton curry; she must have prepared it today.” Shubho Da expressed with excitement. We discussed the food we would eat after this trek to keep our morals up. With the enormous deposit of snow in front of our tent, we now had water to drink, but with limited fuel, we had to be mindful. Constantly, we had to plough out the deposited snow so that we would not be crushed by its weight. Snowfall continued till 9 p.m.
The next day was sunny and clear; the only evidence of a storm was the massive blanket of 40-50 cm of snow. We thought we had survived the storm and would sail smoothly from here on, but we were about to be proven wrong again. We faced an average of thigh-deep snow and, at some places, up to the waist. Postholing was long and laborious. Slowly, we negotiated some gullies, but they did not seem to end. Then came a treacherous slope where the path seemed too narrow, with wet grasses mixed with snow and mud. It was steep, with a deep fall down the mountain. That seemed another dead end. Leaving my backpack, I climbed from a different route to find a way across that slope. Then, I had a terrible fall, slipping down the slushy ice; my ice axe also tumbled from my hands. The fall could be fatal, though somehow I managed to arrest myself from slipping down the slope. However, going up that slushy path without the ice axe was extremely challenging. After falling a hundred times, I retrieved the ice axe and returned to my friends, who were waiting and worried. I could observe the tension on Surabhi’s face as she was calling out for me for quite some time. I was exhausted in this operation and burdened with the knowledge that there was no way we could cross this slope without proper gears. “We have to retrace our path and find another way,” I said. My companions anticipated this when I was late. Now, we were strangled between gullies with no way to continue.
A stream called Thriya Gad originates from the glaciers near us. We knew that the best chance of survival was to follow this stream, which would eventually lead to civilisation or the route towards it. So, we analysed our offline map and devised a route that followed the river and eventually led to the trail. Then, we moved towards the stream. Now, this trek has transcended into a journey of survival. I started to go down, only to register Shubho Da, sitting at the edge of the last gully I had crossed almost 25 minutes before. He was not moving, to my surprise and fear. An absolute horror struck me when he said he could not move his hands. Surabhi was in the middle, so she communicated with and motivated him. Finally, he could warm his hands enough to move. The sun started to go down, and the temperature plummeted. Reaching the banks had become a necessity. By walking, slipping and sliding, we reached the stream's banks. Straightaway, we engulfed litres of water; this abundance overwhelmed us. Ice and snow enveloped the stream. Some of those ice sheets broke under our weight. The submersion of our feet in that cold water jolted my bones with pain. At this point, exhaustion had reached its tipping point. We found some flat ground just above the stream’s bank; we quickly cleared some snow and set up our tent. It took us a long time to warm our feet.
Soon, we had to abandon following the stream, as it had grown broader and more fierce. So, we climbed through a dried waterfall to an arm of the mountain. The upcoming three days were challenging. The consecutive uncertainty of hitting the track in the morning and disappointment till the evening got to Shubho Da; he was wearing down hour by hour. Being strong-headed, Surabhi constantly tried to keep his enthusiasm high. I was afraid that the uncertainty might get to her as well. Each day, we would evaluate our position, examine the contours and plan the route, only to be obstructed by steep gullies or completely frozen waterfalls. We followed a series of ascending and descending several arms of the hills covered with thick forest, shrubs, and snow. The snow and the thick overgrowth made our pace very slow and exponentially tricky. Also, we had no waterproof gloves, so each time we got our hands entwined in the snow, we would experience agonising pain. Adding to it, we had limited rations left. After long stretches of struggling to walk and numerous bruises, we found the trail leading to the village. That diversion cost us an extra four days.
Sir Earnest Shackleton was not the first person to set foot on the South Pole, nor was he able to complete his mission of making the first-ever land crossing of Antarctica in the Endurance. Still, he is one of the greatest explorers that the world has ever seen. His journey through the Elephant Island to the whaling station in South Georgia is one of recorded human history's most heroic and bravest survival epics. He saved his own life and the lives of 27 of his crew. Our voyage was nowhere near the grandeur of Sir Shackleton’s journey, but it taught me the importance of physical and mental endurance. The sense of adventure and spirit of exploration has pushed humans to summit the highest of peaks and reach the furthest of lands; endurance has kept them alive and moving further. During his last excursion through the mountains and glaciers of South Georgia, Shackleton said, “Providence guided us…” and this later influenced T.S. Elliot's writing of his poem The Waste Land. Even though I don't believe in Providence, I like this poem. This verse describes endurance and the inevitable passage of time.
In the endless dance of tide and foam,
Where Phlebas drifted, far from home,
His bones embraced by whispering sea,
Endured the fate of you and me.
Through currents deep, his story told,
A tale of youth and dreams grown old.
As waves persist in constant flow,
So must our spirits, though winds may blow.
Consider him, who once stood tall,
And find the strength to rise from fall.
For in the whirlpool’s ceaseless spin,
Endurance carves the soul within.
We set up camp for the last time just above the village of Bhangeli. The end was near. Like Sir Shackleton, we failed to complete our objective, but the lessons I learned were invaluable. The sanctum of safety is comforting, but we unlock something remarkable once we are past that—the zeal and virtue, which is primal. We had a small packet of Thai rice left, which we had saved just for this occasion. We savoured the meal, even if it was a few spoons each. Moreover, we knew we would get warm food and a warm bed the next day. We finished our trek on the ninth day, which was initially a five-day trek. Shubho Da was delighted to finally get in touch with his mother, who was intensely worried and promised not to repeat such adventures again. Surabhi and I were relieved to escape the situation without bothering a rescue. Sitting near the road in the village, waiting to get hitchhiked, I caught the last glimpse of the ridge we crossed before getting down; it felt surreal. I could see the meadows, the mountains, the valleys, the stream, and the ridges, which we crossed all at once. It would be hard to know if it was reverse altitude sickness or my imagination. I would treasure this voyage until it becomes a distant dream experienced by some version of me.“What a stunning place!” I said to my companions, and they nodded in response.
