Heights of Glory

Last few days we have been hearing about traffic jams, deaths and crowding on the way to the summit of Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world and according to veteran mountaineers /climbers this is being attributed to unusual number of permit being issued by the government of Nepal this year and hordes of inexperienced climbers. Mountain climbing is an adventure sport with lot of hard work, physical fitness and experience of climbs to various other peaks in various parts of the world even before deciding to take on Mount Everest which sure is a pinnacle in this sport.

This year 77 Indian are aspiring to climb the Everest this year 2019 out of nearly thousand persons, largest contingent from a single country and am not sure how many of them are hard core mountaineers with sufficient training and experience. As of today May 28^th total of 18 persons have died on the route to summit out of which 5 are Indians, due to exhaustion or Acute mountain sickness. Given the exposure to the social media these days it has become a fad to do something that others have not done and post pictures on the instagram / face book and other platforms...so an averagely fit person with sufficient funds but without sufficient skills attempt the climbing of Everest with the help of an adventure tour companies that will arrange all the logistics, have experienced Sherpas to fix ropes and ladders for climbing, carry your baggage & oxygen cylinders, pitch tents, cook food and also instruct when to climb or sleep... in other words hand hold you all the way up to the summit and back. 

It is true that an expeditions to Everest requires to have deep pockets since the total cost of the expedition is anywhere between US $ 65,000 and $ 80,000 which includes permit cost of US$ 11,000 to be paid to the government of Nepal when you go along with companies based in West who rely on local high altitude support climbers and Sherpa. Local expedition companies charges around US$ 40,000 +. The total price includes everything from the wages of the guides and Sherpas to food, climbing kit, tents, transfers and some training in use of communication & medical equipments, climbing techniques, glacier travel, rope fixing, ascending, descending and safety techniques. But then spending this amount of money does not ensure you that you would reach the summit for it involve immense physical fitness, endurance and acclimatising to high altitude and finally the climate itself on the mountains which change quite drastically and life threatening too. No wonder the success ratio of people reaching the summit is less than 50% of the people attempting the climb.

Image Courtesy CNN new on the net

Most climbers can only spend few minutes at the top of the Everest without oxygen supplies and given the size of the summit which is just about approximately 5 Sq meters there is always a long queue of mountaineers above 8000 meters height wanting to scale the summit or descend. This area where the queuing happens is known as the death zone .This year inclement weather conditions has reduced the number of days that an attempt can be made to reach the summit and hence has lead to overcrowding near the top. See the image showing the queuing at the top .... Thank god that the weather was clear and did not change for the worse otherwise there would have been a disaster as over 250-300 climbers were waiting in a single file. Climbers deaths due to overcrowding during the ascent or descent in the death zone are official listed as death due to exhaustion but usually is due to the long exposures to high altitude or running out of oxygen supplies. There has been a call to limit the number of permits to be issued by Nepal Government in view of the overcrowding on the Mount Everest thereby can avoid considerable deaths near the pinnacle.

More than 270 deaths have occurred on Mount Everest from the first recorded death in 1922 and many bodies have been lying there buried in ice and snow but this does not seem to stop inexperienced climbers from attempting to climb the Everest. Is it foolhardy or stupidity i am not sure but it seem that the social media is the catalyst to such attempts by these inexperienced climbers/ tourists.

I am sure most of you would have seen the movie “Everest” which is an adaptation of the book Into Thin Air written by a survivor named Jon Krakauer of a disastrous expedition in 1996 when 12 people died trying to reach the summit on the same day. He has said “Everest is not real climbing. It’s rich people climbing. It’s a trophy on the wall and they are done...when i say I wish i had never gone...I really mean that “

Leopard and cubs crossing the safari path

Misty morning during the safari and our vehicle including most of the vehicles made a beeline to the nearly full water hole as the previous day a male tiger was sighted in the water. While being parked at the waterhole we could hear an alarm call of the spotted deer at a distance and immediately most vehicles drove towards the alarm calls taking different routes and looping back to the waterhole. We did not see any predator so once again back at the waterhole. One safari bus came by and stated that leopard is walking along the road and off we rushed towards the spot and we we were able to see the bold old male leopard walking along the safari path while scent marking the area for about 5 minutes before he vanished into the bush. Our naturalist took a decision to move ahead thinking that the leopard that had gone into the would emerge out into open and as we were moving slowly scanning both sides of the forest as we could hear the alarm calls of bonnet macaque and langurs within the forested area. So were  all other vehicles but then after sometime these alarm call subsided and hence all other vehicles moved away however we stay put in the area as we had arrived to this spot late. After waiting there for over 10 minutes our driver started the vehicle but suddenly a herd of spotted deers about 25 meters ahead of the jeep started giving out alarm calls and looking towards the left hand side of the safari path. Immediately our driver stopped the vehicle and both naturalist and he started scanning the front left side bushes beside the path for the predator. Suddenly the naturalist stated that there is a female leopard just outside the bush looking intently into the bush and he predicted possible cubs. We guest asked the driver to move a little ahead so as to get a clear vision but the naturalist asked the driver to stay put for if there are cubs they would not come out in open. The waiting game and patience in the wild paid us rich dividend and we witnessed the mother leopard paving the path for its two cubs to cross the safari path and go into the bushes on the other side of the path. 

We kept waiting and then the mother leopard climbed on the tree and flopped down on the branch and started dozing. Slowly one by one the cubs climbed the tree and settled down beside her

I have deliberately left out the name of the forest and the area but regulars to this forest will be able to guess the same. Do enjoy the video and the images and give your comments if any.

Bull elephant in musth

The two safaris at Bandipur were blank and on the third safari at Kabini as we entered the forest we saw a elephant with huge tusks and both my companions, nephew and son in law were quite thrilled of seeing an elephant in the wild. This was just the beginning of an excitement that i am sure that they would cherish for ages to come. As we were travelling along the safari path we noticed a bunch of elephants peacefully feeding beside the path and our driver drove towards them slowly and yet these elephants never showed any form of aggression. Just as we crossed them we noticed that one of the female had moved on to the safari path with ears flaring and tail upright and i asked my nephew to get ready to capture a video of the elephant charge... and yes she did a mock charge at the jeep. As our driver sped up a bit we suddenly saw the matriarch charging at us from the side with loud trumpeting and stopping within 5 meters of the vehicle. It was then noticed that there was a young elephant among the group and they were protecting it and so we moved ahead but then we did not notice up ahead in the front we had a huge bull elephant (male)  in musth right on the safari track glaring towards us.

Musth is a periodic condition in a bull elephants when they have a large rise in reproductive hormones and the Testosterone levels can be 60 times the normal times. An elephant in musth can be identified very easily as the elephant discharges thick tar like secretion called temporin from their temporal glands on side of the head. An elephant in musth is very aggressive and even the most placid ones become very violent towards humans and other animals and hence it is not able to predict their actions rationally,

Given the condition of the bull elephant on the safari path our driver did not want to try speeding by the elephant for it would surely attack the vehicle. He stopped the vehicle and hoped that the bull would cross the safari path sufficiently far so that we could speed off but then no, this elephant in musth started walking towards the jeep. 
 

 Now we were literally stuck with the females in the back blocking the safari path and the huge male walking towards us. The driver was slowly reversing the jeep and few of us watching the back and others watching the front with bated breathe and hoping that nothing untoward happens. 







 
 

The bull elephant kept on coming and the jeep kept reversing on the path towards the small herd of female elephants. The herd started moving out of the path when it saw the bull elephant and this was the window our driver was looking for and with a burst of speed reversed the vehicle further back to a safe distance and then we kept watching the scene as to how one female elephant beckoned the male and after a moment the tusker also moved away from the path into the forest behind the females.  

 The rush of adrenalin in all the persons in the jeep was clearly visible and my companions enjoyed these moments for it was their first time in such situations and especially with elephants. The safari vehicle drive and the naturalist in the jeep were very skilled and exhibited coolness and did not panic in this situation and we are thankful to them for a wonderful safari.

Hope you enjoyed these moment while reading the post and viewing the photographs / video.

Writer’s block

Image courtesy Google

It has been over 3 months since I post a blog and each time I sit down and think of penning down some experience or about what is happening around the world my mind goes blank and I don’t write anything. I am not an accomplished and a creative writer to claim that I have writer’s block or the Blank page syndrome for I have too many other things running on my mind that takes up most of my time. Hopefully now that I have opted for retirement from active duty let’s hope that I will be able to restart the stalled process ... well writing this itself is a start isn't it  😀

 

Just out of curiosity i wanted to know about the block and I googled this term and this is what I read (courtesy Wikipedia)

It has been suggested that writer's block is more than just a mentality. Under stress, a human brain will "shift control from the cerebral cortex to the limbic system". The limbic system is associated with the instinctual processes, such as "fight or flight" response; and behaviour that is based on "deeply engrained training". The limited input from the cerebral cortex hinders a person's creative processes, which are replaced by the behaviours associated with the limbic system. The person is often unaware of the change, which may lead them to believe they are creatively "blocked". In her 2004 book The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain, the writer and neurologist Alice W. Flaherty has argued that literary creativity is a function of specific areas of the brain, and that block may be the result of brain activity being disrupted in those areas.

Well all these findings and terms are too confusing and am not interested in knowing more about these as I do blog for my pleasure and peace of mind... so I cut short the reading.

Well friends I will surely be back to my blogging asap.

Immersing myself into Nature .... My mantra

My life till date has been like a roller coaster ride but with lots of downs and minimal ups and during this journey of life I have had different ways of coping with failures and emotions and it was not that #onething. During the Engineering college days when I feel down and broken I used to go to the beach alone and sit for couple of hours in silence lapping up the salt laden air and listen to the waves crashing on to the beach and then I was back to being normal and take on the challenge of life. Then after the college I took up a job that entailed me to stay away from family and many a times away from the sea coast that I had to find out ways and means to counter the feeling of failures and emotions and I turned to music to tide me over this feelings and yes it did wonders to me till such time I found out a new mantra to overcome these feelings.

Once i was back to India from my overseas assignment one of my friend asked me to accompany him to Mudumalai forest for a stay in a home stay that was adjoining the forest and to be frank that 3 days stay there immersing myself with nature had a calming effect on me and yes i had found the new mantra to combat the negative feelings and emotions associated with failure. So for the last 12 years when ever I feel down with emotions and failures I pack my bags and go into the wild and immerse myself into the nature for couple of days and return refreshed and pepped up to face the challenges of the life.

This post has been written for Indispire edition-182 - When you are down with emotions and failures... what would be the one thing or thought which would lift you up.. push your failures behind and bring you back on track #onething