Trekalog - Touching the limits of mind and body

Mind over body is a powerful yet a dangerous concept. 'Telling' the mind of optimism when the truth is far from it makes us take the most irrational decisions from the heart. Same was my case last weekend, when I overestimated the physical capacities of my body. The initial trek plan was nice and simple when I was going to enter through the Nagala East entry and get out of the Tada water falls. It sounds much more simpler when I write about it. I have even completed this route twice before. So there was probably nothing that might go wrong. If only..

The initial Plan - Nagala + Tada = Nagada

The plans was to take Poornima's group from Nagala east entry, leave them in Magic Pool and continue further down to meet Sankar's CTC group and carry on trekking with them. So it started off pretty well, and I left Poornima's group and carried on. I could see that water was pretty less in the streams. But that was in some of the darker corners of my mind and currently I was driven by the huge belief that I was fit for something like this. Things running in my mind "The toughest race of all is when you race yourself. It never gets any easier, you only get stronger. And its almost never the same". Motivation can so so easy to carry away!

So I kept on climbing though the streams, boulders, climbing till late in the night. I bought almost 2 kilos of food but carried only 1 bottle of water. So I was limited with 1 litre and had to make sense to survive. So not to push my limits further, when I reached the top of the mountain, there was NO WAY I could catch Sankar's group and decided to camp there. Yes this trek for me would be all alone.

My campsite on top of a hill

It was just a hill top with winds blowing hard. I was trying hard to sleep but the stress that water shortage can create is immense. I tried eating bun and cheese but that was making me even more thirsty. Somehow, I stuffed the khara bath ready to eat rice that I had bought and had dryfruits for dessert. Sipped about a 100 ml of water and no more. It was time to sleep and weather was deceiving. It drizzled for a couple of minutes but the wind blew the rain away. The stars were as bright as the moon and trees singing the lullaby. Amonst all this, all I could think about was water. For the next day, I had exactly 500 ml of water. Calculations of how much water I should consume. Where all I can go to re-fill water. etc etc

Morning views

After the sunrise, dehydration hit me hard. I had a nagging headache and was really thirsty. Even my speed was affected because of this and this was the point where I decided, there is no point in rushing to meet Sankar's group. to fetch some water, I decided to enter a nearby valley where based on my past experience, there was flowing water. After bouldering down for 2 hours, I found that streat had completely dried up leaving only some stagnant bits of water here and there. The thirst in me had no intentions of considering the bacteria, cholera or the whole culture of organisms inside and filled up my stomach and bottles with as much as I could. Now there was another 2 hours uphill to get back on course.

No time to enjoy the views

After a stomach fairly full, and a vomit inducing Pongal for breakfast, it was time to get back on track. While on the way up, I had the pleasure of spotting a huge Deer. I was glad that it was true that Nagala had big mammals. Not to let my paranoia wander more in bears and leopards, I kept moving on. One hill after the other, I kept advancing the trail. As they say, when something goes wrong, there a huge probability that some other thing will go wrong as well. It was my left slipper that tore into two.

The broken slipper

From here on, the whole day I had to trek barefoot. Now the tension was mounting up on my head as I had to get out fast. This one- legged limping could take me ages to get out of this dense jungle. I decided to cut short my plan and decided to head straight for the exit. I kept inter-changing the one good slipper from left and right so that my feet doesnt get numb. I avoided the ridges and it had lots of rocks and sharp boulders. So I had to stick to the streams as they had softer boulders, shade and later, they would eventually have water. Finally after travelling for 4 hours, I managed to spot the first signs of flowing water, right at the top of Tada waterfalls. I almost gasped out loud in relief. Drank litres and litres of it and filled up the one litre for the rest of my journey.

The story however, does not end there. I still had to descend from the top to the bottom of tada falls to get back to civilization. From my memory, I took a side stream down and went down as fast as I could. From the confidence of reaching the bottom, I even finished the one litre water that I had filled up. If only I had known, this was the wrong side stream! It lead to a waterfall from where there was no option to go down. It was like a dead end. Almost for 2 hours, I tried finding an alternate route but couldn't. The only option was, to go up, change the stream and then descent. But I had almost no energy to climb as I didnt have any water and foot was crying. There was some stagnant water in the boulders and it was the only option. I shooed away the bees and filled up the bottles and started my accent. 

After switching over to the next stream, I was glad to see some human garbage like biscuit packs, ropes, etc. Never had I been so glad to see garbage! It was as if the koel birds were screaming at me, "I told you that was the wrong stream, but you never listened!". Finally after going down further, I could even listen to people shouting. I sat down at the last boulder. I was out!

The reason I could exit this place, was the heart convincing the brain, I could do it. The mind can do wonders if placed over the body. Though it has major drawbacks after returning home, having dozen thorns, bruises and scratches all over your body and aching hands shoulders and legs, constant headache, dehydration, dizziness etc. but at the end of the day, you have the satisfaction that you completed it. If reaching the physical limits is the adrenaline rush, then I sure had one hell of a weekend.