6th of January

Last night we went to a little town (possibly a village) so that on the following morning we could get an early start climbing Hatu peak.

This morning we decided not to get up early and didn’t start our trek until about 1000. The walk from the hotel to the peak is approximately 8 km and a rise of 700 m. Now while that rise doesn’t sound like much we were starting from 2700 odd metres and ascending to 3400 metres. Which in theory is enough to give some signs of altitude sickness, but luckily for us since we had been dwelling at 2300 metres we’ve had enough time to adapt.

The climb started well enough, a nice gentle slope, scenic views. A bit of the way up we found an emergency shelter, outside of which was rectangular dug out pit, filled with ice. I postulated that it was a dam for watering animals during the not quite so frozen season whereas Mark proposed that it was an ice skating rink. Later it turned out that I was right.




Whilst we were having a look around a car showed up and we had a chat with the occupants. As per most conversations we’ve had in India they revolved around “Where are you from?”, “What are you doing here?” and “Where are you staying?”. After answering those questions and then commenting on the state of cricket (since we’re from Australia) they went up the hill.

We reached the last driveable bit of the road (we were walking, but it was where other cars were parking) and we ran into the car full of people that we met earlier on, turns out they were filming a documentary on the state we are currently staying in, Himchal Pradesh. They invited us to climb up the rest of the slope with them, about 3 or 4 km.

Along the way Jampa (the guide who was with the other party), Mark and I decided to take the scramble path up a section rather than taking the long road route. It was rather fun, but a bit scary as it was very icy and snowy with footing that wasn’t entirely clear. I made it safely to the top and we proceeded along the way to Hatu peak. As we got higher the road became more and more treacherous, but thankfully I had an ice axe that provided me with sufficient stability to traverse the more precarious services.

We reached the top and viewed a magnificent 360 degree panoramic view of the surrounding mountains. Including a good stretch of the Himalayas, the vista (not the Microsoft one) was just magnificent. I’ve tried to capture it on the camera but it really just doesn’t do it justice.

The party that we were with dragged up a set of ropes and harnesses so we went abseiling (falling with style as I prefer to call it) down a 10 metre cliff. During all our walking with this party we were filmed in our attempts. After our abseil we were interviewed in which we gave a very short bio and how we felt about the state.


On the way back the film crew asked if they could film us going back down the scramble path. I avoided taking the same path down as I took up as it was fairly compacted snow and quite slippery in places with ice. About one third of the way down I slipped and threw my arms out to catch myself. It worked; I arrested my descent, but not quite as I planned. I felt, as I stopped myself, my left shoulder cease dwelling where it was supposed to and come out. I dislocated my shoulder. Lucky for me I’ve done this a number of times and I know it will pop back in given a short while, which thankfully it did here. I managed to continue my descent but not in such a stylish way (not that dislocating a shoulder is stylish). This wasn’t falling with style, it was simply bum sliding down this slope.

before

after

We made it down the rest of the hill with no further incidents. Half way down they director decided it would be a good idea for the talent to learn how to ski. Unfortunately there was no snow around for her to ski on so she did so on an icy road. She had as much skiing talent as I do and after being placed on skis promptly fell over. So they re-shoot scene having her hold on to the skis for the first shoot, then shoot her falling over after travelling around 1 metre. To be fair I fall over roughly after the same distance.

Guess which girl below is the talent.