BMC at NIM, Uttarkashi, India.

We had lecture on the weather which also had inputs on the various types of clouds, clouds formation .Here is what I could jot down in the lecture. Clouds are categorised as per the altitude whwere they are found. Hence we have the; High Altitude Clouds - Cirrus,Cirrostratus, cirrocumulus. Medium Altitude Clouds - Alto Stratus, Alto Cumulus. Low Altitude Clouds - Stratus,Nimbostratus,StratoCumulus. Cirrus : These clouds are found at high altitude and they have the appreance of candy floss hair . They do not bring rain. They have ice crystals and have a wispy and transparent appearance. Straitus: These clouds appear as blankets and are spread horizontally. They can bring a spell of rain. These are dense and grey clouds . Cumulus : These clouds have the appearance of a cauliflower and they grow vertically. These clouds bring rain , lightening and thunder. Also referred as the Thunder clouds. Kalidas was reffering to these clouds in Abhigyanam Shakuntalam when he referred to

Khedatal This is the name of a lake we trekked from Gujjar Hut . It was our second day at the Gujjar Hut Camp. A fter a grueling training in snow craft in the first half, we had just finished our lunch and were thinking that the instructors had let us free for the evening. Normally any type of movement is resisted by the tired body, However the name Kheda Tal which indicates a lake ,generated a strange curiosity in all of us. How could we have in our wildest dreams imagined a mountain lake among the infinite stretches of snow. The rope instructors told us put on our windproof jackets and trousers . Moreover every one had put on the “Koflach” the heavy snow and ice shoes along with gaiters since snow was knee deep along the route. The trek to Kheda tal began with crossing an icy cold stream . The only way to cross the stream was to move on the logs juxtaposed on each other . The logs had icicle formation on them and we could also see layers of ice on the steam's stones. After a s

Search and rescue course members were also doing training along with our batch . The search and rescue helicopters had experienced pilots. The camp area at the Din Gad valley where the heli were to land was prepared meticulously by removing the snow . The pilot was given an indiaction for the location of landing by lighting a fusee type of a device which emanates coloured smoke which makes it possible for the pilot to detect the area of landing. The wonder of watching a helicopter landing on the icy, snowy terrain was a sight I shall never forget. I can even today visualise the sudden appearance of the helicopters from the white icy peaks all of a sudden. Our principal , Col. M.M.Masur had come along from Uttarkashi to take stock of te ongoing training. We all had repeated photo sessions with the Helicopter. The white cover, the high mountains and the heli was a wonderful sight.

The Eastings and the Northings Navigation is one of the most important aspect of Mountaineering since locating oneself on the map and then trekking the route becomes important when no land marks are identifiable because of a blanket of white snow and ice. There was a lecture on GPS- The global positioning system. I fell asleep suring the lecture.

Dokriani Glacier located on the way to Draupadi Ka Danda is at an height of arround 13500 feet. .It serves as a Advance Base camp for the climb to Mount Jaon lee or Draupadi Ka Danda. The length of the Glacier upto the snout where the dingad river starts is about 5 Kilometers. The glacier has an altitude Variation between 5,600m To 6,000m Dokriani Glacier is also known by the name of Dokriani Bamak as Bamak is the local name for the glaciers. It is a well-developed medium sized glacier of the Bhagirathi basin. The glacier is formed by two cirques, originating at the northern slope of Draupadi Ka Danda and Jaonli Peak, 5,600 m and 6,000 m respectively. The glacier is 5-km long and flows in the northwest direction .The snout of the glacier is located at an elevation of 3,800m from where the Dingad River originates .This river which is a glacian stream finally joins the many other snow/ice-melted streams and finally merges into Bhagirathi River near Bukki village. There are several

Gujjar hut became our next camping site after Tela. This area is name after the Gujjar Community whcih earns it's livelyhood by raising cattles. During the summer season, this area is full of vegetation and hence the Gujjars ahve constructed small time huts to be used as a shelter. And hence the name Gujjar Hut However, what we got was snow and snow . Training on snow craft was done on the snowy slopes of gujjar Hut . The snow was more that 6 feet deep. At many places on the training area, more than half the leg used to go in the snow if one happened to be slightly careless.

The Din Gad Valley was our resting point for the next 18 days . Here we camped . The first thing we did there was to pich our tents. Pitching tents in the snow is an experience difficult to forget. One can see the Macchadhar Range on the extreme left , Unnamed Peak in the front, Mount Jaon Lee on the right and Draupadi ka Danda on the extereme right. Din Gad Valley gets its name from the Din Gad River which originates on the Dokriani Glacier and follows along the Valley to be joined by other glacial streams which finally passes through the Gujjar Hut and finally joins the bhagirathi river. The daily routine at Dingad Valley was to get up at 5.00 for the morning tea, Breakfast at 6.00 , March to the Glacier at 7 .00 Hrs.

Indoor Rock climbing Wall at NIM is an excellent facility for the rock climbers to hone there skills in case bad weather prevents trainees to move out to the rock climbing area at Tekla . The wall has four level of difficulties . All the trainees have to climb the four wall faces. Most of the trainees were able to climb the first three walls. However, the fourth wall which has a slight overhang posed slight problems for the novices. Many of us were having a first time experience of climbing an artificial rock climbing wall. The arm muscles after climbing the first two faces had become soild rock and the pain in the arms was excruciating. We learned how to tie our harness, the safety aspects, use of a carabiner, the use of auto belay device. Making a harness out of a short sling was very interesting. All this was going on in the Big hall called the Gyan Hall and it truly dissemenated a lot of gyan to all of us.

After completing the rockclimbing, we use to return back to our base area where all oour rucksacks were kept. The time used to be arround 13.30 Hrs. Of course the Whistle of the Kitchen Master would remind us that the Lunch was ready. Although, exhausted after a tiring but exciting rock climbing experience, all ou us remove our rock climbing shoes and some of us went to the water hole for washing our messtin and filling up of the water bottles. Then it was a rush to the Kitchen to be first in the queue since the queue used to grow serpentine within no time. Yo can imagine a queue of 60 guys with messtin in hand standing in a queue for their turn of the grub. The trainees after collection of the edibles which used to include chapatties, Rice, Pulses , Dry Vegetables , Custord and jelly on some occassion and the ominipresent "Santra" i.e the orange . Soon there were many groups of people sitting huddled with friends enjoying the lunch . Those who complwted first went out to get

Befor we could start climbing, we were made to learn the drill of Rock Climbing which went on something like this. I am there. That's me. Take the slack. Climbing Climb On. These may look innocous to the non rock climber but for the first timers like us remembering the chronology of events was something which we can never forget. This was also a real funny experience. In fact we also had many army guys who had little knowledge of the english language and watching and hearing them make these calls was an out of the world experience.

Once the breakfast was over, all the rope members moved to the rock faces where the climbing and rapell down exercises were to be done. My rope had 6 members ; Hukum Singh Bist -The Joshimath Boy in the Indian Army Sandeep Singh Chauhan - The rifelmen from Indian Army, Viral Shah - The MBA Aspirtant from Rajkot, Hritwik- The Aeronautival Engineering in the making from Pune, David John Macallum- Java,Perl Expert from S. Africa residing in U.K. Jogendra Yadvendu - Yours Truly. Each rope had a rope instructor .The rope instructors were well experienced in the art of rockclimbing and were veterans in mountaineering. Initially, the rope instructor used to put on his harness, tie many short slings arround his shoulders with multiple carabiners hanging arround the tape sling. With an array of rock pittons and friends he would start climbing o n a steep wall of rugged rock. At every 10 feet, he would fix the Rock Pittons . Once he was on the top of the rock face , he would anchor hims

After completing the grueling walk of 11 Km with 18 Kg of load, we were totally exhausted at Tekla. Before our breathing could return to normal or before we could rejoice the finishing of the trek, the whistle of the cook master from the make shift kitchen greeted our ears. The stronger and possessed among us which included many army guys such as Hukum sing, Sandeep singh Chauhan were the firsr to be in the queue for the brfeakfast with a shining Mess-Tin in there hands. Later on , reluctantly the tiered ones also joined the queue. The only substitute for not taking the breakfast on time was to skip it and regret it til the lunch time. There bieng no choice, all of us , one by one took our chance and were in the q sooner or later. The kitchen was a make shift kitchen with a canvas cloth acting as a roof preventing the dirt and the dust fron spoiling the taste of the food. Moreover it also ensured that the rain water did not dilute the fun of the Milk Porridge and the cornflakes which w

The route to the Tekla Rock Climbing area had all the ingredients of a nightmarish movie. With a load of 18-20 Kg. the army of jawans moved in unison from NIM. The initial course was crossing the stairs and then the stairs ended at a semi cemented road. This road lead us to the macadam road which was the steepest we could have asked for. The begining of the road was a place where "gaps" in the movement of the army began noticable. Continuous shoutings from the instructors to cover up the "gaps" invariably led to increase in the breathing rates and panting among our army like column. Thence started another steep climb . You can imagine, a column of 60 marchers with 20 kg of rucksac on their fragile backs made to run must have presentes an excellent sight to the nearby passer byers and the villagers. Later on, the main road led to a small non-descript passage over seemingly untroddenpath . On the left side was the uttarkashi vakkey and on the right was the hill range.

Now the Daily move to tekla. The regimen in the first five days at NIM was like this; 5.00 AM Tea in the Dining Hall 5.50 Report to the Ground 6.00 Move to Tekla. We all used to assemble in front of our hostel with our rucksacs which weighed arround 18-20 Kg. There used to be a roll call and the course senior with a special tenor in his voice( Atul Deshpande) used to shout "Course Savdhan" Then he used to whisper spmething in the ears f the rope instructor, probably telling him how many of us are still in the hostel trying to tahe the last wink of sleep. There after our Chief Instructor, Shri Ratan Singh with tounge in cheek humour reminded us of our likely mischiefs or things like not packing the crampoons otr the Koflachs inthe rucksac. There after, the whole army marched downhill along the special route towards the Uttarkashi Town. Getting down the initial stairs and the jumpig load on our backs was a real tough job. All the landmarks which we encountered along our way wer

Now something about the Knots used in Mountaineering and rock climbing.The knots are divided into Direct, Indirect and Joining knots and the Hitch. Direct Knots: End Man Knot, Middle Man Knot, Bow Line, Coil BowLine, Bow Line on t he Bight. Indirect Knot: Figure of Eight. Joining Knots: a. Single Fisher Man Knot, Double Fisher Man Knot,Single Sheet Band, Double Sheet Band, Reef Knot andthe Prusic Knot Hitch: Timber Hitch- used to test the strength of the ropeItalian Hitch-Used to rapell down using a carabiner,Clove Hitch

Ropes were earlier made from natural fibers such as cottan, jute, mnila, hemp, however they lacked the standard bearing strength and they also did not have standard elasticity. hence the use of natural fiber ropes was always a dangerous preposition while doing rock climbing or mountaineering in the earlier daysA three strand laid rope is called a plain or hawser-laid rope. A four strand rope is usually called shroud-laid, and a rope twisted out of 3 or more ropes is called cable-laid. Subsequently, nylone ropes came into the picture. Next was the Kernmantle rope which had a core (kern) of long twisted fibers in the center, with a braided outer sheath or mantle of woven fibers. The kern provides most of the strength (about 70%), while the mantle protects the kern and determines the handling properties of the rope .Broadly speaking, for Rapelling, a Static rope is used and for Climbing, a dynamic rope is used. Jummar is an equioment used for ascending and is also known as the ascender. I

You may be wondering how the rucksack can weigh 20 Kg. So here are the equipments which we were made to carry for the next five days. Helmet Shortsling Long rope 50 m weighing 3.5 Kg. Koflack Shoes weighing 5 Kg. Sleeing Carry Mat Wind proof jacket & trousers Feather Jacket Crampoons Carabiners Rock Climbing Shoes Gaiters Four Pair of Socks, Harness , Rapelling Shirt. Rapelling Mittens Kiwi Bag Crampoon Cover Snow Goggles, Cap Balaclava Sleeping Bag Sleeping Bag Lining Rock Pittons Ascender ot Jummar Ice Axe Rock Hammer Stich Plate Friend Personal clothing and utilities

On the second day while at NIM campus, we were pleasently surprised to learn that we shall be going for a a hill walk on the ladari mountain range . As usual, we got up at 5.00 , took tea , packed our rucksacks wheighing some 15-18 Kg and were ready at the "Fall In " time at 6.00. The trek/climb was full of pine trees and real steep. It took us more than three hours of continous climb with a heavy load . While the climb was contnuing, most of the group members had a feeling that this course is too tough not not meant for people like us who were pure hobbistHowever, once we completed the hill walk(Steep Climb) , it gave us immense confidence and made us ready for the next few days of a daily morning walk/cimb of 11 Km towards the Tekla rock climbing area with of coursea load of 20 Kg. The climb on the ladari hil area is real steep and tests the mental as well as the physical energies / strengths of the trainees. The team of rope instructors are always there who keep the co

I just completed my basic mountaineering course at Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi, Uttranchal in India . The course was from 20th March 2006 to 16th April 2006 . We were taught the basics of rock climbing in the initail five days . Later on we moved to the mountains where we did our snowcraft and the ice craft. Here is a brief on our daily regiment. The rock climbing involved practice on the indoor climbing walls, outddor climbing walls, the 45 feet high international climbing walls. We also had extensive practise sessions on Knots . Subsequently , we had a hill walk on the ladari mountain range which was full of pine trees and the climb was real steep. Later on we moved to Tela which was our first camping site ( 8500 Feet). Next was Gujjar Hut which was at an elevation of 10300 feet. Next Camp was at Din Gad Valley at an elevation of 12500 feet. Here we stayed for 18 days. Next was the Dokriani Glacier at an elevation of 13500 feet. We used to move from Din G