A toothache will cost a battle, a drizzle cancel an insurrection
- Vladimir Nabokov
Morning clouds are always a dampener, not because of getting wet, but going about cooking and packing in a constant drizzle, not to forget additional shelters to be sought for nature's call...
The clouds were gracious enough to hold on like yesterday, and a small snow bridge led us to the other side... one is always apprehensive about the sonorous one... for the water burping below would swallow one in a blip... swimming is seldom more than a joke in glacial wanderings…
As a rule of thumb, the route you wish isn’t in the eve, is at dawn… one inches up the mountain regardless… and to be fair, uphill are best taken in the mornings...
The drizzle starts its daylong song, the trail, although steep, is a pleasant bed of meadows with easy single trails running parallel; yellows and greens sing ballads to the wind, or the other way round, all ears and a deep breath is all it takes to feel bliss…
A turn out of the valley, and the meadows now roll unto the infinite… the man is a dot… the walk is a pleasant flat now, like a green frock in a pink yellow polka… a river crossing comes forth but the disposition is enough to shrug these away…
Satsar army camp is a more difficult base as compared to its counterpart at Gadsar, for it braves the wind at the top, and the trek route comes through more technical slopes… another round of checks, permissions, occupations and intentions… the uniforms are more courteous here, for rarely is condensed milk served to a passer-by’s tea…
The lakes beckon a little ahead, a group of seven (‘sat’-sar) of which the sight lays on about three or four, and rock hopping follows, a couple of snow bridges but the trail is somehow kinder today, and Liyaqat the shepherd asks about how the world down below in its own vicious circle survives…
The drizzle is thankfully light, a pony manages to slip but arrives alright, the tent is pitched on to an overcast sky, which clears up just at twilight to offer that rare mild pink lacing the horizon, and to think of it as a woman’s colour…
Our shepherd gets some goat milk… the tea tastes weird but digesting that is no problem for a stomach in a puzzled perennial vacuum…
Milky Way is back… and in shivers there is rejoice, enough to take a leak, for none like to get out the sleeping bag in the middle of the night…