Photos and videos at the end.
We started walking in the dark from the hotel around 8am, up the market street, shops just opening. When we got to the track proper, it started raining, then horizontal sleet and snow. It was quite confronting. I’ve done a lot of hiking in all seasons and was surprised at how cold it became, so quickly.
As we made our way towards Sarshung Valley, to the location that most people start from, the cloud lifted a little and the snow stopped. The upper reaches of Mount Kailash had not yet appeared above the cloud.
Mount Kailash rises to 6,638 m (21,778 ft) at its peak and has never been climbed. The sources of four great rivers: Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra, and Karnali lie in the vicinity of the mountain. Mount Kailash is sacred in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Bon religions or to a fifth of the world’s population. It is steeped in symbolism and mysticism.
I first read about Mount Kailash some 15 years ago in “To a Mountain in Tibet” by Colin Thubron and have been inspired to do the kora (circuit of a mountain or building) ever since.
Were it at sea level, the pilgrimage of 52km over three days could be considered challenging but not overly so for experienced hikers. But the altitude pushes it to a next level. Here the air has only 50% or so of the oxygen than at sea level.
Every sudden movement leaves you breathless. Your body has to work a lot harder. You have to constantly take extra breaths to get enough oxygen in and convince your brain that you are not falling into hypoxia or choking. If left unchecked, altitude sickness can be fatal within a few days.
Many pilgrims, especially from the lower plains of India are woefully unprepared for the harsh conditions. You start to see those struggling early on, ashen faced, dejected. I wonder how many starting off will actually finish, including myself.
For Tibetans, this hardship is way of accumulating spiritual merit. There were many more individuals than I expected doing the kora by prostrating fully on the ground every few metres. Wearing leather aprons and heavy neoprene gloves to prevent their clothes and hands from being shredded, it typically takes them a month to do what we will hopefully achieve in 3 days. The majority are young men and women but some older pilgrims too. Incredible resolve and resilience.
It is cold. The steady procession of pilgrims started to thin out. There was an amazing variety of rainwear and dress, mostly colourful traditional Tibetan dress. Under foot it is muddy and rocky. $10 disposable ponchos mix with high-end Gortex gear. Pilgrims walking and pilgrims on ponies. Convoys of yaks carry supplies to the tea houses.
We pass Choku monastery high up on the left, established by the Drigungpa in the 13th century and still in use.
In some ways, it is like it always has been, poor pilgrims doing it with whatever they have, richer pilgrims affording more comforts, such as a pony or a porter to carry their gear or themselves. Ancient infrastructure (yaks and ponies) mix with the modern (four-wheel-drive vehicles, solar panels, windmills and the ever present cameras).
Great buttresses of red hued rock rise above us on either side of the narrow valley, rock streaked black by rain in places, surprisingly evenly spaced in vertical black lines. I can see why so many myths and legends have grown up about this place. It truly is quite something. One of our well traveled group likened it to Svalbard.
Suddenly, I remember the one who I’m doing this for, my late wife Ann, and grief comes quickly. Grief, like a thief, never truly goes away, ready to ambush you when you least expect it.
If “you pack your fears” when hiking is a true saying, then these local pilgrims have little fear. They pack very light. A small bag. A stick across the shoulders holding two bouncing small bags. Sometimes an umbrella and not much else. I feel overdressed and overpacked, packing my fears as I unpack my grief.
We move to the side as a small caravan of ponies pass us in the opposite direction,
carrying a group of ashen faced Indian pilgrims looking very forlorn. They obviously had succumbed to exertion or the altitude and had turned back. This is like a passage straight out of Colin Thubron’s book, written some 23 years ago but it still happens today. People get caught up with the idea of Kailash and are not prepared for it been a serious mountain hike. Tinkling ponies, shattered ambition.
The valley widens again, after a narrow gap where the river to our left gushed in blue green splendour. I’m walking on my own now, which suits my mood. The trail continues along a rocky four-wheel-drive track. Walking is not so bad on the flat but as soon as you hit an incline, the energy seems to drain from your legs and you have to consciously focus on getting extra breaths into your lungs.
It is wonderful how a diverse group of 12 like ours are drawn together to do the kora, for different reasons. We have older couple from Minnesota, much older than me. A Russian professor of nuclear physics (Andrei) and his son (Anton) an architect. We were very fortunate to have a doctor (Daniele from Italy) and a Mandarin speaker (Kyan from Hong Kong) in our group. I caught up with Andrei, Anton and Kyan for lunch at a tea house around noon. Among the Coke and water for sale in the small shop is oxygen, life’s essentials.
After lunch, it cleared up and the round summit of Mount Kailash came into view for the first time. We spent an hour or so in the tea house before setting off again on an incline. One foot in front of another, breathe. Breathe. And then you are on the flat again and all is good.
Kailash is truly strange mountain. Shaped almost like a four sided pyramid, each side of the pyramid faces exactly north, south, east and west. We are now on the west side.
Little small brown birds (I’m no naturalist) hopped among the rocks. A small bird with a brilliant orange chest and blue back occasionally appeared. Wild yaks high up on the flanks of the mountain. Cheeky marmots came close.
We turn a little north, again following the river. The mountains on each side take on a different texture and hue. More exploded sandstone now, rather than the smooth red tinted granite buttresses streaked black.
Kailash is gone again, not from clouds but from the flanking mountains of obscuring the view of the peak. A jovial Tibetan comes alongside me. A weathered face and the dress of a nomad, pointing to my big pack and smiling. I guess he must have thought it absurd for me to be carrying so much when he carries so little. We pack our fears.
Black ravens glide on the updrafts. By now I was thankful of the morning sleet and snow,
that felt so confronting in the dark first thing. But now it was clear and sunny and the snow made a beautiful contrast to the dark craggy ledges and buttresses around Kailash. Rocks glistening with quartz, among clumps of lichen, but hardly any grass.
After 21km, I reached our destination for the day, Drirapuk Monastery, with magnificent views of the north face of Kailash. The monastery was founded in the 13th century on the site of a retreat cave used by Yogin Gotsangpa, one of the milarepa’s disciples, from 1213 to 1217. He first discovered the kora route around the sacred mountain and wrote the first guidebook about Mount Kailash.
As with so many Tibetan monasteries, it was destroyed by Chinese red guards during the Cultural Revolution before being rebuilt in 1986.
During the Cultural Revolution, China imprisoned thousands of monks and nuns, destroyed all but 11 of Tibet's 6,200 monasteries, and burned sacred texts in an effort to obliterate Tibetan culture. By the late 1970s, 1.2 million Tibetans had died as a result of the occupation. Chinese sensitivities to protest in Tibet still runs very high.
As I approached the monastery, I passed a ling line of white stupas. Little solar panels attached to small speakers that chanted incarnations to the sky. Old and new. I stayed there for a while, taking it all in.
Below the monastery wqs a chaotic building site where our guest house was located. I managed to find my room okay with Andrei’s help. Then Andrei, Daniele and I did a tour of the monastery before dinner in the rudimentary tea house.
First day of the kora done. Difficult, but not overly so. A plan to see Kailash in the full moon was foiled by low clouds overnight. Tomorrow were will attempt the crux of the kora, the high pass of Dolma La.
Double click on an image to enlarge and scroll.
Comentários