The Hindu Business Line : Scaling peaks and weathering troughs

After continuous snowfall from evening onwards, the day dawned white. The glacial bowl we were camped on had accumulated knee-deep snow. Everything was fluffy smooth with no sharp edges to read terrain. With dense white fog enveloping us like a cocoon, there was no sky. Disoriented, we stumbled around like penguins.

It was 2002; a remote corner of Zanskar, a team of six trying to scale an unnamed peak, one person injured — with three dislocated toes in a swollen, purple foot. Four climbers could still open another high camp and attempt the summit. However, with fresh snow requiring time to settle down, we abandoned plans and retreated down the glacier to Base Camp.

The weather chased us. It snowed non-stop for another 48 hours. The aluminium pole supporting the kitchen tent snapped in two under the weight of piled-up snow. Using ice axe for splint, we fixed the problem only to find, upon inventory check, that fuel was dangerously low.

Changing landscape, rules

Everybody loves the rich plains. You can party and swear undying loyalty to friends; splurge your fortune, show off, and impress all with your house of comforts. The human heart is measured by the money in the pocket.

Move to wilderness and the rules change, starting with your immediate resources as all the wealth you have to show off. The instinct for survival takes over. It puts your person in focus; then proceeds to sieve friends, seeking to know who means what they say. Make the setting bleaker — add high altitude on the mountains and the situation gets worse. Mountaineering expeditions bogged down by bad weather begin to worry as food and fuel dwindle and living conditions get stretched. In tents pitched close by, yet separate worlds unto themselves, people yearn for the small gestures of social life. But the habit of sharing progressively fades; every morsel of food matters.

Where the border between people had been seamless, a stamp of owned space and property takes over. The human being withdraws into selfishness. It is primary rule in wilderness that the best way to take care of all is to take care of oneself. So, when things go wrong, you remember the one who, nevertheless, shared his tea and food. Unlike in the plains, you know that options are few, likely none. Empty words don’t count.

All about crisis management

Mountaineers remind themselves periodically of where they are. Awareness of altitude and the high mountains is the best way to keep one’s behaviour in line with the warmth human beings expect. Bad weather puts you in physical discomfort. Mixed with insufficient oxygen, it can slide all the way down to ugliness unless the mind stays aware of the situation.

Tackling recession is a lot like this. It starts with tapering opportunity and grows into a race for survival. Life sheds happiness when income — that oxygen of the plains — reduces. We expect the Gods and government to help. We also shrink our world to the immediately relevant. However, panic need set in and human warmth need dry up only if we remain unaware of what is happening to us. Mountaineering is not suffering. Bad weather comes and goes; people survive and supplies get replenished. Lifelong friends emerge. There are few things as beautiful as the day after a crisis faced. It’s the same in a recession.

Amidst bad weather, our expedition leader braved it down the mountain to get help for Purple Foot. Two days later, with snow still falling and hardly two litres of kerosene left, the rest of us wound up Base Camp and started trekking back. There was no other alternative. Purple Foot walked like everybody else, swollen leg crammed into plastic mountaineering boot. Next morning, horses emerged in the distance like dots in the snow. Fifteen days after a rock bridging a crevasse gave away, pinning the foot under it, X-rays showed the dislocation.

We returned to Zanskar in 2004 and climbed the peak.

(The author is a freelance writer based in Mumbai.)