|
2008
Mugs Stump Award Winners:
Decaria/Smith—Kedar Dome, India
 Thanks to the generous support of the Mugs Stump Award, Eric Decaria and I were able to live out a decade-old dream by visiting the Garhwal area in Northern India. The mountains, scenery, and fascinating culture more than met our high expectations. Unfortunately, our "climbing" trip was more of an extreme camping excursion. We left home on the 25th of August and arrived at base camp six days later after three days of hectic driving and two days of casual hiking. We ran into numerous logistical hassles along the way that, surprise, were fixed by having to spend more money.
I can't imagine a more idyllic base camp than Tapovan, the most popular camp in the area. It's a huge alpine meadow with world-class boulders, running streams, meditating Mystics, and towering giants like Shivling, Meru, and the Bhagirathi Group.
For the first two weeks the weather was unsettled and colder than usual. We decided to put our efforts towards the Scottish Pillar on Bhagirathi III with the hopes of dialing in our systems and being fully acclimatized for our main objective, The Central Spur of Kedar Dome (6840 meters). During a brief window of good weather, we managed to put a cache at the base of B-III. The start of a monster storm arrived that afternoon dropping an estimated twelve feet of snow on the peaks. Rain, snow, hail and everything in between fell continuously in base camp for a week straight. We spent our time shoveling, worrying about the meadow flooding, and making up lousy rap songs about our situation.
Eventually the storm subsided and, as promised by the locals, a splitter high-pressure system moved in. It was pretty obvious that any type of fast and light rock objectives were out of the question due to the amount of snow on the peaks as it was early October and the sun was not getting strong enough to melt the new snowfall. Although, there were other peaks in the area that may have had better conditions, due to the strict permit system implemented by the Indian Mountaineering Federation (IMF), we were not allowed to climb on them. Fortunately, the IMF is becoming more lenient with their peak regulation, but there is still room for improvement. It is important that future visitors dealing with the IMF push them further in this direction.
 After witnessing an absolutely massive avalanche on Kedar Dome that started near the summit and ripped all the way down to the glacier, we decided to attempt B-III again. We waited for three agonizing days in clear but cold weather for conditions to improve and then made a twelve hour, chest deep, snow wading mission to our cache at 18,000 ft. In a frantic race against the clock we dug out our tent and bags just as the sun went down. This was the emotional highlight of the trip as surviving an open bivy in those temperatures was in question. I've never felt so strung-out on flat terrain before. The next morning we resumed our search for the rest of our gear. We shoveled snow for eight hours desperately looking for our food and fuel canisters. Like exhausted war prisoners, we worked from our knees and finally our bellies scratching in vain at the slope in hopes of recovering our gear. We never found the equipment. It must have been a powerful avalanche that took the gear stashed beneath several rocks. Why it took away one cache while sparing the other a few feet away we'll never know. We had a couple of fuel canisters with us that we had purchased in Delhi from the IMF, but they were functioning extremely poorly, producing only a liter of hot water per can. Not having enough supplies to realistically try the route, we returned to camp knowing it was the end of our trip.
 Eric and I feel extremely fortunate to have been granted the Mugs Stump Award. Without the award we would have never been able to afford this trip. The climbing community is so lucky to have grant programs that help make the impossible happen. Thank you so much for the opportunity. We would also like to thank Patagonia and Black Diamond for their gear contributions.
Zack Smith and Eric Decaria
Back
to Award Winners |
