c u on top - satyabrata dam

Someone I know, who had enough time and focus, once decided to count the number of steps it takes from the time one starts walking from Lukla, climbs to the top of Mt Everest and then walks back to Lukla to catch the return flight to Kathmandu. On an average this entire journey takes 45 days, give or take few. When my friend shared his idea to me of counting his steps, I took it as a joke. It seemed absolutely impossible to me that someone could do it, even keep a track of steps, especially when gasping for breath above Camp 2 walking into thin air and then into the death zone. It takes all energy and focus to just breathe and climb and keep our sanity, who could keep counting steps! But then my friend did it. He counted each and every step, irrespective of the length, or speed, or place. He counted even the steps he took from his tent each day to go to the toilet and back, or to the dining tent and back. He counted the steps that ferried him to his other friend’s camps or for the ho...

Few weeks back I received a mail from a young climber, who has just started setting her eyes upon the lofty peaks around the world, pondering if she could actually climb anything in the world. I guess she found in me a climber old and bold enough to have climbed and not climbed many mountains, who might offer her some insights into the insane world of mountains and climbing. She asked very briefly: the secret of climbing any mountain in the world. Before I replied back to her, I really gave this short question a long overdue thought. We all climb all the time but seldom do we pause to wonder what the secret of climbing successfully is. Why are some climbers more worthy than others? What makes a successful climb? And here I mean reaching the top or ending the desired line or route till the top as success and not merely making a bold attempt. I analyzed and dissected many of my iconic climbs, both successful and abortive attempts to compare what made the difference between the two....

Earlier this week a friend died in a climbing accident. He wasn’t just another regular bloke hanging off vertical walls. He was a master of his game, as badass as they come, yet he died. His safety system had perhaps failed or perhaps the rock upon which he rested came off. We would never know; he was climbing free-solo, risking his life to a level unacceptable to most. It’s the level where there is absolutely no room for error, subjective or objective. It doesn’t matter whether you failed or the mountain failed; ultimately it’s the climber who is lying dead at the bottom. And this incident jolted me out of a falsified dream I have been living through most of my adult life. It wasn’t his death that did this but the possibility that if he hadn’t died; then what? I am a firm believer of destiny in matter of death. It is already destined by some divine power or yet unexplained scientific phenomenon that our time and date of death is fixed and nothing can change it. What isn’t determ...

I love frozen water; soft or hard, not too soft though. I have been in love with frozen water almost all my life. The love affair started when I was ten and stepped on my first Himalayan glacier; love at first sight. As my tiny foot crunched ice beneath my boots, a thunderbolt passed through my body and brain, defining the path that I would follow for the rest of my life; which has now taken me around the world in search of ice and snow in its myriad forms. From the highest summits to the deepest oceans, to the poles and to the tropics, from volcano craters to ice caps I have pursued frozen water in all its shapes, sizes, forms, dimensions, colours wherever they may be. Charting my life through hundreds of far flung freezing glaciers, skipping across lofty summits piercing the azure, ice fields and Polar Regions I have realized that ice and snow is something that I just cannot have enough of, just like love. I have a restless explorer’s heart and a curious mind and the dynami...

I stare down at the tottering praecipe, and at the blue limpid lake far below, and inch closer to the edge, even an inch more and I would tumble and hurtle through empty space towards ground. I am precisely 323 m up in the air, I know for sure, since I just climbed up the sheer granite crag leading my friend from the ground barely two hours ago. It is a breathtaking clear morning, sparkling in the sun like a samurai sword; I am standing above a Norwegian fjord of unparallel beauty. I am supposed to jump; there’s a tiny parachute strapped to my back. It is my first (and last) BASE jump. I have lived my entire life on the edge, risking death countless times, I am an extreme alpinist and a proficient sky diver, and I don’t fear death. My friend, an extreme BASE jumper, prods on my back, urging me to jump. I look up and around, allowing the morning breeze to ruffle my short hair and temples, a cold chill runs down my spine. I am afraid, there’s fear within my palpitating heartbeat. I...