c u on top - satyabrata dam

As another scoop of powder avalanche fell on top of my chest, compressing the tiny tent roof into my ribs further, I knew it was time again to hop out and shovel away the continuous debris of ice and snow that was falling from the top, burying us slowly but surely within our tent. Anyone who has ever used a Helsport Ringstind Superlight would know that this tent doesn’t come with elbow room. It’s the ultimate all thrills tent without a single frill. I nudged my partner in the rib, who remained listless as ever, looking in a daze at the roof of the tent. In the ghostly pallor of my headlamp he looks more dead than alive. I wriggle my wrist out of the sleeping bag and immediately recoil at the dense cold that claw at my innards and skin like a starving griffin. My right hipbone is pushing into the tent wall and I know fully well that beyond and right outside the thin tent fabric lies a 3000 ft void that simply drops down into a smooth wall of ice. But for the tent, my right side outer ...

In climbing, especially the extreme kind where we dangle from non-existent holds and bullet-proof vertical ice slabs, words and languages are mostly superfluous. We often don't say anything, in order to save our breaths and energy for that one impossible move, and when and if we do, it is often an expletive to which we don’t expect an answer. For our last prayers, when the need arise for such devotion to God, we generally mutter silently inside the deepest and unknown recesses of our souls asking forgiveness for our stupidity. In none of the situations, as you can evince, are words or languages (that can be understood by your climbing co-conspirators) necessary. Climbing is an activity that transcends borders of demography, religion, sex, language and visions. Where we perhaps differ, fundamentally, is our individual ethics and reason to climb. Put any two climbers together on a hard route, who may have never met before, or don't understand each other's tongue, and they wou...

This is perhaps my first post that is essentially aimed at seasoned and experienced climbers. If you are not then you may like to skip this post. I will be using techniques and terminologies that a non-initiate may find hard to grasp or visualize. But read on nevertheless, since in this post I am going to give a brief beta on almost everything that you need to know to experience the toughest form of climbing possible. In the world of natural climbing grounds we can divide it into three prime categories: rock climb, ice climb and mixed climb. I specialize in the latter two, though my best trad rock lead has been a modest 5.12 b. It’s on ice and then on mixed ground that I find myself most comfortable and intense. While rock and ice climbing is easy to grasp and understand, it is the mixed climb (MC) that is often misunderstood and hard to master. But before you begin mixed climbing one must be a seasoned ice climber and a modest rock climber. So let’s get our racks and boots and ice too...

I wake up with a start. The tiny tent is swinging gently, brushing against the rock every now and then. A strange sound permeates into the wild night. Switching on my headlamp I look at my companion sleeping peacefully on the space-starved floor. I know there’s nothing but empty air beneath us. My Suunto (watch) says it is 1.20 am with inside air hovering around 14 C below zero. It’s in mid July, right in the heart of winter of Southern Hemisphere. The swing of our tent tells me that a buffeting gale has us in its grip. Nearly 3000 ft vertically above ground is a very exciting place to be, though not necessarily a comfortable one… certainly not for what I have in mind. If any observer could even see us from ground, stuck as we are like a fly on that massive face of rock and ice, rearing up like the raised hood of a serpent into the dark sky, he is certain to wonder if this fly is ever going to fly or fall away. I smile to no one in particular as I gaze again at my supine companion. Wi...

As an extreme mountaineer cum skier cum adventurer with almost my entire lifetime spent in cold places, the two questions that I most often face are: 1. Why do you climb? 2. How cold is it up there (Everest, South or North Pole, Greenland, Alaska, etc) I am still rather fuzzy about the first question since I do not understand this perennial urge deep within to go climbing with or without reason so I would like to answer the second one. What is cold all about! I won't go into the science of 'COLD' or 'ICE' but just my own understanding. The feeling of cold simply put is the act of your body losing heat to the surrounding atmosphere. The effect of losing body heat is also linked with the wind speed at the moment. So to understand cold, we also have to understand, 'Wind Chill Factor'. For the same absolute temperature, the rate of losing heat (in effect the feeling of being cold) would increase with the increase in wind speed. For practical purposes, when we cl...