Trail running in the Himalayas and Marin Headlands

After Annapurna 50K, the rest of 2012 was filled with several lovely trail runs, mostly with the chief partners in crime, Kanishka and Santhosh (the Chief, founder of Runners High; he had several 50K/50M/100K/100M and even an insane 240km run under his belt). We did Shivagange and Nandi Hill repeats (distances ranging from 20-40K), ran in different parts of Bangalore, ran several parts of the Western Ghats together (we ran up and down the ~5000 ft Kumar Parvat, which is normally a full day trek in about 7 hours), woke up at ungodly hours to avoid running in traffic (during many weekends I have woken up at 3 am, and ran from 3:30/3:45 am for 5-6 hours through different parts of the city and suburbs). Running alone for long distances initially seemed daunting, and required a lot of discipline and self-motivation, but it was a great challenge to take up and over the months, I had become comfortable with running an entire day alone (all the way upto ~11-12 hour runs). I guess it was also a period of deep introspection - being alone with my thoughts, emotions, fears, injuries, anxieties or stresses meant that I had to face them head on, accept them and myself, and in the process try to distance myself from them and view them as a witness rather than as the experiencer.

I will describe a few of the major runs/treks that we did together and some others that I did alone too. Some pics from runs around Bangalore..

From the top of Nandi Hills

After a 40K run near Nandi Hills with Kanishka 

A quiet Shiva temple at the base of Nandi Hills

Gangotri - Gaumukh - Tapovan

In June 2012, we teamed up with a few other trekkers and did a trek up to Gangotri, Gaumukh and further on to Tapovan. It was my fifth attempt to get to Gangotri, the previous ones having failed or aborted due to bad weather, road closures, rains, snow, etc. It was a fairly large group, about 10 of us, it was also Savitha's first trip to the high mountains. We flew to Delhi, took the overnight train to Haridwar, took a taxi to Gangotri. The next week or so was in one of the most beautiful parts of the Himalayas I have been to. 

Gangotri National Park is about 2500 sq. km in size, and is located in the upper catchment of Bhagirathi river in the Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand state. The northeastern park boundary is located along the international boundary with China. The Gaumukh glacier, supposed to be the the origin of river Ganga, is located inside the park. The entire valley is characterized by high ridges, deep gorges, precipitous cliffs and moving glaciers. Vegetation consists mainly of deodar, fir, oak and rhododendrons, until we cross the tree line; after that it is mostly short shrubs in the ~14,500 ft Tapovan meadow. Gangotri town is a small hamlet set in between magnificient mountains, valleys and the torrential Bhagirathi river (Bhagirathi merges with Alakananda to become the Ganga at Devprayag). On the way from Uttarkashi towards Gangotri are some lovely hamlets like Harshil (this has an Indian Army and Air Force base as well) and Bhairavghati. 

This part of the Himalayas has an indescribable beauty to it - as they say in Sanskrit "yad vaacha na abhyubhutaam" (a beauty that words cannot describe). Gangotri felt so familiar and I instantly felt at home. It is perhaps the most beautiful and profound place for me, and I look forward to going there many more times and perhaps spend my last days there.

We trekked from Gangotri to Chirbasa, and then onto Bhojbasa on Day 1. All along the way, the Bhagirathi and Shivling peaks keep playing hide and seek, displaying gorgeous colours with sunrise and sunset. We camped near the Bhagirathi river at Bhojbasa, and trekked upto Gaumukh the next morning. After a brief stopover and some silent prayers at the birthplace of Ganga, we crossed the Gangotri glacier (it was quite an experience - one has to be extremely careful in following the guides who know which rocks are moving and not fall into any of the deep crevices..), hiked up the extremely steep cliff and got onto the Tapovan meadow. Tapovan is a lovely and peaceful meadow with the Aakaash Ganga stream flowing through (some believe this is the true source of the Ganga as it is higher up than Gaumukh) and the towering peaks of Bhagirathi I, II, III on one side and Shivling, Meru parvats on the other, forming a majestic backdrop. We spent two lovely days there, doing some small hikes in different directions, and seeing some beautiful sights of the glacier (Gangotri is the second largest non-polar glacier, the other being Siachen), valleys far down below and snow covered peaks in all directions one could see. For her first trip to the high mountains, Savitha did an amazing job. She thoroughly enjoyed it, but swears she will never go back again, especially the glacier crossing or the hike up towards Tapovan. Some pics of the lovely Tapovan from my friend's camera here..

Shivling peak from Tapovan

Camping at Tapovan at the base of Mt Shivling

Bhagirathi peaks across the Gangotri glacier

Some from my camera (I lost most of the good, high resolution pics from my camera)...

Gaumukh; Gangotri glacier behind and Bhagirathi peaks

Aakash Ganga @ Tapovan

Singalila Trail Run (near Kanchenjunga)

Our next planned low footprint, self-supported trail run was in February 2013. We trained regularly through July 2012 - Jan 2013, keeping a good average of ~100-120km each month, carrying about 7-8kg backpacks, figuring out different long-burning food (I settled down to millets/wheat based laddos, dry fruits), salt intake (to recover salts due to sweating). However, we could not train for the terrain or weather that was ahead of us though :).

The Singalila National Park borders the upper north-west part of West Bengal, Nepal (in the north-west) and Assam (to the north-east). The plan was to start from a village (Maneybhanjang), run along small hamlets and trails into Singalila National Park, go all the way up to to highest point of Sandakphu (from here one can see 4 of the 5 highest peaks - Everest, Makalu, Lhotse and Kanchenjunga), and then run down all the way back to Rimik and onwards to Darjeeling.This is usually a 1 week trek, our plan was to try and do 20-30 km per day.

We flew from Bangalore to Kolkata, took an overnight train, had a sleepless night due to constantly bantering co-passengers, got off at New Jalpaiguri. A quick breakfast and 4 hour drive got us to Manebhanjang (7000 ft).  A quick summary of the hike / run during the next 4 days:

1. Day 1: We had a quick lunch and started a slow paced run/walk around 2pm, went through rhododendron forests. Soon the clouds gave way to steady rain and we made it to Tumling (9500 ft) around 5:30 pm. ~12 km, 3.5 hours. 
2. Day 2: Rain had become snow by early morning. Most of the day was spent in plodding through a foot or so of snow. We had only running shoes, so had to keep moving to avoid frostbite. We finally covered about 20-21km, and reached Sandakphu around 3pm. 
3. Day 3: The weather cleared, just as Kanishka had predicted, we woke up to a gorgeous sunrise. We both went outside to see the 4 highest peaks (could not convince Santhosh to get out of his sleeping bag). As the sun rose, Kanchenjunga looked even more majestic stretching far and wide. The plan earlier was to go towards Phalut, but the snow was too much, so we decided to go down to Rimbik. After breakfast, we started running down, reaching Rimbik around lunch (~15km, 3.5 hours). We then took a taxi back to Darjeeling and found a place to stay for the next couple of nights. 
4. Day 4: We decided to run through some tea estates. We started around 7am and ran all the way down through winding tea estates to a small town called Bhijanbari, consumed some bad tasting maggie and ran / hiked back up to Darjeeling. This was perhaps the longest day, ~48km total according to my GPS (Kanishka thought it was lesser, and that my GPS was broken). 
5. Day 5: I decided to leave a day earlier, so hiked around town by myself as Kanishka & Santhosh did a couple more days of 40km+ runs. I did about 15km around Darjeeling, then took a cab to Bagdogra and a flight back to Kolkata. 

Pics from the trip here and some sample pics below..

Mt Kanchenjunga from Sandakphu

Somewhere on the route to Sandakphu as the snowfall reduced

Prayer stones along the way

Co-trekkers who were trekking down from Sandakphu

A furry fellow joined us for breakfast

With our guide

Plodding through 3ft of snow on the way to Sandakphu

A furry friend sleeping in...

A cute friend posing for us

I spent a serene morning in Belur Math (Ramakrishna Mission); it was one of the most peaceful places I have been to. I then headed to Dakshineshwar, spent a couple of hours in silence and then flew back to Bangalore.

Rest of 2013

Over the months, a few other crazy runners joined and we soon had a name for our group as well - Jobless Boring Long Runners. We did some good long runs during weekends and a few crazy all-night 6-7 hour runs. Some of them were training for the 12 and 24-hour ultra marathons during Bangalore Ultra in Nov. I did not have anything that crazy in my plan. During the Bangalore Ultra, I did spend the night running with some of the 24-hr and 100k runners, but I dont think I did more than 35-40K. 

Jobless runners having morning coffee after an all-night run

Runs in the Marin Headlands (2013 - 2016)

During work travels, I tried as much as I could to stop by San Francisco where I did several trail runs in the Marin Headlands area. It is one of the most beautiful national parks and it is a vast area just north of San Francisco and the Golden Gate bridge. The geography and the micro climate of the area is such that the Headlands create their own clouds due to currents from the Pacific Ocean that suddenly condense and cause fog, rain and chilly winds.
 I thoroughly enjoyed running there over the years. Most of the runs start at one of the beaches up north of San Francisco, go quickly up through some crazy cliffs, then through undulating hills and into the California Redwoods. Most of the routes then emerge out to glorious views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco skyline (some through/near Point Bonita, one of the most beautiful sunset spots), and then go back through some more hills (like the insane and aptly named Cardiac hill), to end back at the beach. I am a slow runner, so I would never meet the cutoff timings to complete 50K distances here (also most of the runs somehow ended up being during winter months, with daylight stopping around 4pm, which means shorter cutoff times). Hence most of the distances I did here were in the 30-40k range. I would love to do a 50-miler here at the Headlands 100, when the cutoff times for the 50k / 50 milers are long enough for slow runners like me.

Muir Beach, just north of the Golden Gate bridge

Golden Gate Bridge as I came out of the Redwood forests

Golden Gate and SF skyline from some part of the route

I ran with my good friend (and crazy ultra runner) Vinod once, but most of the other runs were solo. From my memory, here were some of the runs that I did:

1. Muir Beach Trail Run - I think I did a 40 km
2. Mt Tamalpais Trail Run - 35km
3. Golden Gate Trail Run - Vinod and I did the 30km
4. Stinson Beach Train Run - I forget, it may have been a 30-35km
5.  Skyline to the Sea - 30K

A few memorable moments that stand out.

I think it was during the Stinson Beach Trail run. It had been particularly gruelling perhaps due to work travel, other issues I was going through in life, short on sleep, jet lag etc. I also had to start from the south bay area around 5:30 am and drive about 2 hours to the starting point of the run. The run started at 8am, and very soon I was all alone and most of the runners just galloped ahead. I trudged through the cliffs, ran as much of the undulating hills and Redwoods as I could, but was intensely fatigued by afternoon, after which each step was excruciating. I slowly hiked back up the last few hills and suddenly, without warning, I came through a clearing to see one of the most glorious sunsets on the Pacific Ocean. I just stopped, and cried for a while. It was so beautiful out there, completely alone, facing the magnificence of nature. It was just pure emotion, something that comes from deep within, perhaps when the true formless within us recognizes the formless infinite outside and all around us. I then had an energy bar, sipped some water from my camelback, turned on my headlamp (it had gotten dark very quickly after the sunset) and headed down to the finish line in the cloak of darkness, thankfully without losing my way. I had a magical reprieve on the drive back - I dozed off on the wheel for a brief moment due to exhaustion when driving through a busy intersection in downtown San Francisco, but thankfully nothing major happened. 

During another run, I think it was in the warmer Saratoga valley down south, I had a brief encounter with nature that reminded me how much we are part of nature and should be respectful and mindful of creatures around us. I was running ahead of a couple of friends and it was a particularly warm day. The trails were rough, dusty and dry (it was during the summer months). As I turned a bend in the trail and was running downhill, I saw something right at my feet - long and cylindrical, about a few inches thick, scales shining in the sun. Thankfully I could react instantly and jump over the snake. I think I surprised it too, it quickly slithered into the bushes. I waited ahead for my friends to come by, I was still trying to catch my breath and was shivering involuntarily. As my friends came, I warned them to watch out, and we could hear a hiss and rattle kind of sound. I think we had just barged into a rattle snake sunbathing. Silently counting our blessings and chatting about how much animals can be affected by us, we moved on. 

Yet another time, I was running alone through some forest trails and was heading back when I thought I spotted a large dog, but it seemed too large. I slowed down to observe. From afar, it seemed like a wolf and I was trying to remember if wolves can climb trees (I quickly went near one that I thought I could climb quickly if needed). I just waited in silence and thankfully, very soon, a man showed up near the dog/wolf. Looks like it was his pet husky. Letting my breath out after a seemingly a few minutes, I headed back.

Running through the California Redwoods

Vinod and me finishing the Golden Gate Trail Run

Back in Bangalore, Kanishka, Santhosh, and I would dream of running/trekking many parts of the Great Himalayan Trail (that stretches about 3000km+) over the next few years, writing about trail running in the Himalayas, doing the basic mountaineering course at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute before I/we turned 40.... We did not know that an avalanche was just around the next bend.