Trial and Triumph in Ladakh

Release date: November 04, 2005 |

Click here to view a slideshow from Bagchi and Curley's trek.

The sky looked fairly clear when Kaushik Bagchi, associate professor of history, and senior Brian Curley pitched their tents along a rocky path in the Himalayas, on the first night of their trek last summer toward the summit of a 19,000-foot peak. But by 2 a.m., the unpredictable mountain weather had shifted, and a sudden downpour drenched their camp.

“I was half-awake the whole night, checking to see if my tent was dry,” says Bagchi. “And Brian, well—“

“I was digging trenches to move the water out of my tent, holding a flashlight, standing in my boxers in the freezing rain,” interjects Curley, grinning now at the memory. “My whole tent had collapsed.”

“And I was oblivious to all of this,” says Bagchi, laughing. “In the morning, when I came out of my tent, Brian said, ‘Oh, everything’s fine, I’m just a little wet,’ and we kept moving up the mountain.”

Curley and Bagchi’s shared optimism served them well during their eight-day journey through Ladakh, whose name translates roughly as “the land of many passes.” Sandwiched between Tibet, China, India, and Pakistan, Ladakh is the largest district in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. It’s also an inhospitable, rocky high-altitude desert with one of the world’s lowest population densities—just two inhabitants per square kilometer. A vital link in the ancient Central Asian trade network, the region had minimal contact with the outside world until the 20th century.

Bagchi, a native of India, has been visiting Ladakh for the past two years to research the Radhus, one of the region’s major trading families. Bagchi teaches a course on cross-cultural trade at Goucher, and the research has deepened his understanding of the trade connections between Ladakh and Central Asia. In the past, his explorations have taken place mostly in libraries and living rooms, reading documents and interviewing living members of the Radhu family. “This time,” says Bagchi, “I wanted to travel through the region and understand what kinds of things people experienced on the trade routes I’ve been reading about. But I didn’t want to go alone.”

He found the ideal expedition partner in Curley, a history major and longtime student of Bagchi’s. Long before he came to Goucher, Curley traveled to India, Nepal, and Ladakh on a summer program for high school students. He was already used to the physical demands of mountain trekking, and he was eager to return to the East.

“I was in Ladakh three years ago, and it really changed the whole way I go about things,” says Curley. “That’s true any time you visit a Third World country, but I really fell in love with the respect for nature and emphasis on spirituality [in Ladakh].”

Curley’s interest in and appreciation for the culture of Ladakh were important to Bagchi. His experience in the mountains was even more critical. Ladakh’s wildly fluctuating climate and often-treacherous terrain can be unforgiving. Its high altitudes can cause acute mountain sickness, or AMS, with symptoms ranging from a mild headache to a life-threatening buildup of fluid in the lungs and brain. It is not a place for trekking neophytes.

“Brian already had trekking experience, and he’s been interested in Tibetan Buddhism for a long time,” says Bagchi. “He was the natural choice.”

Curley and Bagchi arrived first in Leh, Ladakh’s capital, where they met the third member of their team, a German doctor and friend of Bagchi’s named Richard Michel. Bagchi hired several local residents to accompany them on their trek, including a Tibetan mountain guide, a horseman, and the horseman’s teenage son. After waiting three days for Curley to acclimatize to the altitude, the team loaded tents, clothing, and other supplies onto six packhorses, strapped on altimeters, and set forth on their trek.

They set their sights on a massif, or twin peak, called Dzo Jongo, or “The Yak’s Horns.” The higher of the two horns towers more than 20,000 feet above sea level. Bagchi and Curley elected to attempt a 19,000-foot climb. Most Ladakhis would not give Dzo Jongo a second look. For them, mountain trails are places for quiet communion with nature, and the snow-capped peaks are obstacles, not destinations.

It took the group two full days to reach their first mountain pass, Kangmaru-La, and another full day to cross it. It was a grueling ascent of 17,409 feet, and it tested the entire team’s strength and endurance.

“Crossing a Ladakh mountain pass is hell,” says Bagchi. “The whole way up, both of us were saying, ‘Why on earth are we doing this?’ People died trying to go over these passes in earlier days. The weather is rough—blazing hot one moment, and then snowstorms. I had read so much about the traders carrying goods and toiling up the mountain passes for months at a time. This was just a short journey, and it was unbelievably hard. I cannot even imagine what it must have been like for them.”

For those who do attempt such climbs, reaching the top is cause for tremendous relief—and thanksgiving. For thousands of years, Buddhist travelers and pilgrims have held ceremonies of devotion at the summits, hanging prayer flags and praising the gods. At the top of Kangmaru-La, Curley added his own string of prayer flags to the tangle that other travelers had left behind, and the entire expedition team paused to give thanks before continuing on.

“Trekking in Ladakh is like going on a pilgrimage, even though you’re not going to a particular shrine,” Curley explains. “The mountains and passes are sacred to the people there. Every time they go through a pass, they say a chant: ‘Victory to the gods.’”

Bagchi shares Curley’s view of trekking as a spiritual experience. “There’s a shrine, a stupa, every 50 meters or so,” he says, “and people walking along mountain passes with prayer beads in their hands. Everyone has a picture of the Dalai Lama hanging around [his or her] neck. The whole place is steeped in Buddhism. And given the fact that these are very poor people, it says a lot that they are so pious.”

On one of his earlier trekking expeditions, Curley was surprised to see pilgrims stopping at every step to prostrate themselves, pressing their foreheads against the rocky ground. He’s also fascinated by khorwa, a Buddhist practice that involves walking around sacred sites, reciting prayers and mantras.

“In Ladakh, I don’t think people even regard these actions as part of their religion,” says Curley. “Culture and religion really blend.”

The group’s moment of respite after Kangmaru-La was brief. The very next day, they reached the Nimaling plain, an alpine meadow at the base of Dzo Jongo. The team spent a day camping on the plain, waiting for their bodies to acclimatize to the ever-increasing elevation, and trying to get as much sleep as possible before tackling the peak. Unfortunately, their rest was fitful—every time Curley or Bagchi dozed off, they were interrupted by the loud braying of wild asses, goats, dzos, sheep, and other animals who graze on the Nimaling plain.

Finally, it was time to begin their ascent. The team set out at 3 a.m. with headlamps strapped on, hoping to reach the summit and return to camp before the afternoon sun hit the ice coating the side of Dzo Jongo, transforming the already treacherous path into a slick, impassable surface.

“Climbing the peak was like a separate trek by itself,” says Bagchi. “We were on our own, with no extra supplies, no horses to carry loads. It was the big day—the culmination of all the preparation. We had to go in one day and make it back to camp. The whole way up, we could feel the thin air. Our progress was literally one step at a time.”

In addition to the constant threat of snow and wind, Bagchi and Curley often slipped and stumbled on scree—the sharp, flat stones that cover the side of Dzo Jongo. By the time they got to the 19,000-foot summit, the team could only stand to spend 10 minutes celebrating their success because they were starting to feel dizzy and lightheaded—the first symptoms of AMS. Bagchi and Curley snapped a few quick photographs and hurried back to base camp, exhausted but triumphant.

“I knew going into it that it would be hard,” says Bagchi. “But when we staggered back into camp that day, all three of us—Brian, Richard, and myself—agreed that it was the hardest thing we’d ever done in our lives, period. And this wasn’t even a big peak by Ladakh standards.”

“I liked the challenge, though,” adds Curley. “You can be in the best shape of your life physically, and if you’re not prepared for it mentally, you won’t succeed.”

Having succeeded this time, Bagchi and Curley plan to return to the passes soon—possibly even as a team. In fact, as soon as they returned to base camp, they began planning their next climb. And though Bagchi says he was initially a little bit wary of traveling informally with a student, Curley’s enthusiasm for and interest in Ladakh quickly erased his doubts. Bagchi now regards it as one of the most rewarding educational experiences he has shared with a student.

“I think it was the best course I’ve taught Brian, and I’ve taught him six or seven courses,” Bagchi says. “I think I taught him more in those two weeks than I have in three years. So would I go with a student again? With a student like Brian, anytime.”