CROSS THE RIVER NEAR ITS ORIGIN
In my eleven years of life in the Himalayas, there were many mountain expeditions I had to undertake.
Each of them has given me invaluable life lessons.
In one such expedition I had to lead my team from Sangla in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh to Harsil, somewhere near Gangotri in Uttarakhand. All on foot.
The whole route is in high altitude and super high altitude regions of the Himalayas.
The expedition involved trekking along the Baspa river valley, crossing it at the right place, climbing on Lamkhaga pass and then crossing to the other side to trek down to Harsil. It took almost a week.
Crossing the Baspa river was tricky. For those of you who have not seen Himalayan rivers, they are extremely ferocious and unforgiving. There are many instances where trucks are never found when they plunge into these rivers in accidents.
Baspa is one such river, which is a major tributary of the Satluj river. It is impossible to cross by foot without a bridge.
However, after a detailed analysis of the map and planning we decided to attempt crossing it at the place of its origin.
After three days of tiring trek along the Baspa river valley, we hit the place of origin of the river.
It was a glacier originated river. From a huge cave in the ancient ice glacier the Baspa river takes its birth.
Here the width and the depth of the river were manageable. With all the safety measures we could cross the valley successfully. Though the torture of wading through icy cold water till your chest level with sharp rocks on the river bed was nothing less than hell.
But when we reached the other side of the river and took a break, a sense of achievement was felt by the team.
*The uncrossable river had now been crossed successfully*
This was possible only because we went till its place of origin.
There's a profound lesson here.
In life we keep coming across adversities and problems which we feel overwhelmed by.
It's natural.
But, when we get to the root of the problem, it's probably easier to address them... just like crossing the river at its place of origin.
Worth trying.