Yoga

A Pilgrimage to St. Wolfgang, Austria

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It was October 12. The next stage of our Austrian adventures involved a hike from St. Gilgen to St. Wolfgang and a ferry to Strobl. Incidentally, one of the many things I learned on this trip is that you can download any language from Google translator onto your phone and use it even when you don’t have Wi-Fi or cell. That turns out to be invaluable when you’re in a German speaking country and your only German consists of Gesundheit.

Once again, a very nice breakfast buffet at our St. Gilgen hotel (Kendler Hotel). J and I are getting used to the pushed together twin beds, each of which has its own duvet. It turns out that minimizes a lot of arguments about who has pulled the covers off of whom. This coffee machine was exceptionally good, with at least six plus types of coffees, and once again, many types of breads (you are given a basket, just so you can completely carbo load), meats, cheese, eggs, fruit, yoghurt.

The hike from St. Gilgen to St. Wolfgang is an actually a pilgrimage route for St. Wolfgang himself. He lived as a hermit, later founding a monastery in St. Wolfgang. Lots of information boards along the way told his story, including in English at first…but then someone clearly became tired of translating and they were in German only.

Some very steep uphills made the trail markers that depicted pilgrims carrying heavy crosses quite appropriate. A small white church stood at the peak, right by a spring (shrine) that was supposed to have healing properties. Although I felt I could use some healing properties by that point, I resisted the urge to take off my boots and dabble my feet. The trail had a nice mix of up and down, and reminded me a bit of the Balkans.

One of many Virgin Mary shrines
Two Yogis – Look Closely

We reached St. Wolfgang in time for lunch at a cafe by the church. The very young servers seemed overwhelmed, so it left a bit to be desired. St. Wolfgang is quite the tourist spot, but still retains a lot of charm. Nice little boathouses line the lakeside; it looked like you could rent them. And I was amused by all the statues of yogis! It was quite the contrast to the Virgin Mary icons we were seeing everywhere, at stops on trails, above front doors.

The 15th century church, right beside the lake, was amazing – painted ceilings, multiple carved alters.

We bought our ferry tickets online and took the 15:45 to Strobl, where we were to stay for two nights. Like the buses, the ferries leave right on the dot. It was about a 20-25 minute ride across the lake to the far end. Strobl feels smaller than St. Wolfgang, although it looks bigger on the map. I think it’s just less touristy.

A fair number of places were closed for the season. We stayed at the Hotel Strobler, very nice and convenient, but right by the church which rings its bells every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day. Our window looked out on a well-maintained and colorful graveyard, decorated with flower gardens atop each grave.

After a walk down to Lake Wolfgang (Wolfgangsee), we had dinner at a brewery with very interesting food. I had a vegetarian meal of baked potato with sour cream, root vegetables and chestnuts. J had Wiener schnitzel (not so unusual). Sleep was a bit hard to come by, with the church bells clanging every 15 minutes.

The next day was Friday the 13th. After our somewhat disrupted night, we made it to a grocery store to pick up lunch food for our day hike. We started off by passing the elementary school track races; lanes had been marked off by the lake, and there was lots of excitement.

The start of the Burgl Panaramaweg (Trail) is neat. In contrast to the ancient Wolfgang pilgrimage we had taken the day before, it opened in 1982. The trail starts off on a boardwalk tethered to the side of a mountain as you round the Burgl Rock. It then meanders through a valley (replete with very nice cows, all wearing bells), and though a pass and up, up, up to the Schwarzensee (see means lake).

On the way, we walked through beautiful mossy areas that looked like fairy spots, biodiverse forests, followed by spread out tall pines with light dappling through. The lake seems small compared to the others, but it’s large enough when you walk around it.

We had a nice picnic lunch in a secluded spot on the banks, and made it back to St. Wolfgang (where we’d been the day before) in time to catch the same 15:45 ferry.

As I wrote this diary entry, we were enjoying a drink in the garden at the Hotel Strobler while vaguely watching the only other Americans we’ve seen (two men, investments bankers?), who were also on the ferry, trying to figure out how to order drinks.

Our final night we had dinner at Kirchenwirt – we even made reservations. J had a goulash, and I had spinach dumplings. Fortunately we were either so tired or so used to the every 15 minute church bells we didn’t even hear them that night. A good thing, because the next day was 9 miles to Bad Ischl.

A Retrospective – The Summitless Year of 2020

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2020 – learned how to hang my bike in the office parking garage

Not sure summitless is a word, but why not. Everything else was turned topsy turvey by the pandemic, so why not add a non word to the mix.

A year ago – 2019 – we were looking forward to adventures in Maine and a trip to climb Mt. Katahdin, which is the northern end of the Appalachian Trail, with daughter A and now fiancé N. (Yes, for those of you who read this blog, as of December 30 boyfriend N is now officially future son-in-law N)!

Had to include a pic – A and N in the Balkans, 2019

But the summer Covid surge and Maine’s quarantine rules put the kabosh on that plan. In fact, the unused camping permits for Baxter State Park are still sitting on my desk.

So we have trundled through the year with a mixture of Florida swamp hikes and multiple urban hikes. Turns out when there’s a lockdown (I hate that word) looking in closed store windows becomes its own treat. We also experimented with a lot of outdoor lunch places to give city walks a little more flavor.

One of many swamp hikes with friend M and S

And I did manage to walk the three miles to work at least once a week – to the point that the crossing guard by a local daycare asked where I’d been when I took a different route on one of my walking days. Another unexpected lockdown benefit was that the reduced traffic meant I actually rode my bike to work several times without fear of losing life and limb.

Of course, like everyone else my in-office days were severely curtailed – reduced to 2 or 3 during the summer surge and I had only just worked up to 4 in December when I had to quarantine again in order to socially distant visit family. I’m back now, but I may never work in the office on Mondays again. I never knew Sunday nights could be so relaxed.

Another 2020 development has been learning to substitute on line yoga, barre and fitness classes for my thrice weekly Y classes. That experience was a little soured when my favorite on line yoga teacher suddenly died (remember, it’s 2020), but I’m still discovering YouTube videos she’s posted that I’d never done.

We were lucky to have an amazing week with daughters S and A and fiancé N in the Blue Ridge mountains and a beach week in Oak Island in July that even included my parents. That allowed us to escape Florida, then the Covid capital, for the relatively unscathed grounds of North Carolina. Of course, that state is now giving Florida a run for its money, but not to be beaten, in typical fashion Florida is pulling ahead again.

Oak Island, NC

In any event, I’d love nothing more than to be dreaming about the next big adventure. But given that I appear to be toward the bottom of the barrel in the vaccination race it’s hard to count on anything overseas. Not to mention the fact that court calendars are so messed up it is impossible to know when any of your cases might go to trial, just to add another complication to the mix.

I really didn’t intend this post to end up as an extended whine but that’s certainly what it seems to have turned into. I am really hoping for some domestic travel at least – I’ve never climbed a 14er in Colorado and Big Bend in Texas looks highly inviting. But I have the feeling it’s all going to have to be a bit last minute and I’m missing the joy of anticipation.

2021 is here, though. And my resolution – despite my Type A tendencies – will have to be to take it one step at a time and let things evolve as they may. After all, the tag line for this blog is steps, stairs and summits. Happy new year, y’all.

Closing out 2020 with this fine fellow on Lake Ivanhoe

A Walker’s Guide to Empty Orlando

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It’s been only a few weeks since I last posted – about an adventurous trip to the back country of the Klondike in the Canaveral National Seashore. But – as I’m sure all of us feel – those few weeks have taken us on a journey on which none of us planned to venture. Global pandemic? What? Back in the halcyon days of February it seemed like a far off possibility. Not something where the global case count would rapidly reach six figures, speeding up at ever greater rates, and there’s a grim competition of which state is outdoing which for the highest number of cases. New York obviously wins, but there’s brisk competition for the runners up.

For whatever reason, the legal profession has been designated an essential service in Orlando, and while anyone who wants to work at home can do so, and our office is closed to non employees, there’s a stalwart little band of regulars who show up for at least part of each day, carefully observing a six foot distance from each other. In my management capacity I’ve actually threatened to get out a yardstick.

The Y has closed, as have all my other sources for group exercise activities. I’m discovering that yoga by oneself practiced with a video lacks the energy and community that I now realize is central to my practice. So, once this all started I decided that I should try to walk to and from work as frequently as humanly possible, in the hopes that our July trip to Katahdin will happen and I’ll be ready for it.

It’s an eerie feeling to roam the deserted streets of downtown. Mostly it is me and the homeless population, some mentally disturbed and some not. I don’t think the numbers of the homeless have increased – it’s just with no cars and no foot traffic they are more apparent. It appears no one else has decided walking to work is the way to keep sane in this current madhouse.

Then there are the construction workers who are completely exempt from Orlando’s shelter in place order. And every developer has apparently decided they can get way ahead without all those pesky people around. The construction guys have also clearly concluded that the six feet rule doesn’t apply to them. They are working arm to arm just as closely as before and crowd around the water coolers in the backs of the trucks.

Orlando is unseasonably hot right now, but that doesn’t seem to be making any difference to the virus, and it is to cool off next week. I’ve discovered new routes to walk to work, and know every single parking garage I can cut through, as well as shady little back streets that see little pedestrian traffic in the best of times. I frequently feel I’m starring in the opening scenes of an apocalyptic movie where there will be a flash forward to six months from now, with abandoned cars on the streets and weeds working their way through the cracks of unused streets, while small bands of people scavenge for their next meal.

Well, maybe not that bad. As I walk back home in the afternoon, multiple family groups are out enjoying the lake. I haven’t seen this many people outside and off of their phones for a very long time. And I have virtually connected with old friends who live far away – leading us to wonder why we never tried this before.

There’s swamps and there’s summits and there’s a lot of in between. Let’s just appreciate where we are now – with an appropriate six feet of distance between us!

Stones in My Pockets – Summits Sustained

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Glacial beds on Stok Kangri Trek

I will confess. I have a stone in my coat pocket, purloined from some exotic spot, I know not where. It could be from Ladakh, India on the way to Stok Kangri. Or I might have surreptitiously slipped it into my pocket on the trek to Everest Base Camp. Perhaps it dates even further back, to the more domestic but no less adventurous White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Everest Base Camp

Whatever its origin, I get enormous pleasure from touching its rough edges, rolling it between my fingers. The rock of unknown ancestry is the descendant of the lucky pecan I kept in my coat pocket for years. My lucky pecan was picked up on Minerva Avenue (what a name of a street to grow up on) and resided in my old Michael Kors jacket – bought at a Tuesday Morning, no less – until the sad day that said jacket disappeared, I think in California. I believe I was as upset about the loss of the lucky pecan as I was by the loss of the jacket. By then the pecan had grown smooth as silk from my rolling it around in my hand as I walked, like an organic worry stone. And I figured if I were ever stranded on a desert island perhaps I could eat it and survive, or plant it as a sign of hope for the future. Although admittedly, the latter probably wouldn’t improve my chances of survival.

But regardless, those talismans in my coat pockets make something concrete out of the virtual world in which we live. Our lives are comprised now of internet virtuality even more ethereal than the wispy clouds you zoom through when taking off in an airplane. There’s nothing to touch, and the world becomes like a memory.

One of my yoga teachers brought small polished stones to class the other day, for people to hold as they chose in class. I guess the same concept as my purloined rock. It makes those past summits real, just like the lucky pecan anchored where I grew up. And this small rock is now inspiring me to return to the stairs, backpack and all, to get ready to climb Mt. Katahdin in Maine.

Balancing – Green Belt, Austin

Whatever its source,

My Yoga Summits

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Yoga. It’s been an underlying theme to this blog since the early days. In fact, I’ve tried to honor my practice by doing at least a few asanas on mountains and trails through all of our adventures – from the steep treks in Nepal to India to rocky riverbed hikes in Austin, Texas.

Over the last couple of weeks of silence on the blog – I promise I really haven’t been binge watching TV (well, I did finish Succession) – I have been spending at least a little time honing my thoughts on the topic.

I started practicing regularly at the Y back in the early 2000s, when my daughters were old enough that I felt I could take two hours respite from motherly, lawyerly, chief cook and bottlewasher duties on Sunday afternoons. I still remember my first yoga class. I positioned myself in the back row of the 30 or so yogis – that was pre the construction of the Y’s yoga studio and we practiced in the “Fitnasium,” a fancy word for a small gym. You could line yourself up with the various floor markings. My yoga teacher at that class remained my Sunday afternoon yoga teacher for almost 20 years until she recently stepped down. And I’ve been practicing with the guy next to me now for an equivalent length of time. He’s ten or so years older than I and I’m now older than he was when we first met.

There’s a community that forms in a regular yoga practice. Wednesdays and Sundays are my days of choice. While people come and go there been a regular core of us over the years. I refer to them as my yoga buddies. There’s something to be said for the sharing that goes on as you contort yourself into the next pretzel like position. And before or after class we can complain about our latest ache or pain or the state of the world in general. It’s those little interactions that build connection (karma?) that can carry you through your week and up your next summit.

Teachers – and I’ve been blessed with great ones – can add to the practice, but they really are guides, not yoga maestros. It’s the combination of energy and eventual calm of those in class that creates the yogic environment.

How, you may ask, does this relate to summits? Well, aside from the obvious physical benefits – clambering up rock frequently require flexibility – there’s a mindset that goes with you. It’s a degree of determination that you can in fact hold that posture for a few seconds beyond what you thought. It’s a focus on that next step in front of you instead of obsessing about whether there’s a fake summit a few hundred (but oh so long and steep) meters away. It’s keeping an intention in your mind, body, spirit that propels you upward. It works for work, too.

My Wednesday night yoga class is the one that lets me know I really can get through the rest of the week. My Sunday one brings the calm that lets me start a new one. Both summits, of a sort. Namaste.

The Lost in Florida Series – The Tosohatchee Wilderness

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The swamp has featured heavily in this blog recently. House flood and storms. But at a particularly low point, intrepid hiking friend S found a 30,000 acre wilderness – the Tosohatchee Wilderness Preserve – where we could try to escape the urban grind we’d all found ourselves in.

I was in a particularly sour mood. When you can’t even find your hiking poles you know you are at difficult point. Things started to look up when, after 45 minutes of driving through what can only be described as redneck Florida (I mean that as charitably as possible) we reached the entrance to the wilderness area. There was an ominous sign stating a hunt was in process, but we never heard any gunshot and presumably the hunters were carrying out their activities elsewhere. After all, it is 30,000 acres.

We picked up a map at the entrance but didn’t look at it until much later, relying instead on the black and white map S had printed off the internet. Turns out that made a difference, as you’ll see later.

We’d chosen a route that was part of the Florida Trail, a 1,000 mile path that runs from Miami to Pensacola almost continuously (well, except for 300 miles). Somehow it doesn’t have the cachet of the Appalachian or Pacific Crest Trails. Nonetheless, we’re from Florida and it’s ours, damn it.

The trail was quite well marked, in stark contrast to the Rock Springs Preserve where we spent hours tromping around the wilderness in no apparent direction. See Lost in the Woods – A Florida Hike. And, where it was dry, it was a nice, well maintained path.

You hear the key words – where it was dry. After meandering through a spectacular shaded forest of palm hammocks and live oaks, interspersed with open sections of slash pines, we ended up in a literal swamp. The trail simply went right through it. We could only assume that it was the remnant of a huge storm earlier in the week, because surely no one would route a trail through a swamp, would they? The water varied from a few inches to quite a bit deeper – and was remarkably clear. We soon discovered that if we aimed toward the clumps of grass there was a good chance it would be shallower – although you did risk the possibility of a suction like effect from the mud and muck. I simply chose not to think about snakes.

We alternated between swamp and patches of dry trail, and eventually emerged into what truly looked like a fairy glen. An open, almost circular area with wildflowers poking through coarse green grass. A spot where you could easily imagine the little folk engaging in their fairy festivities. And a good spot for some yoga. It’s also the spot where I realized the reason my pack was sloshing around and seemed so heavy was that I had forgotten I was carrying around about 10 pounds of water from my last training hike!

And, lest I forget – the flowers! Spring has sprung in Central Florida, and wildflowers were running amok. Wild iris (that sure look a lot like the Apostle Iris we paid good money for!), periwinkles, daisies, Florida style blue bells, thistles.

After a brief respite in the fairy glen, we were back at it. But by then we’d looked at the color map. As we studied the next section, we realized that the trail we’d just walked along didn’t run through the green part- it went straight through a whole lot of blue! In other words, this was no left over from a storm – the trail simply went straight through the swamp. S said he thought he’d sensed a current. I almost titled this post “Fording the Florida Trail” (M’s suggestion).

Armed with that information and having learned trails really do go through swamps, we selected what looked like a more reasonable – or at least drier – way back. But after walking for a while down a dirt road and arriving at Second Cut Trail – we saw it went straight into and along a canal, with no end in sight. Back to the road.

We turned off onto the next possible path back through the woods and went about ten minutes. At that point it became clear that even though well-marked we were basically bushwhacking through overgrowth and stomping through a mixture of mud and pond – and we hadn’t even reached the blue area on the map. Back to the road again.

Ultimately we reached a horse trail that was relatively above water. While longer, I’m sure we made better time.

After 9 miles and about 5 hours – this was slow going – we were back at the car. Someone had stopped us just before we reached the parking area to ask for directions, and S, Good Samaritan that he is, gave them the color map, assuming there would be more back at the entrance. There weren’t.

Guess that means we’ll have more unexpected trips through the blue areas. We definitely plan to go back. After all, where else do you start for a summit but in the swamp?

Training Twists and Turns on the Way to the Balkans

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My “about me” page of this blog, which I wrote back in 2014, describes me as a “mid-50s” person. Born in 1961 and about to turn 58, I’m hoping I still qualify. But one of the things I’ve noticed as I take this journey from swamp to summit – which started when I was 50 – is the subtle or not so subtle changes in my training activities over the ages. Some due to sheer boredom. Some, unfortunately, due to years, painful as that is to admit.

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When I first embarked on this journey, I was a regular yoga attendee, both Bikram and what I call “regular” yoga, two to three times a week. Then we decided to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2011 for my 50th birthday and it became clear yoga alone wasn’t going to get me to the top of that mountain.  Hence, my now famous office building stair climbing regime. That’s the one thing that’s remained constant, even though my office has moved to a different floor and side of the building, which mysteriously is one extra floor in height.

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But the rest of it? Not so consistent. After our experience climbing Mt. Elbrus, I realized I needed way more heavy duty cardio. (See Steps on the Summit for our adventures on Europe’s highest peak.) Thus, I swallowed my disdain for running and embarked on a regime of a long (I worked my way up to 6-7 miles) run once a week, combined with a treadmill 5K at least once a week. But then my Wednesday yoga class was pushed to an earlier time and it became well nigh impossible to fit in a 5k between work and yoga. And then, after Stok Kangri, I realized I was all out so bored with running I couldn’t stand it, not to mention I was starting to obsess over my pace to the point it was becoming really stressful. Thus, my invention of the walk – run.  Letting Up the Pressure – Running and Walking Through the Holidays – memorializes this latest training technique!

Bikram fell victim to the closing of the studio (which probably wasn’t helped by Bikram’s own fall from grace). Although I still love it, and there are a few classes here and there, the times are terrible, so I rarely make it. Instead I’ve picked up Barre to accompany my yoga classes. Of course, I do it at the Y, so there’s no real barre and we have to use chairs. I can only imagine what we look like to onlookers as we plié and relevee clinging onto the backs of our chairs.

Weights have been an off and on thing. Right now they are on – I learned after Kilimanjaro that the only way to strengthen your knees is to strengthen your quads and I think there is going to be a high need for strong knees in Albania’s Accursed Mountains.

But my newest invention is a treadmill variation that I discovered while watching mountaineer and photographer Cory Richards’ training regime on Instagram. He put the treadmill on its highest 15% setting, strapped on a heavy pack, and proceeded to walk uphill for hours at about 2.8 miles an hour, not holding on. At that incline, if you tried going any faster without holding on you’d probably fall off. Now, my dirty little treadmill secret had been that I was a “holder”. I reasoned it was all about the legs, right? But when I tried Cory’s technique , sans pack, no hands, I suddenly realized I was actually using a whole different set of muscles – and they were the ones you use on a real live mountain.

So I guess the whole point of this is ebb and flow and just go with the tide, to keep the metaphor going. Training is going to change depending on your age, the boredom factor, and where you’re going. I tend to be a creature of habit; at least I’ve learned a bit of flexibility on my swamp to summit journey.

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Throw Backs and Forwards – The Swamp and the Horses and Namaste

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So this weekend has had enough unusual experiences to delay, yet again, my stories of Delhi. Because how often does one revisit activities that were very important in years gone by – and then push them forward into the future?

That was this weekend. It started last week, when my long time Bikram yoga teacher Joe posted he was going to be teaching at a local studio on Friday afternoon, following his most recent trip to Australia. I hadn’t taken a Bikram class for at least 18 months. I left work early on Friday just to get there.

And oh how I’d missed it! You talk about mindfulness. When you are in a Bikram class your entire mind and body is focused on following the dialogue and moving each muscle in accordance. There’s nothing else there but that moment in time, in the hot sticky sweaty spot that is an interstices between the then and the future – the now.

The next day started with our raincheck horseback riding experience. A few weeks ago, husband J and I realized we’d ridden horses – poorly and only on trail rides – in places ranging from Hawaii to the Caucasus Mountains, but never in Florida, where we’ve lived for the past 29 years or so. Time to change that.

So we ventured off, a good 55 miles away, to Forever Florida, a combination cattle ranch and ecotourism preserve. There are zip lines, horseback riding, and lots of alligators. It’s truly a throwback to old Florida. Lots of the horses are Florida cracker horses who have to be DNA tested to show they really are descendants of those brought by Ponce deLeon. But the first date there was for a 2 pm ride. We should have known better. It’s Florida in the summer for heaven’s sake, in the days of global warming. We were totally rained out.

Hence, our trip back yesterday on one of those beautiful Florida bluebird days – an azure sky decorated with white puffy clouds, like mounds of whipped cream splattered onto the sky.

But what we didn’t know about the ride was that a lot of it was underwater – it was truly swamp. We went through multiple Florida ecosystems- prairie to slash pine forest to palm hammock – and into the Bull Creek slough. That’s where my very short horse and I got quite wet – water up to my thighs and his chest. I suppose I could have pulled my feet out of the stirrups and pulled them up high as others did – but I felt a lot more balanced staying in the stirrups – and frankly, the dank brown water felt remarkably refreshing in the 90 percent humidity. It wasn’t that hot – but, boy, it was humid.

It was probably 2014 when I was last on a horse – way back when I started this blog.   Horseback riding in Russia, following the Mt. Elbrus ascent. https://fromswamptosummit.com/2014/07/11/a-wild-card-day-or-summits-dont-end/

That was Saturday. Sunday was supposed to just be my regular – as in 15 years or so regular – 2 pm yoga class at the Downtown Y. But as I walked in, I was told that teacher E (she’s ok) had just gotten into a car accident and wouldn’t make it and there was no instructor but we could have the space. So I was going to practice regardless – about 20 of us were still there and someone asked if I would lead the class. So I did. We all got into a circle (or a version thereof) because I didn’t feel qualified to act as though I were a teacher and somehow a circle is less authoritarian. But I must say – the dialogue from my Bikram class on Friday and the many years of yoga kicked in and I was amazed at how natural and good it felt to lead a class. Not sure how everyone else felt but I’m hoping it was ok. I’ve frequently considered taking teacher training but most recently have thought I should just recognize I’ll only be a participant. But now I’m wondering if my initial instinct was right – and I really should do the teacher training. Some food for thought on a Sunday.

Pretty wild weekend of revisits and moving forwards. Namaste.

Back to the Beginning – Our Journey to Leh, Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir, India

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This title sounds a bit like “Trinity Park, Durham, North Carolina, United States, Earth, Milky Way, Universe,” which I found very amusing to list as my address in middle school. My travel diary for our Stok Kangri adventure – which was indeed to such a remarkably named location – starts this way: “My Fitbit claims it is 10 am but by now we having been traveling long enough I only have the vaguest idea. I believe it’s about 2 am Sunday in Orlando after I woke up on Saturday morning at 2:15 am.”

Kira the cat is uncertain about the backpacks

2:15 am was our planned wake up time. Yes, we were very paranoid about all that could go wrong between our house and the airport for a 6 am flight, not to mention the packing that remained to be done before we boarded our Uber. What? You don’t think it’s a good idea to go to a cocktail party the night before a big trip?

After quite a long wait at the airport – because nothing did go wrong – we made it to JFK, and boarded the same Emirates flight to Dubai that we took last year on our way to Nepal. It was probably the same plane. The flight was full, lots of Indian families traveling back to visit relatives over the summer holidays. I read; watched two movies, including The Shape of Water; and crossed Northern Europe and Russia on the way to the UAE. Fortunately we didn’t have to change terminals this time, although it was still quite a substantial walk to the gate. We boarded our next flight in good time and were on our way to Delhi. Turns out New Delhi is really just a portion of the ancient city of Delhi. Hence the use of both names. For those of you who have asked.

The views upon the takeoff from Dubai are so strange. Canals carved in the desert resembling tattoos.

Once we arrived in Delhi we knew to look for the e-visa line thanks to our travel companion S who’d arrived a day before and encountered no queues there. We were duly met by our Delhi group leader and transported to the Ashok Country House hotel. We passed numerous chain stores (like Benetton), all closed as it was Sunday. “Normal” looking stores were interspersed with carts and people selling anything you could imagine. The hotel was dated and a little quirky but perfectly nice, and we went off to the pool to meet our fellow trekkers. It was 112 degrees Fahrenheit. Our group ranged from two 61 year olds down to two 27 and 28 year olds. Four from the US and seven from the U.K. All of us seemed quite compatible and we shared a few Indian beers. We all found it remarkable that the alcohol content was given as a range – a “light,” which was “up to 5%” or a “strong,” which was between 5.2 and 8%.” Did that mean a light could have 0?

Our wake up call the next day was 4:30 am and we were off to the domestic airport in Delhi for the hour and a half flight to Leh. In contrast to Katmandu, there weren’t any monkeys at the airport, though. See Leaving for Lukla or Monkeys in the Airport. I think we were the only westerners in the entire plane. At the Leh airport we met our guide, R, who was from Ladakh. There is a big military presence – soldiers with scary looking guns everywhere and signs warning if you violated the rules you would not just be shot, but shot dead. You could tell we were near disputed borders. Ladakh was its own kingdom until 1834 and its residents are very conscious of having a separate identity from India. It’s largely Buddhist, and shares a lot culturally with Tibet. The Dalai Lama was to visit while we were in India, over his birthday, no less, and his was cause for great celebration.

Ladakh is very barren, a high plateau landscape. A few planted fields separated by poplar trees. Our hotel, the Hotel Mogol, had a rooftop cafe, a restaurant, and our room was large. It worked.

Our first day in Leh – which is at around 11,000 feet – was supposed to be spent acclimatizing. One reason we picked this particular guide company was a really good acclimatization plan. We were to have several days hiking around Leh before starting the trek and climb. Day 1 involved lunch, beers, a nap, and a yoga class at the Mahabodhi Yoga Center for several of us. It was remarkably similar to a US yoga class and felt very familiar.

Mahabodhi Yoga Center

Afterwards, we met R for a very rapid stroll to the “market” and the “local market.” Streets were covered with rocks, mud, motorcycles, people, mangy dogs, all vying for a spot. Lots of cafes and guest houses. Leh is bigger than you would think from its population figures, and we were there during the tourist season for visitors from the rest of India. According to R, after Ladakh was featured in a 2009 movie called “3 Idiots,” it became a popular tourist destination – which has brought benefits but also increased trash, not to mention the noise pollution of hundreds of rental motorcycles cycles revving their way along the main streets.

The hotel served dinner at 8 pm. There was hot water in our rooms between 6 and 8 am and 6 and 8 pm. We had another couple of days ahead of us to explore monasteries and visit the second highest drivable pass in the world at 17,500 feet.

Life was good. And, as you’ll see soon, there was to be an oracle in our future.

20,000 Feet of Fear – Stok Kangri and Other People’s Blogs

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IMG_0069We leave for India, more specifically Stok Kangri, in just under 4 weeks and it’s time to stop. Time to stop reading other people’s blogs and trip reviews.

You know you’ve read too many over the top accounts of bad weather, deep snow and almost vertical walls when you find yourself repeatedly googling whether the steepest gradient is really 40 degrees (according to the one and only detailed trekking guide I’ve found) or 75 degrees (according to anecdotal accounts by multiple trekkers at varying levels of inexperience). The next clue you’ve gone too far in internet research is when you start googling all the mountains you’ve previously climbed for comparison purposes to see where they rank in this doubtless highly imaginary world of guessing gradients to try to determine if that will give you a clue as to whether you can do this. And that is followed by a good dose of wondering just how good your training can actually be when you live in Florida and a feeing you better rapidly add even more stairs to the stair climb in the office, not to mention increase the distance of your runs.

I guess fear can be a great motivator – for a bit. But I think I’ve hit the point where reading more about this trek/climb is about to backfire. I need to spend these few last weeks getting my head ready to focus on the present moment and the here and now. That’s what it’s going to take get up that mountain. One foot in front of the other; one at a time.

It’s the opposite of the planning and strategizing and analyzing I have to do in my day job lawyering. Sure, there are the logistics – the gear check, travel arrangements, picking out your GU selections – those are fine. But trying to psych out the mountain beyond a certain point – that’s no good. On a trek, typically the guides will not even tell you what the next day holds until the evening before. I’ve figured out the reason for that. You need to focus on where you are and what you’re doing – not where you’re going to be and whether you can make it.

Right now should be a yoga practice. I need to take the space created on the mat…and let that sense of the present be my guide for these last three weeks. And not read any more first hand versions of “how I survived Stok Kangri.” Namaste.