The Accidental Hiker

The Asulkan Pass from above the ACC Asulkan Hut. The peak in the center is Young's Peak (2800 m) With great anticipation, I lowered my backpack on to the wooden step, took out a copy of the email confirmation of the booking that I had made and looked at the lock attached to the latch on the top right hand corner of the door. I turned the digits around till I had the numbers lined up. I tugged on the lock. Nothing happened. I tugged again, with the same result. After a few more attempts I was beginning to get worried. The light was fading rapidly under the canopy of trees where the Alpine Club of Canada's A.O.Wheeler Hut was situated near the Illicillaewat campground in Glacier National Park. What if I had been given the wrong combination number or if the combination had been changed since I had downloaded it? I would have to sleep in my vehicle which I had just parked. There was not a soul around to ask for assistance. This place was outside cellphone coverage areas and ...

Ashok signalled with his hands and we stopped in our tracks. The afternoon sun was pleasantly warm on our backs as we sank down to our knees. Ashok, ten yards ahead of us, motioned for us to be quiet as he retreated. "Gaur!" he whispered when he reached us. The three of us slunk into the fragile camouflage of a thorny bush. Less than a hundred yards away, a herd of Indian Bison were grazing. Their default leader had already sensed us and was sniffing the air, trying to pinpoint our position. We were nervous: if they decided to charge, we didn't stand a chance of outrunning them, we would surely be trampled to death by their collective hooves. At the same time the urge to take a picture urged me to poke my little camera through the gaps in the bush and press the trigger repeatedly, hoping that I would get one decent shot. I got my picture, but it was far from satisfactory; but I had reason to be pleased: after hiking for nearly three decades in the hills of the Sahyadri...

The soft pitter patter of the rain falling on my head was like a comforting rhythm. My feet went squelching in the mud but it did not matter. We had been walking in the rain all day and by now we had adjusted to this wet wet world. We walked in silence in the rapidly approaching darkness. As we walked past the few huts that comprised the little hamlet, we heard a female voice cry out. She said something but the words were lost in the moist wind that cooled our faces as we hurried past. "What was that?" I asked Anil, who was a few paces behind me, "what is she saying?". His command of Marathi was marginally better than mine, or so I thought....thus my appeal to him for a translation. Anil shook his head. "I can't really make out what she is saying." The voice called out again, but we ignored it and kept walking until we were out of earshot. As we approached the little stream that we had waded across 8 hours earlier, an ever increasing roar fi...