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Across the Frozen Himalaya

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Across the frozen himalaya

By HARISH KOHLI

'Across the frozen himalaya' is a story of an extra-ordinary adventure which surprisingly was never been thought before. It is a story of the first attempt to ski across the Himalaya during the thick of winters. Those who may have read Jon Krakaur's 'Into Thin Air' will find this even more moving, lucid and unnerving. Every bit is absorbing as the team challenge one pass after another, daring avalanches, cold and crevasses to cover a distance of 2,000 km.

The book is meticulously researched and exceptionally well written, Across the Frozen Himalaya, avoids the hype and easy condemnation that infests most of such books. The book offers psychological thoughts to the every day problems and vivid details told matter-of-factly, almost quietly. The result is a deeply moving narrative that honours the courage of his team members.

Across the Frozen Himlaya reads like a fine novel - it is an engrossing book, difficult for the reader to put down.

Those of us reared on Dr Livingstone and Christopher Columbus, Amundsen and Scott, would be hard put to realise as to who is Harish Kohli.

On May 5, 1982, a team of four members and a Tibetan mastiff named Druk successfully traversed the length of the Himalayas from Arunachal Pradesh in the east to the Karakaoram pass near K2 in the north-west. They had traversed by foot and ski almost 8,000 km. It had been 14 months in the making of an adventure that never been attempted before. It was conceived and led by Harish Kohli.

Harish Kohli returns, this time to cross the Himalayas on skis in the thick of winter. 'Across the frozen Himalaya' is the story of this daring adventure. When Harish Kohli and his team of seven members reached the summit of the Karakoram pass, their start point, they had been on the move for twelve gruelling hours. As they turned to begin the treacherous descent, the light breeze turned into a storm and then into a blizzard, plummeting the temperature to minus 48 degrees Celsius. Later that night when they reached their base, after twenty-six horrifying hours, two of the members were frost-bitten, one of them losing seven of his fingers. But for the Ski Himalaya team, it was only the beginning of their adventure, which became one of the most momentous journeys in mountaineering history.

'Across the frozen Himalaya' is a saga of human endeavour and endurance. In this movingly written book, Kohli describes an experience of such bone-chilling horror as to persuade even the most fanatical alpinists to seek sanctuary at sea level. It is arguably the best adventure book written in the last decade. Kohli writes an eloquent record of the personalities and circumstances as they pass through difficult and happy times mixing horror and humour in equal measure. Kohli's grip on your emotions will leave you gasping for breath.

Across the Frozen Himalaya

By Harish Kohli

Foreword by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Bt OBE

Across the Frozen Himalaya is a must read for those who wish to travel to the Himalaya for pleasure or adventure and for those armchair travellers who fanaticise travelling into the wild. This book of the Himalayan traverse on skis is well written and utterly humorous at the same time it keeps the grip on your emotions.

The adventure and the style are both unique. Unlike other mountaineering books, which are into a single valley to climb a single mountain, this is over a large front of the range. The prospectives are enlarged and one begins to sense the enormity of the range that is difficult to grasp by reading a single book on the Himalaya. Across the frozen Himalaya is not about climbing, it is about a journey into the heart of the Himalaya.

Travelling on skis, carrying over 35 kg of weight is not so easy task. They face blizzards up to eighty kilometer an hour, the temperature plummets to minus 48 degrees Celsius, the going is tough and yet the tough acquire a sense of humour. This is an amazing story that will move you off your feet. In every century there are a handful of explorers who help the human race to evolve a new adventure. Harish Kohli is one of them.

In the trans-Indus regions of Kashmir, sterile, rugged, cold and crowned with gigantic ice-clad peaks, there is a slippery track reaching northward into the depression of Chinese Turkistan which for all time has been a recognised route connecting India with High Asia. It is called the Karakoram route. Mile upon mile a white thread of road stretches across the stone-strewn plains, bordered by the bones of the innumerable victims to the long fatigue of a burdensome and ill-fed existence - the ghastly debris of former caravans. It is perhaps the ugliest track to call a trade route in the whole wide world. Not a tree, not a shrub, exists, not even the cold, dead beauty which a snow-sheet imparts to highland scenery.

This was the point from where eight men started in mid-winter to traverse the Himalyas on skis. Daring and courageous they went on. Across the plains blew blinding squalls of snow, and at night, there were several degrees of frost. Crossing the Depsang Plains, they ascended a shallow valley covered with the skeletons of ponies, which every traveller who passes through it instinctively names the Valley of the Shadow of Death, to the Karakoram pass.

That was just the beginning ... as the journey goes on it becomes more thrilling and exciting. They move on to cover twenty mountain passes including three that were hitherto unknown. A symbol of the unconquerable spirit of man. The breathtaking view of the Himalayas captured through the lenses, merged with the engrossing text is a complete montage of the Himalayan experience. The book is a saga of determination, sustained endurance and ever-exploring human spirit.

INDIAN ADVENTURE

Maybe not a psycho exactly, but you'd have to be a bit of a nutter to want to ski the length of the Himalaya in the dead of winter. And always to seek out the highest possible route, so as to ensure that the challenge is hellishly difficult. And to press on regardless when one of your team gets such severe frostbite on the first day out that he ends up losing seven of his fingers.

These adventurers aren't like the rest of us. They think they can do anything. They don't live by our rules - any rules, in some cases. They never say no to anything. They enjoy putting their bodies through torture and their minds into numbed hibernation. But the agonies and antics of nutters like them make a pretty good story.

Across the Frozen Himalaya is the account by Harish Kohli, now retired from the Indian Army (did he fall or was he pushed?), of the ski expedition he led across the Himalaya from west to east. It had never been done before. It hasn't been done since (gosh, really, why ever not?). The book is good - funny in parts, philosophical in others, full of adventures and accidents and plain hard slog. Read it: you'll learn something (if only that it's better to be a computer engineer like you than an explorer like him) and for entertainment it beats football, road rage and hunting with hounds. The photos are terrific.

At first I thought it would be just another adventure story; of climbing and skiing, a diary of events. But the moment I finished the first chapter, it was like getting caught unknowingly in a battlefield. Kohli's style of writing slowly holds a grip on you and takes you along. His thoughts heated like the wind begin to rise and end with a message; if adhered can change your life.

Be careful, Kohli talks about life through adventure; an incredible mix. Eastern philosophy and western adventure - surprisingly is his secret of success. He communes with nature, rises and proceeds to face it on its own terms. Undertaking an adventure for him is understanding life. 'Adventure for me' he says, is an extension of my inner self, an expression of my sensuality. In the benevolent presence of nature, I shed everyday ambitions and obligations and enter a form of meditation in which ultimately I may free myself of the endless cycle of cessation and aspire to attain Nirvana.

Kohli's adventures, as they begin their last journey to unknown valleys - unknown passes, makes engrossing reading. As one turns the pages of the book, one can feel the enthusiasm popping out from each of his descriptions.

Harish Kohli's book presents Himalaya, through a different perspective; any adventure is within the reach of those who have the will to do it.

This is a real good adventure for all those who love skiing and Himalayas. Worth your money with plenty of information and philosophycal thoughts that will amaze you. A mix of Deepak Chopra and Arundhati Roy. Try it, you wont regret it.

For most of us a high adventure in the Himalaya means going to the Everest Base Camp or taking the Annapurna circuit. Those who prefer to climb, be it Makalu, K2, Nanga Parbat or Everest have the same story to tell. A big mountain? ... a big deal ... maybe! But how many books can you possibly read on the same mountain? Now there is something new for a change.

Across the frozen Himalaya is a story of eight men who chose to traverse not a peak or a valley but challenged the Himalaya itself. They travelled on skis, in winters, the coldest in the last two decades, across regions rarely visited by adventurers and for the first time give a glimpse of the Himalaya that is unknown to the western world.

Across the frozen Himalaya opens new doors to a new adventure in the Himalaya that can be as dangerous as climbing Everest and as entertaining as visiting Antarctica. Kohli provides detail knowledge of the region supported by maps and pictures. It is an interesting book with useful information for future explorers, suspense for those looking for a story and humour for light readers. Across the frozen Himalaya is a surprise adventure story written in an unpretentious style.

This will surprise you. How on earth can you walk on the spine of the Himalaya? Well, may be you can but can you ski across the top in the winter? Harish Kohli and his team of seven members did just that. 'across the frozen himalaya' is not about self esteem or personal glory, it is simply about a ski adventure - the book reads like a fiction and before you realise you are part of the plot itself. You are taking an inspirational journey through the Himalayas from which the Indian sages had acquired strength and knowledge.

Like the 'Seven Spiritual Laws of Success' the # 1 best seller by Deepak Chopra there are messages - told almost quietly - that we need to learn from nature. As the cold wind whips your cheek so will the history of the place come alive in front of your eyes. Stage by stage as the team moves forward, Kohli keeps you occupied with interesting episodes that will bind you to the event, keep you entertained and exhaust you with bone-chilling drama.

A record of triumph and near-tragedy is told with understatement, charity and good humour. Un-assuming and surprising, it is a story of a painful journey in wonderland!