•Uttarakhand 3
count here. Cowardice shows quickest. Besides will power,
good physique also has a lot to do with trekking and fortuna-
tely if you are so, your mind becomes gurgling fountain of
ideas. Probably this factor alone led the Gods and Goddesses
to dwell here. Our ancestors were also never tired of visiting
these places by the same urge of discovering the real and ulti-
mate.
On the mountains, you find answer of all problems; in fact,
•each upward step seems to bring you closer to a solution,
gratefully, you keep in moving, and next moment aesthetic ex-
perience takes hold of you. Knowledge seems to break instan-
taneously. This fact is very well illustrated from the life and
deeds of Sankaracharya, Swami Vivekananda, Ravmdranath
Tegore, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Nicholus
Roerick, Udai Shanker and many other known and unknown
luminaries who either craved for this experience visited, or
have lived in this part of the Himalayas which has been des-
cribed by Kalidasa—
In the north lieth
The king of mountains—Himalaya
The stirring rod of the world
The divine king of mountains.
The lure
During my extensive stay in the Uttarakhand, I have obser-
ved that the same mountain is different each day with subtle
changes and each trip a different experience. You drink the
water which never tasted so sweet, and any food digests well.
As the climber's hands reach out, they march in a silent, rhy-
thmic and joint step after having covered tiresome motor
journey. The process continues, at the foot of the hills where
a river must be crossed on a log serving as a bridge. After
some route march, at the end of approach march, where trees
-end and rocks start, ropes bind the climbers who shake hands
before rock climbing commences. A little further lies a sheer
wall which the leader climbs and stands on a ledge, giving
-smiles of encouragement to the co-climbers. A little higher,
.above the ledge, everything becomes intensified—the sun is
fiercier, the rocks dizzying and wind blowing but the views are