David MacKinnon 2016-10-20 04:53:55
HIMALAYAN AUTHORITY ISSUES
THE EARLY MORNINGS at Chowrikhang were always clear, and in the first half-hour of light the 19,000-foot headwalls of the Kabru group would shine with a raw gold. By the start of the daily trek to the Rhatong Glacier, the giants of the Sikkim Himalayas would be shrouded in a mist pulled from subalpine meadows 5,000 feet below. But despite the beauty that surrounded us, morale was low by week three of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute’s 28-day Basic Course. The structure of the school suppressed individual personalities, and it was hard to maintain a positive attitude. On day 21, though, there was a new excitement as the clouds climbed through the sky. We were going snowboarding.
The Himalayan Mountaineering Institute is a property of India’s Ministry of Defense and is run with military oversight. The trickle-down result for students is a disciplinary culture that prioritizes order and is vastly different from the freedom I’ve experienced in my mountain-based endeavors. By the end of our field days, we’d have run five or so cycles of falling into rank, moving to a new station, and completing less-than-stimulating exercises, one by one, under strict supervision. Those of us with authority issues were frustrated. Coupled with the debilitative effects of altitude, it was reason enough for two of my closest friends in the course to leave. That was day 18. By then, I’d turned to looking at the month as a mental challenge similar to those I’ve experienced weathering storms while glacier camping in Alaska, but my disposition took a heavy hit when Dim and Maud threw in the towel.
That afternoon I scavenged through the base camp’s scrap material hoping to clear my mind with busy hands. I found a plastic barrel with good contours for the nose of a makeshift snowboard and began making cuts with my pocketknife. Before I’d gotten far, Prabhat Mishra and Arupjyoti Choudhury, friends and fellow students, came over to see what I was doing. Mishra and Arup were energized by the task. They repurposed an old sign to attach to the nose, taking pride in their craftsmanship. “Are you ready for snowboarding?” Mishra asked as he banged flat the last stray nail. He was a performer—my enthusiastic affirmation sent him into a chorus from “Hare Karinge,” complete with the dance that by then I’d learned to join. Arup held himself more like a tradesman. My lack of Bengali didn’t hinder him from communicating the same bluecollar satisfaction we’d celebrate with a beer under other circumstances.
By the time we started trekking on day 21, the snowboard was complete. For many of the students, the concept of snowboarding was completely new, making for a fresh outlier to a monotonous regimen. The first runs came during time stolen from coursework. Tenzing Sherpa, a Darjeeling native, amateur DJ and cook at HMI, picked up the board and started riding it sitting down, like a sled. People stopped what they were doing to watch. I wandered off from my group to join him, showing him how to stand sideways in the flats and daring him to try riding down a small ramp. Tenzing took a couple of bails but got it on his fourth try. It was a heavy line for a first-timer, about 80 vertical feet of first descent on shallow snow over ancient ice, a miniscule bump under colossal peaks decorated with icefall and vocal with the occasional crashing of seracs.
A few of us rode the board over two very short sessions, the second of which required 15 minutes of bargaining with course leaders. Our runs, short plows with no sidecut or bindings, were goofy and unspectacular. But they brought us joy, and shone some light on our last week at HMI. Arup was animated, answering his friends’ questions as the day wrapped up, and the kitchen staff managed to tuck the board away as they gathered up their large teapots. Since then, I’ve seen pictures pop up on Facebook of instructors riding the board. And watching Tenzing step to that ramp, with a loose and natural style, showed me that snowboarding has connected with high places in the Sikkim Himalaya.
©Funny Feelings LLC. View All Articles.
Yodel
https://digital.thesnowboardersjournal.com/articles/yodel