On Patalsu and the art of walking on snow

Snow rackets, in my humble opinion, are quite simply the best thing since sliced bread.

Born and raised on a tropical island, I have two left feet when it comes to negotiating icy and snowy terrain.

“Heel, Lin, use your HEEL!!”

I was supposed to push back into the ice with my snow boots to gain some traction whilst going downhill. You might as well have asked me to dance the hula hoop whilst sky jumping, so impossible was the task.

“Believe me, I am trying!” I hollered back, frustrated.

My headlamp chose precisely this moment to give up the ghost; it winked once or twice, and then died. I muttered darkly under my breath.

We crossed a couple of narrow streams in the dark – sunset was over an hour ago – and then it was more icy uphill climbing with a full backpack. Have I already said that I would have preferred to do the hula whilst sky jumping instead?

Not surprisingly, I was the last one to stagger into camp, drawing ragged breaths as though I was on my deathbed. Thankfully, no one noticed. My team mates were jubilant over the view: the slopes of Hanuman Tibba, squarely facing us, towering high above the town of Solang in Himachal Pradesh.

At 2am the next morning, I crawled out of the tent which I was sharing with two others. Our four pitched tents huddled against one another - its occupants all still in deep slumber - seemed tiny against the quiet white blanket of snow, the moonlight casting everything in a strange, pallid, almost blue-ish glow, showcasing the majesty of the mountain range before us. I held my breath for a few moments, willing this scene into memory.

Then I set about waking up my team mates. “Wakey, wakey! Guys, get up. Come, look at this. It’s really beautiful.” The response was less than enthusiastic. Our guide poked his head out, smiled wanly at me, and vanished back into the tent. One guy mumbled, acknowledged my presence; no movement from the others.

It was 3.45am before we finally set off. This is when the magic of snow rackets finally come into play. They are an ancient invention, apparently invented between 4000 to 6000 years ago, most likely in Central Asia. The traditional versions look like tennis rackets with wooden frames whilst the modern ones – the ones we were wearing – are made of synthetic material and come in funky colours, complete with straps and other contraptions so that your boots fit snugly. They work by distributing one’s weight over a larger area so that the wearer’s feet do not sink completely into the snow.

There is an art to walking on snow rackets. You have to lift one foot slightly, slide the inner edges over each other and then depending on the width of the path, place the foot back down ahead of the other. Because there was a fresh layer of snow, we had to break trail – creating a path through the snow, with one designated “trail breaker” taking it in turns to stamp down on the snow to make it more compact for the next user. The guys on my team laughed when it came to my turn. Too light, I hardly made any discernible impact on the trail. One chap, courteously but gleefully, took over.

With snow rackets, going uphill was much easier than it would otherwise have been. Modern snow rackets have bars which can be flipped upwards for ascending. The wearer’s heel can rest on the bar. However, these bars can be finicky little things: on two of ours, the bars kept falling back so that the person behind would have to either bend down or use a snow pole to flip it back up. We made decent progress: 2300 feet/ 700 meters by the time we decided to turn around at 10.20am. Patalsu stands tall at 13,845 feet/ 4220 meters. We did not want to risk returning in the dark across unfamiliar snowy terrain.

The view was panoramic, the beauty of it slightly unreal. Behind us was Hanuman Tibba and its sister peaks, proud and tall, bathed in the pale morning light, rose pink and lemon yellow. To the left, a lush verdant pine-covered valley. Ahead of us lies snow-covered Patalsu. We took photos. Whilst Anuraag and Pierre zipped back to base camp on their skis backcountry style, the rest of us headed back down on foot.

While descending on snow rackets was initially easygoing at first, we found that we had to stop and swap the rackets as it became apparent that some of the locking devices meant to ensure that the heel will rest on a flat surface did not work. I was in excruciating pain mid-journey. With the bar underneath my heel continually flipping upwards, I found that I could no longer effectively maneuver myself and also found my toes jammed against the front of my boots. Several expletives (muttered to self) and a shoe swap later with our guide, I was raring to go.

To avoid putting unnecessary pressure on our toes, we leaned slightly backwards and at the same time, jammed the heel of our snow rackets into the snow. We moved at a steady, rapid pace. Snow poles in my hands, I imagined myself to be in a warm cosy gym somewhere, working on a cross country trainer machine, methodically moving my arms forward and backwards rhythmically with my legs. Like a babushka walking purposefully to the market.

Three hours later, we reached base camp at 1.30pm. The tents and our other team mates preparing lunch on the stoves could not be a more welcoming sight.