Trek Together, Stay Together

The Mountains Work Their Mojo On Three Generations Of A Family On Their First Trek Together

- Mitul Sarkar

“Forty is too late to start trekking,” I thought as my knees creaked with every step on the steep decline. We were on a goat track: There was not a soul in sight and we seemed lost. My husband, who hates exertion while on holiday, but had agreed to a trek for my sake, snorted impatiently behind me.

“My knee hurts,” I complained. “Knee caps in your backpack,” he suggested before edging past. I had hoped I wouldn’t need them. My father, 73, didn’t need them. But then, he was a trained mountaineer. My 70-year-old mother, who wasn’t, didn’t need knee caps either. Both were somewhere in front, along with my 13-year-old son.

Having put on the knee caps, I joined my family near a stream. My father was on the other side, cheerfully informing us that he had, at last, found the correct way to Gorkhey, a valley on the border of West Bengal and Sikkim. The rest of us looked with trepidation at the moss-covered log that lay across the stream: the only way to cross it.

LAND OF RHODODENDRONS We had started our trek from the village of Hilley in Sikkim, just outside Barsey Rhododendron Sanctuary. The five of us made it to the hill town of Barsey in a little over two-and-a-half hours. Nestled within the rhododendron sanctuary, which has a variety of Himalayan flora and hosts the elusive red panda, Barsey offers a breathtaking view of Mt. Khangchendzonga. The path through the sanctuary had its ups and downs, but it did not try my spirit, nor my knees.