Mountains High, Signal Low: Sikkim

The Mountain sat upon the Plain

In his tremendous Chair —

His observation omnifold,

His inquest, everywhere —

Emily Dickinson (1830-86)

We have travelled to Sikkim, to hike the Goechala circuit which will take us just shy of 5,000m up in the Himalayas. A world away from reality, it is one of the most beautiful journeys you could hope to do in your life. 

Sikkim was an independent kingdom until 1975, following the defeat of monarch Palden Thondup Namgyallost in the 1973 election making it India’s 22nd state and also India’s youngest and smallest. Namgyallost had spent 20 years of rule trying to strengthen Sikkimese national identity, abolish poverty and eventually have the state join the United Nations. Something between a domestic coup and Indian intervention led to his demise but his legacy in defeat was to preserve the identities and cultures of those who live and have lived in Sikkim.

So even today Sikkim still retains autonomy over all domestic matters with defence and external matters managed by India. This is important as Sikkim remains vulnerable as the Chinese continue to tease their ancestral claim to the land. Tensions on the Chinese border regularly flare but with a ceasefire currently in place weapons of choice are cricket bats and fists. 

We begin out of Yuksom, 1,740m high and the gateway to Khangchendzonga National Park but also the ancient capital of Sikkim. Surrounded by the Himalayas the town is a place of pilgrimage not just for hikers but Buddhists, eager to visit the meeting place of the three Buddhist Llamas who brought the religion to this part of the world. It was not by chance that the meeting place was here in the bellybutton of the Himalayas. Sikkimese Buddhists (30% of the population) believe that the mountains are there to protect them, because physically and spiritually they do. This faith hugs the town like a blanket and accompanies you through the mountains, right to the very top.

Kabru South (7,412m) beckons us into Khangchendzonga National Park. It’s the only peak visible from Yuksom but by sunset there will be a gaggle of the world's highest mountains to admire. You will wish you were a naturalist as butterflies waft around and yellow billed blue magpies perch precariously on trees. As we rise the flora and fauna changes and with it the promise of a different species of bird, mammal and flower. Amongst the bamboo at 2,000m we seek red pandas and in the high altitude plains above 3,000m we watch flocks of blue sheep sweep the mountainside. In the snow of 4,000m the incredibly lucky might see a snow leopard.

With the changing wildlife comes the changing sound of wilderness; at first thumpingly loud but later overwhelmingly quiet. Unruly nature makes up the instruments of the orchestra, Rathong (6,628m) glacier fuelling the river and waterfalls as they thunder past you on your first and final day. Lower down, where the forest is thick, the sky is noisy with male cicadas piercing your ears with their mating call, like an electrical whirr that never stops, at least until a female finds him. Higher in the hills, the cold of night freezes rivers and streams so that silence descends with nightfall. It is the creaking of melting water that first breaks the peace at sunrise. Surrounding you always is the conductor of all this chaos and calm - the Himalayas.

There are of course also the accompanying sounds of human life, harmonious with nature. At Tshoka, morning prayer sounds the alarm from a small monastery that overlooks the camp and Holy Lake. On the trail, the heavy breathing of ponies and yaks echo down the path as they get closer. Come evening, this may be replaced with the whooping of your team playing cards from the cooking tent. Higher, expect to hear your breath getting heavier as the oxygen levels get lower. Our favourite sound of them all is the cry of “Chengay!” from our mountain guide Pemtuk, beckoning us back into our boots, up onto our feet and leading us onwards through the mountain. Pemtuk has a smile as wide as his face, can’t be taller than 5 ft 2 inches but didn’t break a sweat all week, his legs moving two steps for every one of ours.

Our team was fourteen strong -   four horses, Emily, Eliza and I, two porters, one horseman, one foal in training, a stray dog, Pemtuk our local mountain guide and Chops. 

Chops is the youngest son of a Buddhist monk and our lead guide. As we go he is generous with his faith, eager to educate and opportunistic to share. At breakfast he hums prayers under his breath for our safe passage through the mountains as we inhale bowls of porridge. He breathes a sigh of relief at a particular Holy Lake, where the water is rippling in the wind. “The Lake is singing to us” he says, “this means we have good intentions, we are good souls”. 

On our third morning Chops rouses us at 4am to head up Dzongri Top to watch the sunrise over fourteen snow covered peaks of the Himalayas. As the sun rises over Khangchendzonga, the third highest mountain in the world, he encourages us to pray to the summits. First palms to the sky, then palms to chin and finally palms to heart. In the distance each mountain peak catches the sun in turn of height, highest to lowest glowing pink like someone is turning the lights on manually from summit to summit. The moment is humbling and moving, it feels as if the whole universe has paused to watch.  

Come the final nights we are above the clouds, well advanced on our journey to the rooftop of the world. By now, the peaks feel so close we muse if we could summit them. The clouds below us are soft and pillowy, a blanket between us and reality. They clear in the cold of the evenings, giving the moon and the stars their chance to shine. Shine they do, thousands of them, too many to confidently point out Orion's Belt. The Milky Way splits the sky and the mountains glow brilliant dentist approved white. 

It is this light that guides us the final stretch, to Khangchendzonga Base Camp. The walk is tough, beginning at 4am in order to be there for sunrise. The oxygen thins and the temperature drops with every metre climbed. Clad in every layer we’ve packed we ascend with prayer flags on our back and hot water bottles on our fronts, Chops’ tuneful prayer accompanying the silence. At the top, a web of prayer flags highlights those who have made it here before us. Each colour of the flags represents peace, compassion, strength and wisdom and the wind blows these mantras out to the world below and the mountains above.

As we head back down the mountain we return to Yuksom village life where the local election campaigns have started. Posters adorn the sides of wooden stalls and lamp posts asking you to ‘Vote for Hat’ or ‘Vote for Torch’. Symbols rather than words are used throughout India to make voting accessible for everyone - it was one of the few indications we saw that Sikkim was part of the largest democracy in the world. We ask Doma, our homestay host, who she is voting for and she announces she’ll be voting for ‘Scissors’ (her cousin) but she thinks the ‘Hat’’ will win. We give her some foraged mountain herbs from 4,000m up which she tosses into our curry, made entirely with produce grown from her garden. She’s in a rush to the monastery where the woman gather every Tuesday to sing for world peace. 

Spending time in the Himalayas is frequently described as humbling yet spending time in Khangchendzonga National Park needs new vocabulary. It is not just a challenging hike or an escape from reality, it is a voyage. It is a reminder of the power and strength of nature and that whilst we are not here forever, the mountains surely are. The sun will still rise and the seasons will still roll from one into another. In the peace and quiet of a summit, nature is loudest in its impact.