In 2010, when Bengaluru-based Sandhya Chandrasekharayya tossed the idea of winter trekking to the locals of Sankri village in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district, they were nonplussed. “No one treads this trail off season,” they remarked, pointing to Kedarkantha — a route on which they would graze their sheep and cattle in summer. Sandhya was not the sort to take no for an answer. After all, she had started her trekking organisation, Indiahikes, only a year ago. “The moment I got to know of Kedarkantha, I called out to explorers interested in a four-day winter trek to the 12,500-foot-high peak. Luckily, 18 people joined us, most of them had gone for the Roopkund trek with us that autumn. We gathered at Sankri on Christmas and started the climb the next day,” she shares.
For Sandhya, her virgin climb to Kedarkantha, in one word, would be “surreal”. “The sceneries were unlike anything we had seen. They changed with the altitude. We met snow somewhere in the middle. The next day, we started again at 4am and were probably half a kilometre from the summit when we saw sunrise. The colours were splendid. We slid down while descending and became kids again. I will never forget that experience,” she says.
