Kedarkantha in December, and a dog who knew the route

December, and a mountain that everybody recommends

Kedarkantha is the trek people send you when you say you have never done one.

It is not technical, the trail is well walked, the camps are set up before you get there, and in December there is enough snow to make it feel serious without actually being serious. That is a good combination for a first winter summit, and it is why half of north India seems to be on it at Christmas.

We went anyway, at exactly the time everybody else goes, and it was still worth it.

The group at the startObligatory banner photo

Into the pines

The walk in is through pine forest, and it is the sort of forest that does not really have undergrowth. Just straight trunks going up, brown needles underfoot, and light coming through in stripes.

The camps are clearings in it. Yellow tents in a row, a kitchen tent at the end, and somebody already boiling water by the time you arrive.

At campThe camp, reflected

The camp dog

Every camp on this trail has a dog. Nobody seems to own them, they simply work the route, walking up with one group and down with the next, and they know exactly which tent the food comes out of.

Making friendsHe stayed

This one followed us for most of a day. I have no idea what his name is. He did not need one.

Food at altitude, again

I have written about mountain food before and I will keep doing it, because it keeps being the same small miracle: someone carries the ingredients up, and then hands you a plate.

Paratha and chaiKhichdi, and more chai

Poha, in a bowl the size of your faceWhere it all comes from

Nine in the morning at two and a half thousand metres, holding a hot bowl with both hands, is a genuinely difficult thing to beat.

The sky, which is the actual reason to camp

Here is the part nobody puts on the itinerary.

You come out of the tent at some point in the night because it is cold and you need to, you look up out of habit, and then you stop, because there are more stars than you have ever seen at once and a few of them are moving.

The sky over camp

Camp at duskThe forest after dark

Cities have ruined this for most of us. It takes a night at 8,000 feet to remember what the sky is supposed to look like.

Snow, properly

Higher up the ground goes from brown to patchy to white, and the trail turns into a line of footprints somebody else made an hour ago.

Snow arriving in the forest

The trail

Through the pinesA clearing

Summit morning

You start in the dark. That is the whole trick of a summit day and nobody enjoys it at the time.

Tents at first light

Then the trees stop, the ridge opens out, and the reason for the early start is standing in front of you, going orange.

Up on the ridgeThe view from the top

From the top you can see the Swargarohini group, Bandarpoonch, Kala Nag, and a lot of other snow that I could not name at the time and had to look up afterwards.

The ridge line

Snow going down the other sideFollowing the ridge

And below all of it, cloud, sitting in the valleys like someone poured it in.

Clouds in the valleys

Back down, and Dehradun at Christmas

Down is faster and much harder on the knees, and then suddenly it is over and you are in a car.

Dehradun in the week before Christmas is lit up, and after four days of pine trees and tent canvas it is a lot of colour all at once.

Dehradun

The clock towerNoodles, immediately

The café

Something cold, for a change

That first proper meal after a trek always tastes unreasonable. It is not that the food is better. It is that you have spent four days being cold and now you are not.

If you are thinking about it

• December is busy on this trail. Go anyway, or go in January and take the cold more seriously.
• The summit day starts in the dark and that is not negotiable. The sunrise is the entire point.
• Micro spikes are worth it. The trail is not difficult, it is just slippery.
• Say hello to the dog.