Regular Himalayan treks are the one's organized by popular agencies and are quite popular and heard about by many people. It does not include the ones above 6000m or the ones involving tough summiting!
Now that Auden's col trek is done, I have gained certain amount of precious experience about many stuffs, I can begin ranting!.
Well, in few ways Auden's col trek was different than many other Himalayan treks, Let me try to gather few points on how!
1. Few other Himalayan treks I know start at a lower altitude and we end up reaching high altitude. High altitude meaning 8000feet plus above sea level. But here in Auden's col, we started our trek from Gangotri which was itself at 10000 feet above sea level. Meaning you are susceptible to altitude related problems right from day 0.
2. Auden's col involved crossing crevasses and camping on glacier. Its a high risk activity. Anything could have happened. We were plain lucky, Other treks rarely involve crevasse infested zones.
[There might be treks which I am unknown to, in that case apologies]
3. Auden's col involved rapelling from over 500 feet using rope. I have seen people rapelling from 50 feet, 500 feet seems a bit unrealistic, but its true, that too with your luggage, makes it equally challenging. Your's truly did it when a snow storm was blowing, it was like crazy experience, but worth every minute of it. Regular treks do not have this kind of activity I guess!
4. Each regular Himalayan treks, generally has a highest point where we summit, or pass through. It generally involves a day or two and we come back to not so high altitude. For example Goechala trek, the summit day we started at around 14000 feet and climbed to 16500 feet and back to 14000 feet on the same day. Next day we were back to 13000 or even less. But in Auden's col we got to camp around 16500 feet + for 4-5 consecutive days. Since the trek itself starts at 10000+ feet, we are at high altitude from day 1, plus lack of support staff made us camp one day extra at high altitude plus bad weather too set us back and made us camp at 18000feet for another day. So all in all it was 4 days at 16500 feet plus. You can imagine, its one of a kind trek by now!
5. Each Himalayan trek operator has certain treks lined up and call for participants. Its like the operator asking please join this trek, we have everything ready. But in Auden's col, it was reverse the case. There were limited guides and agencies for this trek. Two of our porters abandoned the trek after day 3 due to bad weather and health issues. One fight with the cook or guide could have ended the trek on day 1 itself. Synchronization between guide / team and support staff had to be precise, one wrong move and everyone was absconding from the trek leaving us stranded. Luckily nothing of that sort happened and we completed the trek. Such is the nature of the trek.
Will add more points as I recollect.
Cheers,
