Cold Mountain

Forget patrolling the border and manning forward posts; everyday tasks8212;taking off your jacket, unlacing boots and rolling out the sleeping bag after a day of walking8212;leave one exhausted.

Coming down after eight days on the glacier and trekking to heights of over 15,000 ft, civilian members of the expedition feel disoriented, tired and show traces of memory loss. Soldiers of the Indian Army stay at forward posts located at heights of over 18,000 ft along the glacier for at least three months at a stretch. The glacier takes its toll. Two soldiers and a porter died of extreme weather in October even before the cold set in while six others had to be airlifted. The casualty rate has come down drastically since guns stopped booming along the Line of Control LoC after the 2003 ceasefire agreement, but the glacier remains unforgiving.

A torn jacket, a few minutes of exposure to the bone-chilling wind or a splash into the streams that crisscross the glacier can bring out the biggest enemy of soldiers on Siachen8212;High Altitude Pulmonary Oedema8212;a fatal condition of mountain sickness that is the main cause of casualties at extreme altitudes. Every soldier who moves up from the Siachen base camp undergoes a thorough medical checkup. Even a tooth cavity can be excruciatingly painful and disabling when temperatures dip below -50 degree Celsius.

8220;The cold is a never-ending enemy on the glacier and when something goes wrong, the only way out is evacuation by a helicopter. If the weather is bad and the chopper cannot land for several days in a row, things turn ugly,8221; says a doctor who recently returned from a three-month tenure with his unit along the Saltoro Ridge.

To aviators who fly the tiny Cheetah helicopter to drop supplies and pick up casualties from impossible heights, the burden of responsibility is evident. The sight of the sun glinting off the rotors of an approaching Cheetah at a forward post after days of solitude and heavy snow sometimes reduces battle-hardy soldiers to tears. Aviators, who drop kerosene drums to forward posts or land a few metres away from the LoC to drop off medicines, live life on the edge. The glacier has the three highest helipads in the world8212;Amar, Sonam and Chaman8212;all located at over 20,000 feet and just metres away from valleys that look into Pakistan. A French test team from the company that designed the Cheetah, old timers recall, was amazed that the chopper managed to reach such altitudes.

Aviators call Siachen Glacier the 8216;mecca of helicopter pilots8217;. 8220;Only the best fly on the glacier. The glacier is by far the toughest assignment for a helicopter pilot,8221; says Lt Col Ajay Gogna, who flies the Cheetah for the Army8217;s 8216;Siachen Saviours8217; squadron from the base camp.

When the army initially moved in here, it tasked soldiers with all roles. Given the sensitive nature of the conflict, it didn8217;t employ any local help. After casualties started piling up, authorities realised the advantages of recruiting acclimatised porters from the Nubra valley to carry out tasks like pitching tents, preparing food, heating water and hauling up crucial supplies. Numbers are always a secret on the glacier but most army posts now have a significant number of porters who carry out everyday jobs and carry loads of over 20 kg. The payment given by the army, up to Rs 15,000 per month for staying on the glacier, is a big attraction for locals from Nubra.

For Utup Sampil, a 37-year-old porter who lives in Khardung village8212;just below the highest motorable pass in the world8212;the chance to work on Siachen for three months is worth the year-long wait for his turn at the army8217;s employment office. As a farmer, he earns Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 a month in his village, where he grows wheat, tomatoes and potatoes. A three-month stint on the glacier leaves him with more money than he can earn off the land in a year. Porters from as far as Nepal have started coming in to haul loads up the glacier. Often, they earn more than the soldiers.

Porters may have made life for soldiers on the glacier easy but living on ice is extremely challenging. Soldiers posted at Bana8212;the highest outpost on the border at 22,000 ft8212;have to brave temperatures as low as -65 degree Celsius. Supplies to Bana have to be hauled up a sheer ice wall with the help of snow scooters and the only way a casualty can be evicted is through a human chain.

Everyday tasks like bathing and shaving become luxuries on the glacier. Soldiers are advised not to bathe during the three-month tenure on Siachen. Most follow it. Officers, however, get kerosene heaters in tents, hot food at the bedside and attached toilets. While soldiers haul their equipment up the glacier on the way to posts, officers hand over their personal belongings to porters for the uphill journey.

With modern technology and new procurements by the army, life is becoming somewhat easier. The old clothes have given way to new down feather jackets imported from Austria; heated Arctic tents are used; snow scooters have made traveling on ice faster and soldiers are given special mountaineering equipment.

But what has really made a huge difference is the Direct-to-Home DTH television. Small satellite receiver dishes have popped up all along the glacier and troops posted days away from habitation can catch up with life elsewhere on their television sets. All units posted on the glacier have their own set of televisions powered by generators and DTH connections.

While local residents appreciate the employment opportunities the army8217;s presence at Siachen has created, they resent it for 8220;polluting8221; the Siachen glacier, which is the source of the Nubra River, the lifeline of people of the valley. More than two decades of moving soldiers up and down the coldest battlefield has finally taken its toll on the glacier.

The alarming rate at which Siachen is shrinking has left even army officers bewildered. In the past two decades, the 72-km glacier has shrunk by over 400 mt. The army has been forced to relocate its ice craft school, set at the snout of the glacier, more than three times a year due to the melting ice walls at the Siachen base.

Thousands of tonnes of waste material8212;kerosene barrels, rusting snow motors, generators, human waste, discarded parachutes, old tents, clothing, obsolete weapons, food packets, plastic bags, packaging material, metal rods8212;have been multiplying on the glacier over the years. The amount of metal and the extensive use of kerosene for heating on the glacier are being blamed for the alarming rate at which it is melting. Most camps on the glacier are surrounded by mountains of waste and nothing is ever taken down to the base camp.

While the Indian Mountaineering Federation IMF has volunteered to hire porters and bring down waste from the glacier, the proposal is in its early stages and is likely to take time before coming into play. Environmentalists fear the damage to Siachen could be permanent and opening the battlefield to tourists may compound the problem. The army, on the other hand, is keen to open the area to civilians to reaffirm India8217;s claim on the region. The next step, sources say, is to open the 72-km glacier to foreigners.

However, till India and Pakistan find a permanent solution to the boundary dispute, the army and its stories of exceptional courage are here to stay on the world8217;s highest and coldest battlefield.

The Sunday Express was part of a civilian expedition to the Siachen Glacier organised by the Indian Army