A Trip to the Mountains

The only relation Shreyas had with mountains so far was to look at them from a distance. Of course, he had seen pictures of mountains in books. So when a college trip was planned for the hills, he was one of the first volunteers.

After reaching the guest house in the city and resting for the day, they started on the trek the next day morning. It was an uphill climb for five hours. They had taken many rests on the way. Most of his friends had started tiring after an hour or so and required frequent rests. Fortunately, Shreyas had not required that much rest as he was in good physical shape.

Whenever his friends sat, Shreyas stopped to admire the beauty of the hills. After climbing for about three hours when he looked down, he could see that they had climbed quite a bit. The view below was enchanting, yet the mountain seemed to continue to challenge them to come up further. It was only by the afternoon that they reached the base camp of the mountain. They were to spend the night there in a small guest house, look at the mountain from close quarters and walk back the next day.

It was freezing cold outside, hence, most of them took shelter in the guest house. They all had many cups of tea. Some of them did venture out to admire the beauty of snowclad mountains which appeared to be at touching distance. Fortunately, there was no snowfall or rain. It was known to them that there was a glacier in the mountains and there were few bears in the mountains. These bears were known to visit glaciers for drinking water early in the morning.

Shreyas floated the idea of visiting the glacier early in the morning. If they were fortunate enough they would be able to see the bears as well. However, there were no takers to the idea. Nobody wanted to get up early in the morning. On top of that, they were afraid of attack by mountain bears.

Shreyas was disappointed but not disheartened. He decided to go alone, provided he could get up early in the morning.

He had kept his mobile in his sleeping bag with the alarm set for 5.00 AM so as not to disturb others. He got up at the first ring of alarm and immediately switched it off.

It was 5.30 by the time he came out of the guest house. he walked for almost one and a half hours before he could escape the glacier. As he stood admiring the beauty of the glacier, he saw a large bear coming towards the water hole in the glacier. He was followed by one large and one small bear. They must be mother and child.

Shreyas hid himself behind a big boulder and watched with fascination as the bear family drank water from the hole. After drinking water, the bear family stood still, looking in his direction. He was scared and wondering if should make a run for it. Ultimately, he decided that running at this point in time may be risky as it may give away his position.

For a while, there was a sort of stalemate. After what appeared to be a long time (while it was only a few minutes), the bear family turned around and disappeared into the mountains. Shreyas heaved a sigh of relief and started climbing down.

It took him less than one hour to be back in the camp. He had run almost all the way and it involved going downhill only.

His friends were all awake and missing him. They were worried that he had embarked on a foolish journey to the glacier and had met with some mishap.

He told them about his experience of visiting the glacier and close encounters with the bear family. They listened to his story with rapt attention. Shreyas was enjoying the attention he was getting.