Mountains are sacred and a trip to the vast expanse of Himalayas is like a pilgrimage for me, regularly required to see for the nourishment of soul. This August once again I went for an trip to Himalayas, this time in Spiti Valley, my first time there, with OutOnOdyssey. I started the summit climb for Kanamo Peak on the morning of 1st September, 2026 . I was barely able to summit the peak and was on summit for just 5 minutes before vomiting and needing to descend. This is a retrospective and introspection of the the day before, during the summit and what I felt after. I was supposed to do Parang-la but because of a mishap had to pivot to Kanamo Peak which share the same starting point Kibber.

The trek starts from Kibber, a remote, high-altitude village sitting at 4,270 meters (14,200 feet) in the Spiti Valley of Himachal Pradesh known for spotting Snow Leopards. 5 of us started as a team with 3 of us trekkers. one trek lead and one guide. It was a backpacking trip so we all carried our shared food, tents, ration, sleeping bags and mats in our backpacks.

Day 1

We started at around 10 in the morning, trekking through vast expanses of harsh rocky terrain and moorland with barren mountains lining up the horizon. I am partial to snowy mountains and green trails but even then the views here were so vast and imposing and awe inspiring. In between we stopped for some photos and some silly videos before reaching and resting at a beautiful lake. At the lake our guide told us the basecamp is just 50mtr up(no greater lie has ever been told!!!). After another hour of trekking, around 2:30pm we reached a small stream of water and pitched our tents near that. We would leave for the summit the same night but before that we had to finish making the lunch and dinner. I decided not to sleep before having the dinner so that we might get a good continuous sleep after dinner before the summit push.

We had some puliyogare(spiced rice) for the lunch which took a little bit more time than expected to make. We finished lunch at around 4pm. After that we had a couple more hours before which we had to make dinner and prepare for sleep. The four of us (excluding the guide) watched Broad Peak during the break(well, half of it). After the dinner we went for sleep and that's how the day ended(or I wish it did like this).

The summit push

The alarm was at 1:30am for everyone to wake up, get ready and prepare the early morning breakfast and some packed food for the trail. I tried and tried(maybe too hard) but such was my luck that I could not get any sleep till 1am, just half an hour before we were supposed to leave. It was cold at that time and one amazing thing our trek lead did was to take the onus of preparing food upon himself so we had a little bit of time to get ready and freshen up. The food was ready by 3, both to eat there and to carry on as packed lunch. We had some upma before leaving and carried just the water bottles and the packed tiffin and got ready to leave.

We started from our campsite at 3:35am and I was quite groggy for the lack of sleep. The initial part of the ascent was mellow, it was just 2 days past full moon and the path was so well lit by moonlight that we turned off the headlamps after a while though I was too sleep deprived to notice much of the trail. We went around the base of a small mountain and there after about an hour into our journey, we saw what appeared to be a steep ascent in front of us, a small mountain that we had to climb, and our guide told us that it's called "Step One".

This was to be a precursor to the summit climb, a smaller hump but difficult nonetheless. We took a small break before going further and I tried and failed to take a small nap. The ascent was steep and gruelling and the path was all loose scree making each step harder to take. Slowly, zigzagging through the trail to ease up the ascent, we made our way through to the top of Step One. In between I was having a lot of microsleeps till half way through step one till the sun came through, post which I was able to stay awake at least.

At around 8 am we reached the top of Step One at ~5485mtr(18000ft) and we decided to rest before the final push. There everyone ate packed oats that we were carrying in our tiffins except me (big mistake). I decided to take a small nap instead. We could see the final ascent from here, it was steep and daunting, and one of the trekkers at this point decided to not push further for the altitude already was overwhelming and the remaining portion looked too sharp. Our trek lead and the trekker decided to stay there for a while before heading back down and only three of us were left now.

Only three of us were left now, me, another trekker(let's call him Mr B) and our guide. The remaining way up was steep, much more than what we'd just been through. We continued after sitting around 20-25minutes.

Around 300mtr(~990ft) from the summit, I got much slower and much more tired. I was taking 20 steps and then stopping for breath at this time. Mr. B and our guide were encouraging me all along. I knew this push is probably going to take it all I had. By the time it was 150mtr to the peak, I had let Mr. B pass me to go up to the peak. I did not want to stall him as well because of me and he was in a much better shape.

I was losing patience at this moment and started being the annoying trekker that I dislike in others. I was asking the guide again and again every few minutes how much more to go. I am not proud of that and I dislike that part of me. I need to work a lot more at myself to fix this irritating trait, being impatient during hard times is not someone I aspire to be.

He was at the summit for 15 minutes when I was still ~100mtr behind. We were told to not stay more than 15-20 minutes at the peak and I had that in my mind as well. Then I decided to make the final push in one go so that Mr. B can also feel free to descent after that since the guide was with me. This was a mistake, I should not have pushed at another's pace even if it means I have to come back just shy of the summit.

I reached the summit at around 11:20am and just sat down beneath the flags. I was exhausted, having a headache and just could not get up for a few minutes. There was a hanging glacier behind the peak and after a few minutes I got up to see that and to get some photos clicked at the summit. After having a couple of photos of mine taken by Mr. B, in a matter of seconds, I vomited 4 times and then sat down again (without seeing the glacier). My head was hurting, I got scared at that point of AMS and the others agreed as well that we should just descent now. After a few minutes I got up and we started the descent. That was my entire time at summit, totaling not more than 5 minutes.

During the descent my body was fatigued, my legs were shaking. I was on auto-pilot just following the guys not thinking too much. I am generally good at descent so I managed to get down on my own though with a lot of fatigue. Going down was much faster owing to the fact that we didn't have to zigzag anymore and we just took the steep way down. At the top of Step One we sat down for a break. I took a nap for five minutes and when I got up I felt like I had slept for an hour!!. I was cursing myself as well for pushing too hard at the summit. Even though I had made it, it was in my mind that maybe I should have gone down earlier, maybe something more could have happened.

By around 2:30ish pm, after descending for 3 hours, we reached the basecamp. The team asked me to eat something but I just wanted to get some sleep instead and went straight to my tent. After sleeping for 4 hours, I got up, felt good and refreshed like nothing had happened. I had made it to the summit!!. Then we had the dinner as a team and made some popcorn as well!! and finished the movie we had started the previous day.

The descent to Kibber the next day was very pleasant. We decided to stop at the lake and just medidate among the mountains and to have our debriefing there as well. We reached Kibber around noon.

Takeaways

I have been introspecting after the trek about the summit day and I am still somewhat unsettled about whether I should have summited or gone down before pushing to the limit. One reason is that last year I trekked to Goechala and I saw a major case of AMS where my tentmate had to be sent down for in emergency for his SPO2 went down sharply reaching as low as 39%. That was a very scary experience and it's still stuck in my head. I barely stayed for 5 minutes at the summit and had given almost all the energy my body had. What if something more had happened? Was it worth risking my health? Is a summit worth doing just to say you did it? High altitude trekking has it's own set of hazards to watch out for and it cannot be taken lightly

But I am also aware that not every summit, not every goal is going to be easy. There will be milestones that will take sheer determination to push through, hard times when you have to go out of your comfort zone to be able to persevere, not just in trekking but in life. That's where most of the learnings happen, thats where you find out a lot more about yourself, thats where the magic happens. This was the first time I was this worn out during the ascent. It was more difficult than I thought it to be but I still pushed through. I got a better sense of the limits of my body considering I was able to descend on my own without falling apart. I was surprised as well how much more my body had in reserve. It definitely is more mental than physical.

I have since talked to some experienced trekkers and close friends to alleviate my doubts and the consensus I am getting is that I should have slowed down much more, taken more breaks on my way up and not push at someone else's pace. Furthermore, I shoud have eaten something, anything before the final push, shouldn't have skipped breakfast. Since the trek was not technical and I just had to walk slowly, it was worth attempting especially that i was able to descend on my own.

At the end, I have a better sense of judgement if similar circumstances show up again, on finding my limit, knowing when to push and when to give up. At this point I am glad that I made it to the summit and I am going to work more on my fitness and my temperament to be better prepared for future treks both physically and mentally.