Beyond the Summit: Reflections from Saramati

This is the third in a three-part series about the author’s trek to the summit of Mount Saramati. Read part one here and part two here.

The descent offers lessons on conservation, tourism, community and the enduring spirit of exploration.

At Thanamir village, the last of us reached base camp at 5:30 in the evening. Knowing that the porters would not be reaching well ahead of time to prepare a meal for us, brothers Tikhe and Aching had thoughtfully gone on ahead and prepared Maggi for all of us. I had my Maggi snack while watching the beautiful sunset over the two-roomed tin roofs of the structure that was the base camp.

Someone had gathered stalks of dry grass and scattered them across the wooden floorboards. Something was better than nothing, I thought. The gaping slits in the planks on the floor and walls allowed abundant light and fresh air. In the nights, too, these gaps ushered in piercingly strong gusts of cold wind that penetrated our sleeping bags.

The tin roofs slapped about, threatening to fly off into the dark night, leaving us open to the mercies of the wind, the rain and anything else that decided to fly in. It did not help to remember the guides telling us earlier in the night that spirits and demons used to roam the forests. It was only in recent years that “humans had won the fight”, they said. It was not a comforting thought.

I did not sleep a wink that night. After dinner, we had all slipped into our sleeping bags with our alarms set for 1.30 am. Our dear cousins had sacrificed their thermocol bed rolls for us girls. Bless them. We gratefully spread out our sleeping bags on them.

We had the ambitious plan of leaving base camp at 2 am to summit in time to watch the sunrise at 5.30 am. When our alarms rang, I confessed to the group that I was unable to start off for the summit just then. I would surely fall sick if I did. Everyone heaved sighs of relief and, informing our guides, who had also woken up, that we would set off at 9 am, we went back to sleep.

The appointments with nature at base camp were uncomfortable. A challenge for me with gouty knees. Just the thought of needing to go made me want to skip my meals and stick to less substantive energy bars, if you know what I mean.

“You can’t skip your meals! You need the energy,” my sisters chided me when I said I’d skip major meals. In the spirit of truly roughing it, the villagers had not made any arrangements for nature calls. Nature literally “called” and we perched ourselves on the thick root of a tree just a few metres away from another tin-roofed shed, which served as a kitchen in the day and sleeping quarters for the porters and guides by night. That was a much warmer bedroom, with the generous fireplace and entire logs smouldering away into the night.

I discussed with our guides and porters that such rampant use of wood for firewood would deplete the resources, especially in and around the base camp, and the area would turn bare in a few years’ time. I suggested that trekkers should be made to pay for the wood they used. Solar lighting and heating solutions could be explored. The village could involved staff to maintain and manage the base camp.

Someone had thoughtfully planted mustard and mint in the spaces near the kitchen and base camp. We harvested some for a delicious dish in our meals. I had skipped the dish at dinner on the first evening. I was not keen to eat produce grown in a space where everyone did their morning toiletries.

I suggested to the guides that the vegetable patch could be shifted to the upper side of the base camp structure. One of the porters was smashing some dried chillies for our dried pork stew.

I took some and sprinkled the seeds and showered a generous spray of water, praying that they would grow and thrive and provide some spicy local chillies to future trekkers. Signs could be put up encouraging trekkers to water and care for the garden, I thought aloud.

Having had a couple of hours’ sleep after the post-midnight conference, we eagerly set off at 9.17 am after prayers for the summit. Spirits were high. Everyone was in good health by God’s grace.

The love and camaraderie were warm and encouraging. I thanked God again for the wonderful opportunity and that my dear brothers and sisters were sharing this experience with me. The climb towards the summit got steeper. More beautiful rhododendron forests. We could see less of the pink and red varieties and more of the bigger-trunked trees and the big-petalled yellow variety. The trees of the yellow variety were much bigger and taller, and the flowers bloomed high above our heads.

After we had crossed a rhododendron forest on a particularly steep mountain face, I looked up and saw a patch of blue sky. “The summit is near!” I shouted down to the ones behind me. There were cheers of jubilation behind and ahead of me.

That was a routine we followed every now and then, sending out calls of “woooooo hooooo” or “aaaeeeeeiii yaaaaoooo”. We kept track of all in the group that way. Our guides had repeatedly told us that they appreciated how loving and united our team was and that we constantly looked out for each other. Another team from Impur Bible College was also like that, they told us.

Reaching what I thought was the top of this mountain, I suddenly found myself standing on a rocky ledge just about a foot wide on a cliff face, with a sheer drop down the mountain face to my right. The wind was strong. I swayed in it.

I crouched down and clung on tightly to the shrubs on the mountainside to my left. I shivered to think about negotiating this spot in the dead of night, had we actually set out at 2.30 am to summit and watch the sunrise. Our guide quietly told me that a trekker had fainted at this spot and had to be carried down and treated medically. I decided to wait for my two sisters and cousins who were behind me to caution them to be extra careful and not be tempted to take selfies on this perilously dangerous, windy ledge. I moved on only after everyone was safely through.

After more than five hours of climbing and clearing another rhododendron forest, we saw a sign that said, “You are almost there! 20 minutes to summit”. That was the second sign on the entire trail. The first one had similarly announced 20 minutes to base camp. From our experience, we knew we would take much longer than 20 minutes here too. It took some of us ninety minutes.

In those ninety minutes, every step was a calculated and planned effort. My breaths were deep and rare. I could hear the guides and a couple of the cousins near the summit. Almost an hour after passing the ‘20 minutes to summit’ sign, one of our guides quietly pointed out to me the actual summit. It was still a steep climb, a good kilometre away!

I decided not to share the information with the ones behind me lest they decide to give up. We had all made it this far. We would all summit. My sister Kapangailiu had started with a bad cough, which had deteriorated with the strong winds. She later told us she was feverish while approaching the summit and had to take antibiotics. Her feat is commendable.

The final approach to the summit is via a narrow trail on the right edge of the mountainside. A few feet away to the right of the path were more sheer drops into the valleys below. The peak of Mount Saramati is not a peak in the real sense of the word. It is bare of trees and is a lovely, gentle expanse of flat land sloping down on all sides of the mountain. No rhododendron trees or even the smaller shrub variety.

On the slopes around the summit and on it, dried stalks of varieties of flowers from last year’s blooms made the slopes golden brown. New shoots were now poking up through the dried leaves and incredibly rich topsoil. We were told that these would be in full bloom in the months of June and July. How I wished I could come back again.

On 22.04.2026, the first few members of our group summited at around 2.20 pm and the last of us at 3.05 pm. Saramati Peak is the culmination of the Saramati range, which demarcates India and Myanmar. On the tableland of the peak stands a concrete post that states in Hindi and English: “Bharat-India BP 138 2012-13.”

We guessed BP stood for ‘border pillar’ or ‘border post’. Our guide drew our gaze to another mountain top in the far distance to the right on the same range, informing us that BP 137 stands there.

On the summit, we shouted jubilantly and took innumerable photographs and videos. I had requested in advance and sounded the group out that we all sing the hymn “How Great Thou Art” on the summit.

I had shared the lyrics of the song in the WhatsApp group. We all sat down and sang our hearts out in thankfulness to God, and followed it with an earnest mass prayer. What a beautiful and blessed summiting that was!

Camping on the summit is advisable only if you have a sufficient supply of necessary provisions, especially drinking water. There is no source of drinking water on the summit. However, while approaching the summit, we did see some streams with tiny pools of water. We bottled some and carried them home for family members. In summer and the monsoons, I imagined the streams would be good sources of water. Of the purest and cleanest kind.

I have seen YouTube videos of some trekkers camping on the summit.

The nights would be incredibly cold, with strong winds and no protective barrier except perhaps if you pitch your tent against a rock (there are quite a few big boulders atop). On our way to base camp, we met four trekkers who had summited from base camp in time to see the sunrise. Unfortunately, cloudy conditions deprived them of that privilege.

They reported it was incredibly cold and that within minutes of summiting, their heads were covered with whitish sleet. We had been advised by our guides to carry hot water, tea or coffee in thermoflasks.

The weather, especially on the summit, being totally unpredictable, hot beverages on the summit would keep us warm.

The sun was starting to go down. After spending about forty minutes or so there, we started the walk back down to base camp. The guides led. The setting sun and the beautiful horizon made me stop several more times for photographs. The beauty simply cannot be captured, no matter how good the technology in our devices is.

As we approached the perilous point where a trekker had fainted, it was 6 pm. Darkness swiftly fell.

The tin roof of base camp was visible from that point. We were to finish our climb only an hour and a half later. I cannot decide which was the hardest part of the expedition for me. Whether it was the last hour approaching the summit, so near yet still so far, or the last hour of the trek back down to base camp, groping and slithering in the dark, trying my best to protect my knees and back as much as possible with each step.

The porters at base camp had been anxiously awaiting news of our return. Two of them came to meet us with bottles of water and torchlights. God bless them.

It was only when darkness fell that we realised that, in our eagerness to set off in daylight for the summit, we had forgotten to carry torchlights. Do make sure you pack your battery packs and torchlights. Night trekking is not recommended for safety reasons. There may be some who would love the adventure though. Head lamps are ideal since they enable one to be hands-free to hold onto things around while moving.

We reached base camp at around 7.30 pm. A generous bonfire was roaring. Sadly, it was fuelled by a huge dead tree trunk.

We gingerly sat down on boulders and logs around the fire. Our guide’s daughter (who was one of the four porters) gently massaged her father’s and the girls’ legs. “It’s hard as rock,” Hangstela Tsonger sympathetically said and gave out a hearty laugh. Her spontaneously loud and frequent laughter had kept everyone at base camp amused.

We had expected a dinner of chicken.

Chicken stew, Naga style, is my favourite comfort food. Country chicken stew cooked with only a bit of local ginger, salt, garlic, roasted green chillies and tomatoes.

I had requested one of our guides to convey a request down to the base camp for a non-vegetarian dinner with any locally available meat or fish purchased from the village. A porter could bring it to base camp. We would relish the protein after our return from the summit.

He reported back to me, saying they could not get chicken. When I expressed surprise that in the entire village they could not source a few chickens, our guide, ever humble, apologised profusely, saying he was embarrassed about the poverty of his village.

I chided myself and quickly told him there was absolutely no need for him to apologise. I, however, used that opportunity to share my thoughts that the villagers could rear pigs, chickens and fish, grow vegetables all year round and supply them to tourists and trekkers. The water from the mountains was the purest and could even be bottled and sold!

He considered it but also said that it would not be right to sell water, his context being that it is not right to sell freely available natural resources. That was the level of humanity, generosity and goodness they had.

We still relished our dinner of steamed rice, tinned fish and some sausages that we had brought, generous helpings of the fresh mustard leaves from the garden at base camp, and chutney of roasted mashed red chillies with garlic and tomatoes.

That night I had a good sleep. I had mentioned to cousin Gaihianlung that I had felt very cold the first night despite my layers of clothes. He immediately offered me his sleeping bag, saying he had felt hot in it. I politely declined, but he insisted, so I accepted.

I filled up an empty whisky glass bottle (several were lying around the camp) with hot water and happily tucked it in at the bottom of my ‘new’ sleeping bag. Wearing all possible layers of clothing and an extra pair of socks, I snuggled in, wriggling and carefully positioning myself to allow me to stretch during the night.

For extra measure, I spread out my raincoat and threw it over my sleeping bag. I felt hot in the night. I couldn’t decide whether it was the layers in my bedding or my menopausal hot flushes.

The next morning, we left base camp at 9 am with truly grateful hearts and dopamine levels still on a high. We felt truly blessed. We could not thank God enough for the wonderful weather. Not a single drop of rain troubled us.

The clouds had always been positioned over or around us, sometimes shielding us from the hot sun and sometimes clearing up to enable us to breathlessly gaze at Saramati Peak and the endless stretch of mountains and gorges.

“These rugged trails are perfect. Please do not introduce concrete steps or metalled paths on the trail,” I had discussed with the guides and porters around the campfire. People come to experience this raw beauty and would be disappointed to experience otherwise.

A tourist and a guide (considered the most experienced in Thanamir) had summited, leaving Thanamir early in the morning, and came back to the village the same day! Must be aliens, we joked.

The summit behind us now, the trek down from base camp to the village of Thanamir allowed us to enjoy more of the beauty and flora along the trail. We exchanged our knowledge of herbs, plants, trees, fruits and flowers, and their medicinal or nutritional value.

Thuviki was sufficiently impressed with my knowledge of these, too.

The trek down was as challenging and beautiful as the one up. Muscles and joints were on reserve strength. Chocolates and energy bars had run out. I found myself getting tired frequently. We rationed sips of water towards the end.

Having successfully summited Mount Saramati, I am mentally encouraged. I also feel better physically. I proved to myself yet again that I can, and ought to keep pushing my limits, though with extreme care and caution. I am now ready for greater heights. Dear explorer, please visit Thanamir and Saramati. I promised them you would visit.

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