The mountains are not immutable. They are being rewritten in real time.
High in the Uttarakhand Himalayas, where the sacred shrines of Gangotri and Kedarnath are joined by a 5,500-metre pass first crossed by British geologist John Bicknell Auden in 1939, a two-week trek reveals that even the most forbidding landscapes are not beyond the reach of human consequence. Guides who have crossed Auden's Col many times find the terrain unrecognisable year to year—meltwater lakes forming where glaciers once held firm, familiar paths vanishing beneath rockfall and shifting ice. What once seemed immutable is now a living record of the Anthropocene, written in retreating ice and newly born lakes at the roof of the world.
- Experienced guides who have crossed the Khatling Glacier repeatedly now find themselves lost on their own route, as meltwater streams and collapsing moraines erase the terrain they memorised just a season before.
- A newly formed glacial lake—born from a retreating tongue of ice—forces trekkers onto a narrow ledge above water cold enough to kill, a hazard that did not exist in recent memory.
- The weather offers no respite: clear mornings collapse into whiteouts by midday, and the combination of altitude, unstable ground, and erratic conditions turns every decision into a calculated risk.
- Trekkers navigate this transformed landscape with GPS and detailed route notes, yet find that technology cannot compensate for a mountain that is rewriting itself faster than any map can follow.
- Below the wilderness, Kedarnath has erupted into construction and commerce, the contrast between the fragile high mountains and the frenetic development below sharpening the sense of a world under pressure from all sides.
Auden's Col sits at 5,500 metres where the ridges of Gangotri III and Jogin I meet in a saddle that has drawn mountaineers for nearly a century. Named for British geologist John Bicknell Auden, who first crossed it in 1939, the pass links two of Uttarakhand's most sacred shrines across some of the Himalaya's most demanding terrain. The two-week trek remains a serious undertaking, attempted by only small groups each year, threading through forests and meadows before ascending into a world of shattered boulders, glacial torrents, and vast snowfields.
The journey's true test comes after the Col itself. The Khatling Glacier—a ten-kilometre expanse of snow and ice on the far side—was once a demanding but navigable crossing. Now it has become a maze. Guides who have made this journey many times find sections they walked just a year earlier either gone or transformed beyond recognition by rockfall and shifting ice. They reassess constantly, adapting to a landscape that no longer matches their memory. This is not geological time. This is change measured in months and seasons.
Further along, the approach to Mayali Pass—a variation added by Indian explorers in the 1980s—crosses a newly formed meltwater lake left behind by a retreating glacier. Trekkers must edge along a narrow, precarious trail above water too cold to survive. These lakes are the most legible signs of the Anthropocene at altitude: the visible imprint of human-driven change on landscapes that once seemed entirely beyond human reach.
The descent into the Kedarnath valley delivers a jarring contrast. After days of near-total wilderness, the temple town has expanded into a bustling settlement of hotels, shops, and construction. The uncertainty that defined Auden's era—blank spaces on maps, unknown routes—has been replaced by a different kind of uncertainty: the instability of a warming world that renders even familiar ground unrecognisable.
Through all of it, one thing has not changed. Long before dawn, guides, porters, and cooks are already at work—preparing meals, breaking camp, carrying heavy loads across hazardous terrain with quiet professionalism and intimate knowledge of the mountains. To cross Auden's Col today is to be humbled by nature's scale and sobered by its fragility—a landscape that feels both ancient and urgently in motion, writing a new story with every passing season.
The pass sits at 5,500 metres, where the ridges of Gangotri III and Jogin I converge into a saddle that has drawn mountaineers for nearly a century. Auden's Col, named for the British geologist John Bicknell Auden who first spotted it in 1935 and crossed it four years later, connects two of Uttarakhand's most sacred shrines—Gangotri and Kedarnath—across some of the Himalaya's most unforgiving terrain. The trek itself takes two weeks, threading through birch and rhododendron forests, across lush meadows and sweeping moraines, beneath peaks that define the Greater Himalayan range. It remains a serious undertaking, attempted only by small organised groups each year, demanding endurance and a willingness to surrender to the mountains' unpredictable temperament.
The journey begins at Gangotri, following the Rudugaira valley upstream along the Rudra Ganga river. For the first days, the landscape offers relative gentleness—forests and meadows that gradually thin as elevation increases. Then the mountains assert themselves. The terrain transforms into shattered boulders, glacial torrents, and vast amphitheatres of snow and ice. Camp after camp pushes deeper into a world that feels increasingly removed from anything human. By summit day, the reality of altitude becomes inescapable. Before dawn, headlamps flicker across the glacier as climbers move roped together, watching for crevasses, inching up slopes where every step at over 5,000 metres demands something close to prayer. Reaching the Col brings a moment of triumph that dissolves almost immediately. On the other side lies the Khatling glacier—a 10-kilometre expanse of snow and ice that forms the trek's true crux.
This is where the mountains reveal their secret: they are not immutable. What appears from a distance as a straightforward crossing dissolves into a maze of meltwater streams, unstable moraines, and towering icefalls. The descent takes two full days. Experienced guides, men who have crossed this route many times before, find themselves repeatedly flummoxed. Sections they walked across just a year earlier have either vanished, become impassable, or been transformed beyond recognition by rockfall and shifting ice. They reassess the terrain constantly, adapting to a landscape that no longer matches their memory of it. This is not the slow geological time of Auden's era. This is change happening in months and seasons, visible to anyone paying attention.
The weather compounds the disorientation. Rare is the day that passes without rain, sleet, or fresh snow. Mornings dawn clear and bright, only for clouds to gather by midday, swallowing the peaks and reducing visibility to a few metres. The route itself has evolved since Auden's time. After leaving the Khatling glacier, the modern trek climbs toward Mayali Pass at approximately 5,000 metres, a variation opened by Indian explorers in the 1980s. The approach crosses the frozen Masar Tal and the Dudhganga glacier, where a newly formed lake—left behind by a retreating tongue of ice—forces trekkers onto a narrow, precarious trail skirting its edge. One slip means falling into water so cold it offers no mercy. These lakes are the clearest signs of the Anthropocene, the visible imprint of human impacts on landscapes that seemed beyond human reach.
Crossing Mayali Pass brings the transition into the upper Kedarnath valley. From there, the final descent leads toward Kedarnath itself, and the contrast arrives like a shock. After days in near-complete wilderness, the temple town emerges—now expanded into a bustling settlement with hotels, shops, and extensive construction work. The frenetic pace of development below stands in stark opposition to the stark solitude of the high mountains. For Auden and his contemporaries, uncertainty stemmed from the absence of information; route-finding was itself an expedition. Today, GPS devices and detailed route descriptions fill those blank spaces on maps. Yet uncertainty persists, no longer born of ignorance but of instability—the vicissitudes of global warming and erratic weather patterns that render even familiar terrain unrecognisable.
One constant has endured across more than a century of Himalayan travel: the mountain people themselves. Auden relied heavily on local men, praising their skill, endurance, and balance on difficult ice. Modern expeditions depend on them equally. Long before dawn, guides, porters, and cooks are already awake—preparing meals, breaking and setting up camps, ferrying heavy loads across hazardous terrain. Their quiet professionalism, their intimate knowledge of the mountains, and their indefatigable spirit remain the backbone of any exploration. To traverse Auden's Col today is to be humbled by the sheer scale of nature and sobered by its transient reality—a chance to step into a landscape that feels both eternal and urgently fragile, a place where the mountains themselves are writing a new story with every passing season.
Citações Notáveis
For Auden and his contemporaries, uncertainty stemmed from the absence of information. Today, uncertainty arises from the vicissitudes of global warming and erratic weather patterns.— The trek narrative
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
What strikes you most about how the terrain has changed since Auden's time?
It's not the scale of change—it's the speed. Auden had to navigate uncertainty because maps were blank. We have GPS and detailed descriptions, yet the ground beneath us is still shifting. Guides who've walked the same route a dozen times can't recognise it anymore.
The guides seemed genuinely confused by the landscape?
Yes. They'd reassess constantly, finding sections impassable that had been walkable a year prior. That's not normal wear. That's active transformation happening in seasons, not centuries.
You mention a newly formed lake. How recent was that?
Recent enough that it's forcing people to take precarious detours. It's a meltwater lake left by a retreating glacier tongue. These are the clearest signs that something fundamental is shifting in the high mountains.
Does the contrast between the wilderness and Kedarnath's development feel connected to you?
Absolutely. The temple town has expanded into a bustling settlement with hotels and construction, while the glaciers that feed the rivers are retreating. There's a disconnect between what's happening above and what's being built below.
What role do the local guides and porters play in all this?
They're everything. They carry the expedition, yes, but they also carry knowledge—intimate understanding of these mountains that no map or GPS can replace. Their professionalism and endurance are what make any of this possible.
If you had to describe the feeling of being there, what would it be?
Humbled and sobered. The mountains feel both eternal and urgently fragile. You're walking through a landscape that's being rewritten in real time, and you're aware of it with every step.