If you are not familiar with the stories of Savitri or Damayanthi from the Mahabharata, the short summary is that these are women who went to extraordinary lengths to save their husbands!

Savitri had to go head to head with the god of death, Yama himself, to get her hubby back.

Fast forward to the present day and you have a slightly different version in the Sundar-Sangeetha story. Nope, no debating the god of death, but rather teasing him by dangling the husband like a carrot and going “hi Yama, come see if you can get him! See, I am almost letting you have him!” . Yama tries a few times and cries “sour grapes” or “sour carrots” and walks away.

Where are all these thoughts coming from? They all have to do with our recent visit to the top of Danothri (our nickname for Mt. Dana in Yosemite National park) after our recent trips to Gangothri and Yamunothri.

While Yamunothri was at 10,800 ft and Gangothri was at 11,200 ft, Mt. Dana is at 13,060 ft! We start the hike at 9500 ft! This group hike was planned much much earlier than July. Based on some advice by Sri. Sundararama Deekshidhar (not referring to myself as a joke.. he is my father’s favorite, who does Katha Kalakshebham and is related to Anantharama Deekshidhar) who recited stories last May at my fathers Subha sweekaram (rememberance), there were to be no risky hiking till my dads anniversary ceremonies were complete. We did climb a few mountains in that one year but did not take “risks”. So this one (with its label as a risky hike) was pushed to be post India trip.

Hotels, Driving logistics, food planning, everything was all set well in advance, and the whole group was looking forward to it. Then I ended up in the hospital. My friends were more worried about me making it back to normal and the hike topic was put aside. Did get discharged on a Monday evening and 11 days later we were supposed to be on our way to Yosemite. The rest of the group was suggesting I drop out or at least come for the drive and walk to the till the trail head and maybe go as far as I can go.

That is where the modern Savitri comes in.. Sangeetha decided that the fastest way for her hubby to get back to “normal” was for him to do all the things he is used to doing or supposed to be doing. Five days after discharge, I am signed up to do a 60 day yoga challenge! On day 7, I am hiking PG&E with the group to see if I can have any chance at hike Mt. Dana. Did PG&E without an issue but it was our backyard. There is no challenge as the terrain is so familiar, it is not high altitude and there is a nice trail. It was decided based on my PG&E effort that I will be joining the summit hike for Mt. Dana. They were all trying to be nice and encouraging. All of them wanted me to not miss out and I could tell.

We drove Friday evening to Mono lake area with a few short restroom breaks (all for me!) and checked into our rooms at the Lodge in Lee Vinning. We had a fantastic dinner watching the late sunset. We were also sitting outside to get used to the altitude and oxygen levels.

The next morning we started hiking from the trailhead at 6:30 AM. A group of 9 (We had a friend join our gang of 8.. even though he didn’t know the rest of the group, he fit right in!). A mile in, one of our group members made a wise decision to go back as it was not easy to breathe. We had come up a ~1000 feet at that point. Everyone looked at me, then San gave me a look, and I kept walking.

Three hours later, we were 1000 ft from the top and again some folks in the group had second thoughts and asked if I want to go down. This time I refused, having made it that far. Just paced myself, pushed through it and made it. Was very happy when I walked up to the top. Gave a short thank you speech (you can see it in the video)

Normally I never use nature for piss breaks but given the recent issue, had to stop a few times to water the bushes. One of my friends even said “let’s go.. you will have company. no need to feel embarrassed!”.

Mt. Dana is a hard hike because there is no trail in most parts. It is just gravel and slippery. There is also ice in places which you cannot really see. On the way down I made it fast. Coming down is somehow easier for me as I can balance well. For the hike we had all packed our own food. I had aaloo sandwiches, two Think bars and two Kind bars which turned out to be more than enough. We came back at 3PM exactly to the parking lot. My legs were shaking and walking in a straight line was tough.

Went back to our room and drank some Emergen-C and that helped immediately. Many of us had a sunstroke like effect when we were at the top. Three of us got severe headaches in just 20 minutes. So we decided to come down right away instead of eating at the summit. There was not much room to sit there at the top anyways! Had a much needed 90 minute nap before we decided to have Chai, followed by an early dinner. Dinner was more home cooked food. The rooms had fridges and microwaves. Dinner tasted great! Thayir sadam with mor-milagai can be amazing after you hike to the summit of Mt. Dana!

San was beaming with pride that I had actually listened to her and made it. I was also happy seeing her so happy. Currently we are having debates (not as serious as the Savitri-Yama debates) on this hike being the starting point for my knee swelling 10 days later, which has made me go back to the hospital. Or is it the fact that I did a few doubles in the Yoga room the following weekend to make up for the missed yoga practice during hikes, or was it walking around all day for two days at the music festival and making the knee worse? Given there is so many “assignable causes”, we have decided to look forward rather than look back and focus on getting the knee fixed ASAP! For the record, it is definitely better now after they drained fluid and gave a steroid shot in the knee, followed by four days of icing and rest.

Truth be told, I was happy that entire weekend hiking, eating, joking around, taking pictures with my favorite people. If anything it lifted my spirits up!

There are tons of photos.. so sharing them in galleries.

This first photo is a collage.. it starts off by San showing me everything I am doing wrong in the approach to the final photo, till she is kind of happy with the end result. Never before has this regular sequence been caught on camera so beautifully. The photographer here is not much different from San. Her hubby runs far away whenever she pulls her camera out. This is par for the course in our hikes for the hubbies.

The views of the landscape are just out of th world throughout the hike. We got to see a few birds, marmots, large spiders. There was absolutely no shade anywhere. The gravel was slippery. We did see a bunch of teenagers hike this with their parents and went “wow”!

A few pano shots..