We went for the Harmukh Glacier trek in Kashmir as a group of 17 people back in October 2021.
I only knew 5 of them.
Everyone else was a stranger at the start. The kind of strangers you make small talk with at first, unsure of how the next few days will go. But on a trek like that, things don’t stay “strangers” for long in the usual sense.
Somewhere between the climbs, the pauses, the shared silence on the trail, people start to feel less unfamiliar. Not because you suddenly know their life stories, but because you’ve seen them tired, seen them push through, seen them exist in the same difficult moments as you.
There were lakes along the way that didn’t feel real, just still water sitting between mountains like it had always been there. And a glimpse of the melted glacier that made you pause longer than you expected to.
You also pick up a lot without anyone teaching you properly. How to manage your pace. How to deal with discomfort. How to keep going when the easiest option is to stop.
But what stayed with me the most wasn’t just the place.
It was the people.
Not in a dramatic “we became lifelong friends” way. More like something quieter than that, but stronger. By the end of it, 14 strangers didn’t really feel like strangers anymore.
What I came back with wasn’t just memories of the trek itself, but unbreakable bonds with people I met along the way, a set of amazing memories I didn’t expect to collect, and a very unexpected but very real newfound respect for roads.
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