21 November 2009

A Letter to Younger K


Chavie has tagged me this time and I’m supposed to speak to my own 16 year old self :) So my advice to younger K will be on camping and hiking as usual..

Hi 16 Year old K,

How are things?

I know this is not the easiest age to listen to the advice of older or matured people, but neverthless I wanted to say below few things to you.

Just two months after your sixteenth birthday you will set off for your first major hike in your life. That will be the first of many climbs to Kirigalpoththa. You will camp out at Horton and remember to take two extra pairs of socks and warm blanket. Otherwise you will shiver whole night without any sleep as I did. Ideal would be to take thermal socks and a sleeping bag (but, I know it will be much later that you get those luxuries).

An year or two later you will do a daring hike across Knuckles Region and you will fail miserably if you do not plan it well. Never underestimate the weather in the jungle and 25 km across Knuckles will never be like Colombo to Panadura. Also I’m not asking you to drop your best friends but it is always good to have 6-8 equally fit people if you are doing a very strenuous hike. Never take more than 8 people for your hikes, you will realize why, in your fourth hike to Kirigalpoththa.

Try to get a good haversack that keeps all your belongings tightly packed and always keep two free hands while hiking.

If you want to climb Siripada off season from an off track, study the map at least ten times. Yes, ten times! Otherwise you will spend the night below the mountain, just behind Siripada and spend the whole next day doing circles in the thick rain forest, 'Samanala adaviya’ finding the way out. Moreover you will have to abort the hike and come back to the starting point with blood soaked feet full of leaches.

If you want to climb Saptha Kanya, you have to start from the end of the mountains, never from the middle. Same is applicable to Great Western.

Never camp out in a remote area where there is security threat, without informing the villagers or security personnel. There is a high chance that you might get injured (or even killed), not from the armed ruffians but from your own Army or police.

By the way, take your own camera whenever you go out. I realized now that I have missed many golden opportunities to capture beautiful locations.

I guess this is more than enough for your age and finally I’m posting the scenery from the top of Kirigalpoththa, just to give an impression of what is up there on the top. Forgive me for the bad quality of the picture as it was not taken by a sophisticated digital camera but an old analogue camera when I was 16 years and two months old :)

Keep on Hiking!

Your Buddy,
Older K


Mine will be an open tag :)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh K, That was so sweet ! Such a lovely letter....! : ) ...and so well written...!

Kirigalpoththa said...

Thanks very much, Nat!

rainfield61 said...

Interesting way of writing.Good try.

Amila Salgado said...

Sagely advice, K!
Hope you will write detailed posts about those early hiking experiences. I am keen to read about that Adam's peak trip. That forest is so damn thick, and I do not doubt it one bit.

Enjoyed that ancient picture too. Nice :)

cocco said...

Agree with Nat--this is very sweet! And perfect inspiration/advice for my camping trip across australia which starts next week (and still not done with the last batch of sri lanka images!). I love the analog photo. Beautiful, with it's soft focus and muted colors.

Dee said...

:) cool

George said...

I enjoyed your letter to the young K. He certainly has many exciting adventures in front of him. I'm glad he survived them all and that he took your advice and carried his camera with him.

Janith said...

wow K! That's a brilliant letter! Loved every bit of it! :D btw, you almost got shot? :O please do write some posts about your past hiking trips as well... :)

Kirigalpoththa said...

Rainfield,
Thanks :) Glad you like it!

Dee,
Thanks a lot!

Cocco,
My best wishes for your Australian hiking and camping adventure! The photo is faded as the hard copy has exposed to light for many years :)

Amila,
Yes, I will write about some of my interesting hiking adventures soon. Sadly, I won’t have any pictures to accompany the description. Thanks very much for your comments :)

George,
Yes if I got a second chance I would have taken a camera for some of my adventures :) Thanks a lot!

Chavie,
It is not me but two of my friends who were camping with me met with that life threatening experience a few months back. Thanks for the tag again :)