Up, Up & Away

At 5,000 feet, writer Kira von Eichel is still tethered to her to-do lists. By 7,000 feet, she finds freedom in her breath, the clouds, and the ground beneath her feet.

- Kira von Eichel

IN HINDUISM, the goddess Shakti is the grounding, primordial energy that brings balance to the celestial energy of the god Shiva.

This story of duality is ever present in my mind as I traverse a region of the Indian Himalayas: We walk close to the heavens with our feet navigating terra firma on narrow paths over rocks and roots, beside dizzyingly steep descents. Balancing heaven and earth, at a moment when the world is so fractured and off-kilter, has never felt more urgent, both internally and externally.

I am on a seven-day guided walk in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, south of China and just west of Nepal. I've been to India before. To Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, and the jungle forests of Odisha. I've experienced the whiplash of ornate palaces of pink, red, and beige against the harsh truth of slums erected on landfills. I can conjure the smells of heat, dust, cardamom, spice, goat, temple smoke, and rickshaw exhaust. The gods and goddesses are colorful and noisy in Technicolor and stone.

Here, the silent snow-and-rock-faced mountains are the divine. The scents are crisp and bracing—wild thyme underfoot, Indian cedar, the wet of the forest floor. This is not Dharamshala, home-in-exile of the Dalai Lama, or Rishikesh, pilgrimage site for the ashram and yoga set. This is remote. I am traveling with Shakti Himalaya on a bespoke, immersive journey through the region, traveling by car and day hikes between four village houses Shakti has built into the mountainsides of Kumaon. The 20-year-old company is the brainchild of Jamshyd Sethna and combines private walking itineraries through the most remote regions of the Indian Himalayas with luxurious lodgings and meals and a true commitment to ethical tourism.