The sun had not yet begun to shine on this frozen part of the hill where he rested for a while after arriving at the frozen river in the morning.
I was so exhausted from the cold at 4800 meters of altitude in the Himalayan mountains of India that I didn't have the courage to take care of the human skeletons that lay around me and that were frozen in a lake called Roop Kund.
When I took the hike in 2009, it was thought that the mystery of the "Skeleton Lake" had been solved and that the Roopkand Trail was about to change the direction of the nascent hiking industry in India.
However, more than a decade later, this small lake has not only lost its reputation, but despite the revolutionary advances in science to understand the past, it is still unclear what the true nature of these structures was fosse
In 1942, HK Madhawal, an Indian Forest Department official, found hundreds of human skeletons in and around Roop Kund Lake. He reported this strange discovery.
It is a mysterious lake where 300 to 800 people have reached their tragic end and the frozen Himalayas are home to these human remains. The discovery of this terrifying mountain discovery was announced in the late 1950s, after which interest increased and various investigations were launched, some of which are still ongoing.
All of this has been secondary to most of the trekking enthusiasts who, like me, have walked with Roopkand over the past decade, and especially those who have their own unique landscapes, diverse landscapes and challenging routes.
It takes about a week to complete this over 50km track, which is five days from the populated areas of the state of Uttarakhand. Upon arrival there are some Himalayan villages which are nothing more than groups of traditional houses.
Passing through oak woods covered in moss and unrealistic fog, the trail winds its way through wide mountain pastures laden with wildflowers, known locally as bagials.
It is located at an altitude of 3300 meters above the Himalayas. Soon, the high peaks of the Himalayas begin to appear and dominate the horizon for a day or two. The highest point of the hike is Junar Street, which is located at an altitude of 5,000 meters.
It is a knife-like jagged peak with a 360 degree view of the glacial and Himalayan landscapes.
Roop Kund is located 200 meters below this ridge or peak. There is a well-known joke among hikers on the dangerous vertical path to Junar Street that one misstep can further increase the number of bones in the lake.
This simple joke doesn't seem so wrong after the revelations came nearly 80 years after the discovery of Skeleton Lake.
The structures were initially thought to have belonged to Japanese soldiers or Tibetan merchants who had died on the Silk Road from exposure to epidemics or other elements.
A forensic analysis in 2004 revealed that a group of Indian pilgrims, both male and female, assisted by locals in the area in the 9th century, had been severely hit by a flash flood in Roopkand. He drew this conclusion from the scars found on the skulls.
He is believed to have undertaken the 'Nanda Devi Raj Jat Yatra' Hindu Yatra which takes place once every 12 years and this ancient tradition is still alive today. Roop Kund The final destination of this beautiful hike is on the way to Hum Kund.
Veena Musharraf Tripathi, professor of archeology at Deccan College in Pune, was part of the 2004 investigation.
He says the team concluded they were pilgrims because no weapons were found at the scene, indicating that the cause of death was not an attack and that they were not soldiers.
During the investigation, they also found pieces of musical instruments and old folk tales by pilgrims going on about Nanda Devi Raj Jat Yatra. Musharraf Tripathi states that DNA analysis strengthens this hypothesis, as it reveals a group of men and women of different ages.
When I went to Roopkand, I was told a strange reason for the presence of bones. They also told us fictional stories of angry gods and goddesses, arrogant pilgrims and dancers. Every campground, every pond, and many other landmarks along the way were adorned with new folk tales. This combination of extraordinary nature and mythology has turned this unhealthy gaze into passionate curiosity.
So it's no surprise that Roop Kund inadvertently forced the Indian trekking scene to become more and more commercial.
In 2009, a Bangalore-based company launched a low-cost group track in Roopkand that could be booked online.
The information technology boom in India has led to an increase in disposable income for personal use, helping to reach the new accessible slopes of the Indian Himalayas, which at the time were mostly rugged and alpine.
Obviously what was expected happened.
Indian hikers have gathered to maneuver this difficult and extremely satisfying trail. After their success, similar initiatives spread across the country, further popularizing the Himalayan mountain ranges, which later gained even more prominence through social media.
Unfortunately, the downside to this commercialization was the environmental catastrophe in the Himalayas. Today it is forbidden to travel the same bumpy road that brought natives to mountain slopes in a way unprecedented in the past, as the government has banned the setting up of camps in this environmentally critical "shepherd".
In 2010, a year after he went there, the first ancient human genome was compiled, which quickly revolutionized the way we study our past.
As soon as he saw it, the mystery of Roop Kund came to life. Samples of 38 bones from human skeletal remains preserved at the Anthropological Office of India in Calcutta were sent to 16 laboratories around the world for genomic and biomolecular analysis.
The results of a five-year study published in 2019 stunned the world.
New research has revealed that 38 structures belonged to three genetically distinct groups and that they accumulated in the lake at different times over a thousand years.
There was a South Asian group whose bones are estimated to have been collected in various cases between the 7th and 10th centuries.
The research team also found a new group of people from the eastern Mediterranean, who belonged to the island of Crete, and who died in a single accident in the 19th century.
And there was a Southeast Asian pattern dating back to the 19th century.
Surprised by this amazing discovery, the team also did a nutritional analysis to see if it confirmed the DNA analysis results, and it did.
Ayushi Naik of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History says, "In a place like Roop Kund, where the context is eerie and the chances of a full excavation are slim, we can trace the genetics of these individuals through ancient DNA." You can get direct information on the lineage.
The new evidence from Lake Roopkand indicating the presence of non-indigenous ethnic groups was staggering, as there is no historical evidence to identify who and this remote Himalayan region they were. What were they doing in the area?
"There are still questions about the group of people who are more closely related to the inhabitants of the eastern Mediterranean today than why they came to visit Roopkand and whether they were Europeans," says Naik. There were tourists or locals whose ancestors came from the eastern Mediterranean, and there are other places in the area where such human remains are found.
Remembering my journey today, my mind is confused by the complexity of the road's mystery and its enormous legacy that we have walked carelessly.
Despite their mesmerizing beauty in good times, when bad times come, these rugged, high Himalayan mountains can be deadly. Over the past decade, many people have lost their lives trying to reach Roopkand.
But what were the motives of all of them, including this unpredictable group of the eastern Mediterranean that prematurely ended in this lake centuries ago?
I also wonder how they all died. Did some of them fall on the side of the road as we jokingly said? Did some of them die from bad weather as we feared? Have some of them died of respiratory diseases due to the altitude in the mountains, which is very common at this altitude?
It is impossible for several specific groups of people to have died in a flash flood in Roopkand over a period of more than a thousand years. But so far we have the only proof.
Musharraf Tripathi says: "There are just six or seven skulls of the flood." In my opinion, this mystery is still not completely solved. We have more questions than answers. "
This place is very annoying and dangerous. Over the years, trackers have moved structures and many have even brought them home as souvenirs so that they can find the correct answer in the future, despite possible advances in science. I have problems.
The extraordinary knowledge of the 2019 study caused quite a stir, but more importantly, if the analysis of just 38 samples of hundreds of corpses had created such a storm, how many more in this frozen grave? Will there be secrets?
As we scratch our heads in awe and anxiety, so do the structures in the lake. The mystery of the people killed in Roopkund lives on.
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